Not long ago, a tank commanders' course in the IDF concluded and Israel National News obtained testimony from several of the course's graduates, religious soldiers who described the ongoing process of gender mixing in the IDF.
"D," a graduate of the tank officers' course and a former Hesder yeshiva student, told Israel National News, "The girls were in a different department but in the same battalion. In practice, though, we had joint training exercises. The junior commanders were aware of the problems imposed upon them and tried to think up creative solutions of all kinds, but we still had absurd situations arising such as half of the battalion, the religious soldiers, being separated from the other half, comprised of the girls and the secular soldiers, which meant that the battalion was fragmented."
D described other upsetting situations that occurred to soldiers who just wanted to contribute to the country's security and found themselves in an impossible bind. "Instead of doing what we were there for, training to be commanders, we were forced to spend large amounts of time just trying to maintain our personal standards. And everyone there - religious and secular alike - agrees that the atmosphere has suffered due to mixing of the genders."
"Y" is another graduate of the tank commanders' course and he too was placed in a battalion in which females served. "That was where they placed me, and the IDF Rabbinate told me nothing whatsoever about my rights as a religious soldier," he described. "There were always situations arising where there didn't seem to be a solution that worked out for everyone, uncomfortable situations for everyone involved.
"There was also joint logistics work and because of the way things are being run these days, the level has really gone down. Instead of an army atmosphere, it's like a summer camp at times. It's not a fitting atmosphere for a yeshiva student, and the truth is that even the secular soldiers admit that things have changed, and not for the better. It's not the army as we knew it. My ambition is to become a tank officer, and I really hope that senior officers will listen to what soldiers are saying on the ground and fix things."
Regardless of religious soldiers' complaints, the IDF is proceeding full steam ahead with integrating female soldiers into more and more units.
The Torat Lehima organization noted that this process has been implemented over the past decade, following a number of reports compiled by the Israel Democracy Institute and others, who stressed that integration of females into more IDF units was to be pursued "even at the expense of recruiting potential religious and haredi soldiers."
"Any intelligent person with a modicum of foresight can see what is happening here, due to Supreme Court appeals and the like, with an agenda being pushed that weakens the IDF, harms the Jewish character of the army, and impedes its fighting capacity. This trend is likely to lead to the fragmentation of the army, to the effective formation of two parallel armies, one religious and one secular. This is absolutely contrary to what was intended when the IDF was created and is contrary to the fighting spirit that is needed in order to triumph over our enemies."
No response has been received from the IDF spokeperson's unit.