Israeli women advance on two fronts
ISRAELI WOMEN took a step closer this week to two jobs that have long been out of their grasp — soldiers in specialforces units and Orthodox rabbis.
In recent years the Israeli army has opened up more front-line combat roles that were once male-only to female recruits. These include air force pilots and service in artillery, field intelligence and light infantry brigades. Special forces, mechanised infantry and airborne units have however remained closed to women, with the official reason being that service in these units necessitates a much more strenuous level of physicality for which few women are fit.
Earlier this year, four young Israeli women who are soon to join the IDF petitioned the High Court to be allowed to try out for special forces and, this week, they received support from an unexpected source — the former commander of Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s most fabled commando unit.
Colonel H (his name is still confidential) and his second-in-command Lieutenant-Colonel E, who led the unit until last year, wrote in a statement to the court: “We believe that women can successfully serve in combat roles in Sayeret Matkal and that their inclusion would yield a significant and unique contribution, both operationally and organisationally, to Sayeret Matkal in particular and to the IDF as a whole.”
Expansion of combat roles for women has foundered recently, following the inconclusive end of a trial in which a company of female recruits were trained as tank crews. Despite most of them concluding their basic and specialised training courses successfully, the company was disbanded, as the IDF claimed there were insufficient recruits for all-female tank crews and there was opposition in the Armoured Corps to fielding mixed-gender crews.
In their statement to the court, the former Sayeret Matkal commanders wrote that: “a fighter in the unit needs a wide variety of capabilities and physical resilience is not the most important of them,” and “the unit is missing its full potential by basing its personnel on men only.”
Meanwhile, another
High Court hearing forced the Israeli government to inform the court that it would allow women to undergo rabbinical tests, equivalent to those carried out by the Chief Rabbinate. This came following the petition of three
Orthodox women who are demanding to be allowed to take the test. The tests will be carried out by the Education Ministry and will not obligate the Chief Rabbinate to ordain women, but those who pass the test will have the same salary grade in civil service and local government jobs as men ordained by the rabbinate.
While the rabbinate will continue to block women’s paths to official religious positions as local rabbis and judges in a beth din, government recognition for women who have studied and been tested on the same halachic syllabus as rabbis will bolster the position of women who are already fulfilling pastoral duties in relatively liberal communities in Israel.
It will also give greater authority for women who appear in the beth din on behalf of other women in difficult divorce cases.
We believe women can successfully serve in combat roles
Women can now take the same rabbinical tests as men