The IDF announced on Wednesday that IDF Chief of Staff Lt-.Gen. Eyal Zamir had held a meeting the day before with a variety of unnamed leading religious zionist hesder yeshiva rabbis to address the ongoing controversy of a pilot program to integrate women into the IDF Tank Corps.
While several prominent hesder yeshiva rabbis were present, The Jerusalem Post has learned that rabbis from one-third of hesder yeshivas that had announced a boycott of the move were not present.
It was unclear whether opposition rabbis were not present because they were not invited or because they declined to attend.
In general, Zamir and the IDF have sought to reach out for a dialogue with the opposition rabbis. But to date, these rabbis have made cutting off contact regarding the issue part of their strategy and a sign of their resolve to resist the change.
Regarding the rabbis present, Zamir told them about the IDF’s desperate need for additional soldiers, from any sector of society, noting that women are a critical part of the pool for soldiers within Israeli society.
Zamir emphasized that it was his strategy and goal to ensure that women, religious zionists, haredim (ultra-Orthodox), and other sectors could all serve in the IDF, even if some special pathways of service have been and will continue to have to be developed to enable the military to accommodate the special needs of certain sectors.
According to the IDF statement, the rabbis present praised Zamir for his efforts to walk the complex tightrope required to make the IDF accommodating to the different groups.
They also presented anecdotes and systemic issues that their yeshiva student graduates have encountered during their IDF service, which they requested that Zamir help address.
Present at the meeting were also IDF Deputy Chief Maj.-Gen. Tamir Yadai, IDF Military Advocate General Maj.-Gen. Itay Offir, IDF Chief Rabbi Brig.-Gen. Rabbi Eyal Karim, senior IDF Human Resources Command official, Brig.-Gen. Shai Tayev, and others.
Unusually, the Post has learned that IDF Human Resources Command Chief Maj.-Gen. Dado Bar Kalifa, who is primarily responsible for many special sector issues, was not present due to an unexplained personal issue.
IDF's pilot program for women to serve in tank units
On June 17, Zamir announced that the pilot program to try out women serving in tank units will begin in November as scheduled, despite opposition from around one-third of the hesder yeshivas that provide significant numbers of religious zionist combat soldiers.
Zamir said that at most, the female tank pilot will lead a company of tanks run by women, a relatively small number out of the multiple brigades of tanks, each of which is made up of multiple battalions, each of which is made up of multiple companies.
He also warned that the female tank soldiers must live up to the general physical standards for serving in the unit, and that past pilot programs in other areas had seen an unusual number of injured women during training processes, which he said should be avoided.
On June 11, 25 hesder yeshivas said they would ban their orthodox religious zionist male students from joining the tank corps in protest of the pilot program.
According to the IDF, the program is only a pilot program, and it is unclear whether it will lead to placing women permanently in the tank corps.
Further, the pilot program involves establishing women-only tank units, such that neither secular nor religious men would be serving with women within the same tank or unit, the primary concern of the religious zionist institutions that are protesting.
From their perspective, it is improper modesty and could lead to problematic mingling between men and women in such a small, secluded space if men and women were to serve in the same tank or tank units.
Traditionally, religious zionist hesder graduates serve in male-only units, and usually in units that are overwhelmingly only hesder students or at least men from orthodox backgrounds.
IDF must offer equal opportunities to men and women
The IDF appreciates the hesder program because virtually all of the program’s students, though they serve less time than other Israeli societal sectors, serve in combat units, and many go on to become mid- and high-level officers.
But the IDF was ordered by the High Court of Justice on April 13 that it was under a legal duty to implement, as far as possible, equal opportunity for women and men in access to combat roles, including beginning its long-delayed pilot integration of women into the tank corps by the November 2026 draft cycle.
Moreover, given that the government has failed to integrate haredim into the IDF both before and since October 7, 2023, and the IDF has lost up to around 25,000 soldiers to physical or emotional harm in recent years, leaving a massive gap in human resources, the IDF has been pushing hard to fill combat roles with women.
One woman was recently accepted into the elite General Staff Reconnaissance Unit, and women have taken on relatively new ground combat command roles as brigade and battalion commanders, and even a missile boat commander.
Despite the IDF putting out a public response earlier in June, noting the various ways it is still protecting hesder students from serving with women in tank units, the number of institutions barring their students nearly doubled on June 11 from an original 13.
That said, two-thirds of the hesder yeshivas have not yet pulled out, and Tuesday’s meeting showed that Zamir is working hard to maintain their support.
Some may be waiting to see how the pilot program pans out and whether the IDF keeps its promise to keep women in separate tank units, whereas artillery and infantry units now have mixed male and female units.
Women in IDF slam rabbis' protest of tank unit pilot
Meanwhile, hundreds of female officers wrote to Zamir and Defense Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday, demanding that they halt the intervention of religious Zionist rabbis about women’s participation in the Tank Corps.
Presumably, all or most of the objections were directed at the rabbis opposing women’s integration into tank units, and not the rabbis who met with Zamir in a supportive manner on Tuesday.
The officers, including six brigadier generals and 35 colonels and lieutenant colonels, warned that the current dynamic could encourage insubordination.
They said that the IDF could be viewed as surrendering to outside pressure, which could lead to the idea of “the people’s army” imploding from within.
The officers wrote: “Female soldiers are not a matter for debate or a problem to be stopped, but a set operational fact and a strategic asset.”
The initiator of the letter, Moren Zer Katzenstein, a former officer and a candidate in the Democrats party primary, said the command of the IDF must remain in the hands of commanders alone.
Amir Bohbot contributed to this report.