Women in the Modern Military: A Second Look

 https://www.jewishideas.org/article/women-modern-military-second-look

 One of the most contentious religious issues to roil Israeli society ever since the creation of the State has been the role of women in national service in general and in the military in particular. Israel was one of the first states to draft women into the military; the government gave religious young women the option of entering national service.  Haredi authorities considered even national service as a most serious violation of halacha, indeed an outright sin. R. Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, the undisputed leader Israel’s Ashkenazi Haredi community when the state was proclaimed (he is generally known by the title of his best known writings as Chazon Ish), was unequivocal in his opposition. He asserted that national service was the virtual equivalent of adultery, idolatry and murder, three sins which Jews are mandated to resist even at the cost of their lives (yehareg ve’al ya’avor).[1] Needless to say, military service was totally out of the question as well. Indeed, R. Zvi Pesach Frank, the head of Haredi Beit Din and Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem for 36 years until his passing in 1961, explicitly stated that the drafting of women into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was a gzerat shmad, a decree compelling Jews to abandon their faith for another.[2]  Such hyperbolic statements reflect the depth of opposition that the Haredi leadership[3]evinced toward the policy of drafting women into the military.

 It is doubtful that the ongoing changes in both the means by which war is fought, and the treatment of women in the military, will have the slightest effect on many Haredi decisors. Their opinions regarding the intermingling of the sexes has hardened in recent years; and neither the evolution of combat operations, nor any regulations adopted either by non-Jewish militaries, or the IDF, will convince them to moderate their views. On the other hand, these changes may further moderate the views of those decisors who have chosen to address in constructive manner the issues of female membership in the military; the military occupational specialties (MOS) they might assume; and the commands to which they could ascend, whether in Israel, the United States, or other freedom-loving democracies.