Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Israeli Orthodox Rabbis Say Women Shouldn’t Serve In Mixed Combat Units

Religious Zionist rabbis are calling on their followers not to enlist in mixed-gender combat units after the the Israeli Defense Forces announced an initiative to bring more women into combat roles.

Several leading religious Zionist rabbis, who are usually supportive of military service in their communities, issued a letter saying that combat units don’t provide the necessary gender separation to accord with Jewish law.

One of the signatories, Rabbi Yaakov Medan, the head of a West Bank settlement yeshiva, said that while he religious Zionists “love and value” the army, the IDF is trying to “force us into a culture we are not accustomed to. And this we cannot accept,” according to Times of Israel, which quoted an interview with Medan in the Israeli Srugim site.

Medan warned that the number of religious Zionist soldiers could drop with the new policy.

Last week, Yigal Levinstein, the head of a pre-military academy in the West Bank settlement Eli, caused an uproar when he said that women who serve in the IDF go “crazy” and lose their Judaism.

Some of the signatories of Wednesday’s letter had criticized Levinstein for his remarks, according to Haaretz.

Contact Naomi Zeveloff at [email protected]

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.