IDF education chief seeks to ban rabbis at swearing-in ceremonies
Avner Paz-Tzuk cites soldiers 'resentment' over participation of religious leaders; defense minister disagrees
The IDF’s chief education officer requested that military rabbis not participate in the swearing-in ceremonies of new recruits, according to a document leaked online on Wednesday night.
In the letter, Avner Paz-Tzuk addressed IDF Manpower Directorate Hagai Topolanski, writing that a number of soldiers have expressed “resentment” over “the centrality of military rabbis” in the ceremony.
“There’s something wrong with the fact that the central figures in the ceremony, alongside the commanders of the units, are the military rabbi and the rabbi of the unit,” he wrote. “The ceremony is not a religious ceremony, and there is no reason it should look this way.”
Paz-Tzuk recommended that a commander, rather than a rabbi, read out portions of the Bible at the swearing-in ceremony, and maintained that “there is no reason for a rabbi, of all people, to speak at an army and state swearing-in ceremony.”
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on Thursday registered his disagreement with Paz-Tzuk, telling Army Radio: “We do the ceremonies at the Western Wall. There is no doubt that at the Western Wall… there is room for religious traces in the military ceremony.”
A statement by the IDF Spokesperson’s Office appeared to confirm the authenticity of the letter, and said the army was considering revising the makeup of the ceremony.
“Over the years, the swearing-in ceremony of new recruits has been changed several times, and at this time the IDF is evaluating it, with recommendations by professional parties. In this framework, the nature of the ceremony is being reevaluated, with an emphasis on defining the commander’s range of action and its binding orders, while preserving the character of the IDF as a national army which includes recruits with different beliefs,” the army said.
The chief education officer’s letter comes amid a longstanding dispute between the Education Corps and the IDF rabbinate, which for years have sparred over the rabbinate’s official educational role within the army framework. While their roles were formally delineated in 2009, a 2013 army report said there remained a “deep and troubling crisis of confidence between the education and youth corps and the military rabbinate,” according to Haaretz.