Israel Matzav

IDF backtracks on women singing

The IDF has quietly backtracked on its policy on male soldiers attending events at which female soldiers sing. Religious male soldiers - regardless of the IDF track in which they are enlisted - will not be required to attend events at which female soldiers sing. There's a brief blurb on it in English here.

Contradicting media reports, a senior IDF officer informed the “Blue Dawn” Hareidi IAF integration program commanders that the soldiers will not have to hear women sing.

There's a much longer article in Hebrew here. According to the longer article, Colonel Yoav Bar Sela, who is responsible for the Blue Dawn program through which Haredi men are enlisted in the Air Force, has told Haredi officers that they will not be required to hear women singing, and that they will be allowed to absent themselves from all events at which female soldiers sing.

According to the article, Bar Sela told a conference that there will be no change in the current rules, and that soldiers from Blue Dawn will be allowed to absent themselves from events at which female soldiers sing. But the language in the article seems to include all religious soldiers, and in email correspondence with me, Eliyahu Lax, the Director General of the Organization for Torah observant soldiers, has told me that in fact the orders do cover all religious soldiers.

Soldiers who were present at the conference at which Bar Sela spoke said that Bar Sela said that soldiers would not be allowed to walk out of events when women get up to sing, but that they would be allowed to completely absent themselves from the events. The orders were apparently issued by the head of the IDF personnel division, Orna Barbibai (and for those of you who don't speak Hebrew, Orna is a woman).

Eliyahu Lax told Arutz Sheva that his organization will make sure that notice of this policy is given to all religious soldiers. He criticized the army for not publicizing it, as it has publicized the prohibition on soldiers walking out of events at which women sing. He said that the failure to publicize the orders in the regular fashion will lead to confrontations, which the army apparently wants to create. Lax said that such publicity is especially critical for those teaching officers' courses, because even the general staff orders on allowing religious observance do not get followed at the officers' school.

The IDF says that no soldier will be forced to violate his beliefs, and that each officer will determine how to respond to situations (that sounds contradictory, doesn't it?).

In correspondence with me, Eliyahu Lax explained that there are now three Haredi tracks in the IDF. The Netzach Yehuda division, which was the original Nahal Haredi, which is designed for soldiers with combat profiles, and two units for Haredim with less-than-combat profiles - one that works with the Air Force (Netzach Kachol) and another that works with the Navy (Netzach Yam).

Lax informs me that the orders discussed above are principally for religious non-Haredi soldiers (soldiers from Hesder or religious soldiers generally), because it is understood from the outset that Haredi soldiers would not attend events where women sing. Non-Haredi religious soldiers may ask permission to absent themselves from such events altogether, but they may not attend the events and then leave in the middle. Lax says that his organization represents all religious soldiers in the IDF regardless of their unit or program. The original event with women singing that caused all the problems involved both Hesder soldiers and soldiers from Nahal Haredi.

Labels: hesder, IDF, Nachal Charedi

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:45 AM