The government takes reservists for granted
On a bright day last week, the government sparked controversy in its reservists’ lives. Men and women, some of whom have just returned from extended reserve duty (some are yet to return, and way too many will never return), discovered that their annual reserve duty days will triple.
The retirement from reserve service has been pushed back a few years into the future, and legislated protections have been discarded. This happened under the pretext of war and under the assumption that the broader-serving public would continue to shoulder the burden as usual. The latter, seemingly, is true.
No consideration was given to the willingness of the public to triple the burden. Not a single decision-maker checked if this decision affected a thirdyear medical student who will now be absent from her studies for several months a year.
How will it impact the life of a father who won’t be there to take his twins to school for very long weeks? Does reserve duty coincide with the new business that the reservist officer plans to start next year? Can months of reserve duty fit into the professional advancement trajectory of the young lawyer, aiming for partnership, uncertain if she can manage it while simultaneously serving as an ops-officer in reserve for a deployed unit?
In absolute contradiction to this government bill proposition stands the heightened debate regarding the recruitment of the haredi (ultra-Orthodox), where state military needs are secondary to a question of adjusting the army itself to better fit the individuals’ needs.
For new haredi recruits, the army is willing to check if it can accommodate
THE WRITER serves on reserve duty. The government is taking reservists for granted, he maintains. their needs. Questions such as whether military service is relevant to the haredi lifestyle, whether they are willing to serve, and for how long, where, and how are suddenly being asked.
Will it affect the haredi recruits’ matchmaking prospects? Will the army cater to their spiritual needs? Can their chosen ultra-Orthodox lifestyle continue as usual? What does his yeshiva think? What if he serves alongside women? What do leading rabbis think?
Questions upon questions are being asked, and if only the state would be willing to answer all of them, and then the next, and the next, we could go back to the issue of addressing the urgent needs of defending this country.
MUCH BEWILDERMENT characterizes the public discourse on this matter as well, even from its liberal side. The non-haredi side will forever be told the difficulties encountered by new haredi recruits, the complexities within their society, and the need to adjust urgent defense needs to haredi sociology.
Liberal do-gooders have already forgotten that the issue at hand is actual human lives, and are dragged into an endless abyss that dives into the specific difficulties of haredi recruits, oblivious to the fact that the general society pays the exact same prices and is taken for granted.
I have yet to see even one decision-maker who, facing the holy rhetoric of the importance of Torah studies, says that, with all due respect, it is simply minor in comparison to the burden shouldered by reservists during the many years of their service, shouldered by their families, their worried parents, the toll on the Israeli economy, and more. There is no accommodating reservists’ needs, future plans, or ways of life, though. There’s only a call for service, and more, and more.
Personally, as someone who has just returned from several months of reserve duty in the current war, none of these issues are theoretical. Soldiers in my unit fought in Gaza and in the North while fighting to keep their businesses up and running at the same time.
They struggled to stay on top of their academic studies while in a tank on the northern border. They jumped through hoops to minimize the impact of prolonged reserve service on their families. They job-hunted while preparing the tank for battle in Gaza, and more and more.
None of them stopped defending their country for a moment, but the fact that these actions are taken for granted is the real problem we are dealing with. Reservists are being taken for granted, but we shouldn’t, and neither are our families or our livelihoods.
We serve with great pride, but the disproportionate, unbearable burden is not just one more daily task on the IDF’s calendar. It cannot be marginalized just because the reservists do their part again and again.
A country fighting for its life, demanding the impossible from its reservists, cannot, should not, and has no moral justification to do so when it tiptoes around the haredi public. Anyone willing to call his reservists again and again can do so only after he brings to the table everyone who has enjoyed privileged exemptions for years.
The futile attempt to accommodate haredi recruits’ needs must stop. The army accommodates none of our needs, and yet, we show up when needed. Now it’s your turn.