The Politics of Drooling Over IDF Women

“Yossi and Jagger,” a movie I enjoyed in my formative years. Image by Screenshot/Twitter
Thea Glassman has flagged an (inactive?) Instagram account, and noted, with regret, that no male equivalent (well, not on Instagram) exists. If so, it could be that for whichever reasons, societal ideals for male beauty skew a bit older:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Image by Getty Images
Sigh. Where was I?
Oh yes: What to make, then, of the IDF-hotties genre? Pro-Israel, pro-military propaganda, perhaps. Intentional distraction from the constant flow of upsetting news from the region, very likely. Pushback against the (diasporic) stereotype that Jews, Jewish women specifically, aren’t that good-looking? Maybe that as well.
But there’s also the fact that in a country with mandatory military service, IDF soldiers are just… 19-year-olds, give or take. 19-year-olds who probably work out a bit more than most, and who, because Israel, probably eat vegetables. (At 19, I meandered from dorm to classroom in Chicago and subsisted on dining hall cereal because the dining-hall non-cereal options were vile.)
While I’m more a pet- and Japanese-home-decor-Instagram person myself, I get that a big point of the platform is showcasing fit 19-year-old women in bikinis, to be drooled over or envied or both. So maybe it is not, after all, that complicated. (It probably is, all told, quite complicated.) We can just hope no young woman was placed on the site without her consent, and return to the very important business of wondering what Justin Trudeau is up to.
Phoebe Maltz Bovy edits the Sisterhood, and can be reached at [email protected]. Her book, The Perils of “Privilege”, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 2
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 3
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 4
News Why Zohran Mamdani believes he’ll win over Jewish voters, as Israel critic surges to second behind Cuomo in NYC mayoral race
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward A Jewish nonprofit may have accidentally caused Michigan to drop charges against pro-Palestinian activists
-
Culture For Christian nationalists, Trump’s pope picture isn’t a joke
-
Opinion Is Israel really going to reoccupy Gaza? Ask Trump
-
Yiddish World A photo of my bubbe when Jewish stores still had Yiddish signs
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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.