Military rabbis are unhappy with the conference convened by Chief IDF Rabbi, Brig. Gen. Rafi Peretz, on Sunday.
"Since when is there exclusion of women in the IDF?", asked the rabbis, on condition of anonymity. "Have you ever heard of women sitting in the back?"
The rabbis said that "other than the navigator who sits behind the fighter pilot" there is nothing resembling "women's exclusion" in the IDF. "So why was there a need for this conference?", they asked rhetorically.
The rabbis were upset at the Chief IDF Rabbi's statement that "the IDF will not be Beit Shemesh" – a reference to actions by certain extremist hareidim that the media has focused upon. "Do you know of a situation in which male soldiers spat on female soldiers? In the IDF, this does not exist."