Published: 26 March 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
By defying accepted norms in the religious community, women like Kupietzky – and their numbers are growing – are threatening the long-standing authority of the rabbinical establishment in Israel.
The rabbis are pushing back, warning that this trend will prove disastrous not only for women – who could lose their ability to bear children – but also for the entire country.
Religious women in Israel are exempt from the draft, as part of an agreement hammered out in the early years of the state. In lieu of two years in the military, most of these women sign up for a year of voluntary national service – known as “Sherut Leumi” – in schools, hospitals and other public institutions.
Although the religious-Zionist community encourages men to enlist in the army and serve in the most elite units in the Israel Defence Forces, women are discouraged from signing up.
Their “exposure” to non-religious Israelis during the course of their military service, it is feared, might cause them to question their beliefs and tempt them to violate certain laws.
Recent years, though, have seen a dramatic increase in the number of religious women enlisting in the army.
FULL STORY The Orthodox women defying their rabbis and joining the Israeli army (Haaretz)
Photo: Avital Kupietzky (Gil Eliahu)
