Record number of female religious soldiers
Defense Ministry reveals 15% increase in religious women enlisting in IDF through midrashot program.
Arutz Sheva Staff, 02/10/18
The Defense Ministry’s Social Security Division published data showing that there was a 15% increase in the number of girls enlisting in the IDF through the Midrashot program.
The head of the division, Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Defense Moshe Zin, presented the data at the launch of the academic year for midrasha girls who will be enlisting in the IDF.
Rabbi Ohad Teharlev, director of Ohr Torah Stone’s Midreshet Lindenbaum said, “In recent years, every single year there’s been talk of peak recruitment for religious girls in the army, and now everyone is trying to analyze last year’s revolution in the religious sector. We are not surprised – though we are still excited each time anew.”
“In the midrashot we train the girls for the goodness and the kindness that exists between the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life – this includes both Torah study and contribution to the State. When our soldiers are conscripted to the IDF there is a mutual contribution, a reciprocal exchange between the army and our young women. They enlist in a specific track that enables them to maintain their way of life, enables them to serve a significant service and contribute in the most appropriate manner to the IDF in its most important positions. It is not a coincidence that many of these young women go on to become officers and even career soldiers in the IDF.”
The increase in the number of girls who enlisted through the Midrasha track is also evident this year in the record for Midreshet Lindenbaum, which was the first to establish such a program combining Torah study with IDF recruitment, and which currently operates in Jerusalem and in two additional branches in Lod and Carmiel. About 95% of the girls in each Midreshet Lindenbaum graduating class go into the army and another 30% sign on for career service in the IDF, such that in the last class of about 100 girls, there are 21 female officers.
According to the Defense Ministry’s Social Security Division, about 308 religious girls joined the army at the beginning of the year 5769, representing an increase of about 15% compared to last year, and of more than 100% compared to 2014.
