Don’t let ultra-Orthodox recruitment harm status of women in IDF, female officers urge
Integrating the haredim must not create a new injustice, senior reservists warn in letter to legislators
Senior female officers in the IDF have urged the prime minister and legislators to take care not to integrate increased numbers of ultra-Orthodox men into the army in a way that will harm female soldiers’ capacity to serve effectively.
In a letter published Monday, 20 female reserve officers ranked colonel and brig.-gen. asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz and Yohanan Plesner, the chair of the special Knesset committee formulating legislation on mandatory service, to protect the rights and freedoms of female soldiers and officers in the IDF from possible efforts at religious coercion.
The officers wrote that they feared “recent reports about religious soldiers offending women” would only grow more frequent as “a new plan, that disregards the effects recruiting ultra-Orthodox will have on the female soldiers, will be implemented.”
Recent trends in the army have favored extreme religious practices over the rights and dignity of female soldiers, the letter stated. Such a trend, it said, was a consequence of the “demands of outsiders and religious commanders.”
“We call upon the committee to ensure in its recommendations the maintenance of equal service of women in the IDF,” the letter said. “Fixing one problem should not be achieved by creating a new injustice,” the officers concluded.
Among the signatories are Brig.-Gen. (res.) Rachel Dolev, the former chief censor; Brig.-Gen. (res.) Ruth Yaron, former IDF spokesman; and Brig.-Gen (res.) Israela Oron, former deputy head of the National Security Council.
Meanwhile, the Knesset’s Committee for the Advancement of an Equal Burden said on Sunday that it was looking into the possibility of shortening mandatory service for men from three years to two-and-a-half, since the drafting of more ultra-Orthodox men would offer the IDF more manpower.
According to one proposal, combat soldiers would still serve for three years, but would be paid a full salary in their final six months.
Plesner’s committee is charged with drafting legislation on mandatory military or national service to replace the Tal Law, which was struck down by the Supreme Court earlier this year as unconstitutional.