Rabbi Ronsky served as a former commander in an elite combat unit and fought in the Yom Kippur War.
The seasoned combat commander who embraced Orthodoxy as an adult, in the wake of the national soul searching sparked by the Yom Kippur War, accrued his fair share of detractors, most vociferously of the left-wing, post-Zionist variety.
Along the way he radically transformed the IDF’s Chaplaincy Corps and expanded its scope to include functions previously performed by the Education Corps., such as enlisting Jewish history, culture and tradition to enhance combat motivation. Using his own diverse experiences as a model, Ronsky hand-picked a cadre of men with both combat experience and rabbinic training intimately familiar with the connection between battlefield courage and a strong Jewish identity.
Ronsky replaced the old image of the IDF chaplain, a vapid religious functionary who performed ceremonial aspects of Jewish adherence – distributing wine, supervising kashrut, leading prayers. He was, by contrast, a fighter-rabbi who combined battlefield experience with the religious training to make traditional Jewish sources relevant enough to instill soldiers – secular and religious – with conviction of purpose before battle.
Passages from the Bible, the Talmud, and Maimonides were used to show the troops they belonged to a long chain – albeit broken by exile – of fearless Jewish warriors.
This heady mixture of faith and militancy was not received enthusiastically by all.
“The chief military rabbinate long ago overstepped its authority and has transformed the IDF’s battles from wars of necessity into holy wars,” said former MK Avshalom Vilan (Meretz), who served in the elite Sayeret Matkal General Staff Reconnaissance Unit. “If the chief of staff… does not set definite boundaries, he will very quickly be facing battalions of Jewish fundamentalists,” Vilan added.
He was reacting to media reports that IDF rabbis were distributing rabbinic literature to soldiers as they prepared to enter Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. One flyer, written by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, the head of the Ateret Yerushalayim Yeshiva in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, where Ronsky learned for years, warned soldiers: “When you show mercy to a cruel enemy, you are being cruel to pure and honest soldiers.”
During Cast Lead, Ha’aretz ran an editorial entitled “A Rabbinate Gone Wild,” calling on the IDF to fire Ronsky.
TO A considerable extent, however, Ronsky and the rabbis he trained were answering the heartfelt needs of soldiers who were about to risk their lives to protect their fellow citizens and homeland.
Before going into battle, those soldiers wanted their military leaders to confirm for them that Operation Cast Lead was a justified military operation aimed at stopping the constant terror of Jewish settlements within Kassam rocket-range of Gaza Strip; that armed Hamas terrorists bent on destroying the Zionist state were legitimate targets, and that the IDF was rightly obliged to minimize the loss of its soldiers’ lives in tackling them; and, more broadly and fundamentally, that the Jewish people have a right to an autonomous sovereignty in their historic homeland.
Ronsky’s IDF rabbis, comfortable and confident on issues of the Jewish state’s right to exist in security, expressed these messages with conviction. They backed up their messages with a profound tradition, history and faith that every Jewish soldier, religious or secular, could tap into as he or she saw fit. And the singularity of purpose was resonant, too, for Druse, Beduin and other non-Jewish soldiers who had tied their fate to that of the Jewish people.
There have always been Jews who have been uncomfortable with the particularistic aspects of Jewish identity and those who question the belief in the fundamental righteousness of Jews’ demands for a state in the land of Israel. Ronsky upset some of these Jews by forcing them to confront the fact that without these ideals, it is difficult to imagine Zionist continuity and it is nearly impossible to meet the myriad challenges faced by the Jewish state.
It was in highlighting this that Ronsky made his contribution to the IDF and to the State of Israel.
IDF Elite Brigade Commander telling his troops that no Israeli will be allowed to be taken prisoner even if we have to fire on the kidnappers and our own soldiers and our soldier must explode a grenade killing himself before he is taken prisoner. Under no circumstaces will a soldier in his unit be allowed to be taken prisoner.
The IDF Hannibal Protocol – IDF Commander Briefing Troops.
A Jewish Army prepares to go into battle. There is no Army such as this in the world.
Many in israel flipped out during the 1973 war. Actors turned Orthodix, hashish smokers became yeshiva students. Ronsky followed his calling and the front line soldiers who do not wish to hear the rabbi’s words should be given an option to either hear some other thinker or go on the internet and find some suitable sources of encouragement. The IDF is not an aramy of religious fanatics, but many today, are somewhat religious and the country cannot afford to lose them. One has to be a bit smart and understand that the numbers are changing. In 1973 most of the fighters were not of orthodox stream, today probably 20-20% are. You cannot tell them to disappear. You cannot go to defend the nation without them. I support Ronski’s idea of wiping out the enemies in their beds, regardless of the fact that he is a Rabbi.
Update to Dr. Lerner’s piece here.
Supposedly all the apollo astronauts were given cyanide pills in case they got into real trouble. Maybe IDF soldiers should have them as well.
Apparently none of your saw the Link in red below the text: The IDF Hannibal Protocol – IDF Commander Briefing Troops.
(Video) IMRA – Video: The IDF Hannibal Protocol – IDF Commander Briefing Troops
Dr. Aaron Lerner
“The strategic weapon, the Judgment Day Weapon that Hamas wants to acquire, is to capture a soldier.
But no soldier in Battalion 51 will be kidnapped at any price.
At any price. Under any condition.
Uploaded by IMRANEWSVIDEO on Oct 16, 2011
Even if it means that he blows himself with his own grenade together with those trying to capture him.
Also even if it means that now his unit has to fire a barrage at the car that they are trying to take him away in.
There is no situation. No situation that they will have this weapon.”
Battalion 51 commander briefing his Golani troops on the eve of their entry into Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.
Video report broadcast on Israel Television Channel 2 News 16 October 2011
http://www.mako.co.il/news-military/security/Article-778ae8d014e0331017.htm
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Observation: Soldiers know: if captured Israel will trade for them only if fail to kill them first
Dr. Aaron Lerner
16 October 2011
Will the culmination of the Shalit deal serve to instill confidence in IDF soldiers that the nation will stand behind them in their time of need?
Let’s be blunt about it:
Thanks to the very lopsided prisoner swaps, the IDF policy today is to do everything possible to kill IDF soldiers who appear to be in the process of being captured by terrorists.
That’s right. Kill.
A prisoner trade would only take place if the IDF failed to kill the captured IDF soldiers first.
This is what every IDF soldier knows today when he is ordered to advance and engage the enemy.
Does this knowledge have a positive or negative impact on the performance of the IDF in battle?
The Israeli officials and media talking heads commenting on the Shalit deal in the coming days should not insult our intelligence by claiming otherwise.
Hardly surprising.
Only the anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist left would have a problem with this.
Better and more effective by far than the “shoot-to-wound” words of the moral poseurs of the left. A confused warrior is a relatively ineffective warrior. Rabbi Ronsky merely got rid of the confusion by providing excellent focus for those about to go into battle. A brilliant tactic by a man who had seen, and well understood, battle.
I’ve an idea: Why not ask those soldiers who heard or read the words of Ronsky before Cast Lead, how they were influenced at that critical time.
The alternative to “Shoot to kill”, I suppose, is “Shoot to wound”. Interestingly, this was the general order for the troops of Oceania, Eurasia and East Asia in Orwell’s “1984”. Countries that do not engage in wars with an eye to win them, are instead engaging in warfare as a perpetual, bleeding, exercise. I needn’t list names of the countries that engage in such a practice. Religion is not a factor; common sense is.
I’m glad American troops in World War II didn’t engage the Germans and Japanese with orders to “shoot to wound”. There were no major prisoner exchanges, until hostilities ended. Because of our country’s “all or nothing” policy, though, hostilities DID end. If we had dealt with the Germans the way the Israelis are dealing with the Arabs, Hitler would still be in control of most of Europe — and Nazis would be free to teach German-Americans in our public schools.