Hareidi Soldier Enlistments Up 1000 Percent in Six Years

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

Soaring enlistment of hareidi religious men bodes well for the IDF and for society in general, according to the army’s Human Resources branch director, Brigadier-General Amir Rogovski.

In the past six years, the number of hareidi soldiers has grown from 300 to 3,000, allowing them better job opportunities in the future and encouraging their integration into the general work force, Rogovski added.

“I think that the first place of tension between the hareidi religious community and general society is in the IDF,” he said. “Despite the tension, we see a lot of success, and 90 percent of the hareidi religious men who serve in the IDF enter the force after they are discharged.”

He also noted that contrary to popular opinion, most of the hareidi religious soldiers enlist under the age of 24.

Moreover, Rogovski pointed out that accusations that the IDF makes special concessions for the hareidi religious community are totally wrong when taking into consideration, it changes its standards and demands for other sectors of society.

“We also make changes for olim [new immigrants],” he said. The IDF also has special units for young men who come from broken families and also for those with criminal records.”

“I don’t hear any complaints about special conditions for them,” Rogovski said.

December 4, 2011 | 55 Comments »

Leave a Reply

5 Comments / 55 Comments

  1. “If there IS indeed a ’cause-&-effect relation’ — between the Almighty’s ‘discontent’ with Jewish worship on the one hand, and your “1/3, 1/3, 1/3? scenario [above] on the other — then you’ve yet to establish it.”

    “Saying I haven’t [established a causal linkage] with no further rebuttal of my postulate is intellectual cowardice and disingenuous on your part but I have observed that you are prone to cut and run when you can’t refute an opinion you reject.”

    Okay, I should’ve said you haven’t established it to my satisfaction.

    This is not about ‘cowardice,’ Yamit, it’s about sensibility.

    If it were cowardice, why wouldn’t I just concede? — that would be truly cowardly, in the absence of conviction.

    Look. Here’s the thing (as O’Reilly would put it):
    If I’m not convinced by an argument, it doesn’t mean I necessarily DO know at that moment the correct one. It may just mean that something in the profferred explanation doesn’t sit right with me, so I’m keeping an open mind in the matter, while keeping an eye out for something more resonant. There’s a very important discipline in that, deliberately maintaining an open mind; I recommend it.

    “[T]hus it hardly matters how individually any of us worship Hashem. Since Sinai we are judged collectively.“

    Strictly an assumption; and interestingly, a left-brained one. You assume that it has to be either/or. I suggest it could be BOTH — viz., individual AND collective.

    “Was our return and reestablishment of a sovereign Jewish polity after so long a product of Hashem’s discontent with Jewish worship? Were our miraculous victories a product of G-d’s discontent with our worship? Finding gas and oil a sign of his discontent with our worship?”

    Who says “worship” — His contentment OR dissatisfaction with it — has anything at all to do with it?

    “In a world teetering on the brink of economic collapse; we are an Island of economic stability and even substantial growth, a sign of Hashem’s discontent with us?”

    You’re looking for a sign. What makes you think He wants you to be looking for ‘signs’?

    I think you’re just superimposing something of your OWN over what is essentially a mystery.

    Don’t misunderstand me: I’m glad that you wonder about this stuff — and I’m genuinely impressed that it’s important to you — but I think you’d be less tortured by it if your ego were willing to admit to what it doesn’t know.

    “The Shechinah is returning to Zion more and more each day. With every Jew who arrives, with every new house that is built, with every new settlement, and factory, and acre of farmland, the Divine Presence is returning to Zion…”

    You ASSUME that the Sh’chinah is dependent on those things.

    Nu, and if a Jew arrives who becomes a burden on the State & community, THEN what?

  3. yamit82 says:
    December 7, 2011 at 11:01 am

    I could argue against your theory but that is not my main point. My main point is that there was an awful lot of Sin’at Chinam (baseless hatred) going around within all of the spheres of European Jewry at the time. This is what did in the Jews in Israel at the time of the 2nd Temple’s destruction. It was they who were annihilated, not the Jews in Bavel.

    Lesson still not learned.

  5. Religious women on the rise at IDF officer school
    By YAAKOV KATZ
    12/05/2011 23:27

    46 religiously observant women soldiers are currently studying to become IDF officers, up from 25 in 2010.

    The increase in female cadets follows the sharp climb in the percentage of male religious soldiers in recent years. According to a senior officer at the school, 40% of cadets training to become officers in the Infantry Corps are religious.

    “It is a pleasure to see the increase in the number of religious female cadets in the school,” the senior officer said.

    “It requires us to set up a separate company for women and for men in some courses but it is well worth it.”