Rav Yigal Levinstein, head of the pre-military academy in Eli, sharply criticized the IDF’s integration policies following the controversy involving 16 religious soldiers in the Givati Brigade’s Rotem Battalion who objected to traveling in a confined armored vehicle together with a female paramedic.
In an interview on the “Central Edition” program, Rav Levinstein argued that the dispute is far broader than the circumstances surrounding the individual soldiers and is the result of years of IDF policies that have failed to adequately accommodate the religious requirements of observant troops.
“The damage they have done over the past fifteen years, without taking anyone into consideration, keeps creating more and more and more problems,” he said.
Rav Levinstein focused particularly on the IDF’s paramedic system, arguing that the military’s training structure has resulted in a shortage of male paramedics available to combat units. As a result, he said, religious soldiers can find themselves in situations during combat in which no alternative is available.
During the war, Rav Levinstein explained, such circumstances sometimes had to be accepted because of life-and-death considerations. However, he argued that the IDF failed to use the intervening period to develop a viable long-term solution.
“We said that this was inconceivable, but it could not be stopped,” he said.
Rav Levinstein maintained that such disputes should not be allowed to reach the IDF chief rabbi only after a direct conflict has already emerged between operational requirements and Jewish law. Instead, he said, the military should establish systems in advance that allow religious soldiers to carry out their missions without confronting religious dilemmas that could have been prevented.
“And what is even worse, they turn to the chief military rabbi, and they put him in an impossible situation,” Rav Levinstein said.
He also rejected the notion that the military belongs to any particular ideological group or sector.
“The army is not theirs; it is the army of the Jewish people, which protects the entire Jewish people,” he said.
Rav Levinstein warned that controversies of this kind also have repercussions for Chareidim who are considering joining the IDF. Potential Chareidi recruits, he said, may look at the disputes involving religious soldiers and question whether assurances given to them when they enlist will continue to be honored once they are serving.
“The Chareidi community, which was offered the opportunity to join the Hasmonean Brigade, looks at all these sagas, and its motivation definitely declines,” he said.
Rav Levinstein concluded by pointing to what he described as a significant change among the younger generation of religious soldiers. In previous years, he said, observant troops were often hesitant to stand up to the military establishment over their religious requirements, while today’s soldiers are increasingly willing to insist that those standards be respected.
“Thank God, a generation has grown here for whom Judaism is precious, and it knows that the source of its motivation is Judaism and the Torah,” Rav Levinstein said.
“So today they are not afraid to fight for Judaism,” he added.
{Matzav.com}
