Haredi battalion commander: Most recruits not ultra-Orthodox

An internal IDF report on the recruitment of ultra-Orthodox soldiers leaked online Wednesday night maintained that the vast majority of the soldiers entering the Haredi units are not presently ultra-Orthodox, and further charged that the army was sorting the new Haredi recruits by ethnicity.

Lt. Col. Ori Levy, a battalion commander in Netzah Yehuda, said in a report published by the ultra-Orthodox Kikar HaShabat website  and Channel 2, said: “At the gates of the induction center, I saw some 20 Haredi youths (based on dress and appearance). I was very happy to see how the ‘new soldiers’ looked starting out, and to imagine how they would look in a few weeks with their weapons. But those people that got off the buses were not the same ones I saw at the induction center, these youths looked entirely different,” he writes.

“Based on conversations with them, my impression is that the vast majority are not ultra-Orthodox today — a very small number come from Haredi homes, some are not observant at all (and certainly don’t uphold an ultra-Orthodox lifestyle), and some wanted to be drafted to the Border Police to ‘fight with Arabs,'”  Levy continues.

He was “astonished,” he wrote, and gleaned that most were not ultra-Orthodox “by their remarks, their behavior, their haircuts etc.”

“I asked myself, how will these people bring about the [general] draft of the Haredim? If I were a Haredi youth, these soldiers would convince me [to join the army]?”

The report also quoted the officers sorting the new recruits, who said they place the Sephardim in the Netzah Yehuda battalion (colloquially known as Nahal Haredi) and the Ashkenazim in the newly established Givati Brigade’s Haredi battalion.

The recruiters were quoted as saying: “Mizrachi and troubled teens are drafted to Netzah, Ashkenazi Haredim to Givati,” and “It’s no secret, those designated for Nezach 97 are not for Givati and vice versa — it’s two different populations.” They also said, “Zionists to Nezach, Haredim to Givati.”

Levy further maintained that in opposition to the regulations for the ultra-Orthodox soldiers, on the day of recruitment, the troops were lined up with some 80 female recruits. He also noted that the recruiters, while “experienced and serious,” did “not come from a religious background and were stunned and had no answers to my questions about the challenges the soldiers face in the [Haredi] battalion.”

In his recommendations, Levy urged the army to stick to an annual draft of “150 [ultra-Orthodox] soldiers, 70 percent of them who are Haredi at the time of the draft (and not those ‘registered in the past in Haredi institutions who today are no longer observant’).” He suggested that the recruiters receive greater instruction on the Haredi recruits, that the new conscripts answer a survey about their religious life on the day of their induction, and that the army weed out any conscripts who have a criminal record.

Levy also argued that the Netzah Yehuda battalion ought to remain the primary ultra-Orthodox one, and others — namely the new Givati unit — remain secondary to it.

In his conclusion, he noted that the Netzah Yehuda soldiers are “excellent, moral, combative, but the majority of them are not Haredi!”

The report came several days after audiotapes of Levy complaining that the majority of the soldiers signing up for the ultra-Orthodox battalions were not Haredi were published by Army Radio. In those clips, he said the soldiers sought to join those units in order to receive certain benefits.

In response to the Kikar HaShabat report, the IDF spokesman’s office said in a statement that the Haredi conscripts were eligible to join the ultra-Orthodox battalion if they attended a Haredi institution for two years between the ages of 14 and 18.

Unnamed sources in the Netzah Yehuda battalion rejected the report’s allegations, saying the troops were interviewed about their level of observance, and those who did not uphold the religious standards were booted by August 14 each year. The sources maintained that Netzah Yehuda “has always been” for Haredi conscripts “who are far from the yeshiva world, and they represent most of the battalion.”

As for the divisions between it and the Givati battalion, the sources maintained that recently, the army “understood that it must create a framework for youth closer to the Haredi world, and therefore they set up the new Haredi track in Givati.”

Last September, government officials said ultra-Orthodox recruitment was up 39 percent. The 2013-2014 conscription cycle saw 1,972 ultra-Orthodox youth enlist in the IDF, up from 1,416 in 2012-2013 and from 1,327 in 2011-2012, according to the committee tasked with monitoring the implementation of the law. Despite the impressive gain in recruitment, the numbers fell well below projections stipulated in the new law, which mandated that 3,800 ultra-Orthodox be recruited during 2013-2014; in 2014-2015, 4,500 be drafted; and 5,200 to sign up in subsequent years.

The law, which also mandates legal ramifications for individuals and yeshivas that do not comply with enlistment, has been protested heavily by the ultra-Orthodox community.