This is the Forward’s coverage of the Israel Defense Forces, the combined military forces of Israel.
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Israel News Meet Shachar Erez, Israel’s First Transgender IDF Officer
Coming out as transgender can be difficult to do even once. Shachar Erez did it twice. First, when he was 16 years old. But then he joined the Israeli military and went back into the closet. He enlisted as a female, worried that his identity could complicate his service. And then, a year and a…
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Fast Forward Gaza Rocket Attack On Ashkelon Prompts IDF Response
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israel’s military targeted two Hamas positions in the northern Gaza Strip hours after two rockets were fired from Gaza at southern Israel. One of the rockets fired on Saturday landed near the southern Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon and the second appeared to fall in Gazan territory. The launches triggered the Code…
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Fast Forward Israeli Drone Reportedly Kills Syrian Truck Driver On Road To Damascus
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Syrian man was killed when the truck he was driving in the Quneitra region of the Golan Heights on the road to Damascus allegedly was fired on by an Israeli drone, Syrian media is reporting. The Israel Defense Forces is not commenting on the alleged air strike, neither confirming nor denying the…
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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…
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Community The Burdens of Jewish Power
When we read the Book of Esther to celebrate Purim, many Jews see it as a classic Jewish story: “they tried to kill us. We won. Lets eat!” The book of Esther does contain a typical story of Jewish victimhood and Jewish survival: Haman tried to kill the Jews, but then Esther and Mordechai rose…
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Fast Forward Israeli Army Rabbi ‘Not Sorry’ For Disparaging Female Soldiers
Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, the head of a prominent pre-army training academy in the occupied West Bank, is standing his ground after his denigrating remarks about women soldiers made waves in the Israel. “They recruit them to the army, where they enter as Jews, but they’re not Jews by the time they leave,” Levinstein said, in…
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Fast Forward Does Israeli Army Service Make Orthodox Women ‘Crazy’?
The head of an Israeli pre-military academy said that Orthodox women who serve in the army are turned into “crazy” women with “confused” values. Yigal Levinstein, who heads the academy in the West Bank settlement Eli, made the inflammatory comments at a lecture to several hundred young male graduates of a different academy. Video of…
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Israel News A Gaza Doctor Beloved By Jews And Arabs Is About To Take The IDF To Court For Killing His Daughters
He was the beloved doctor of both Palestinians and Israeli Jews, the one who brought their children into the world. Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, the Gaza-based Palestinian obstetrician and gynecologist who was the first Palestinian physician from the occupied territories to receive an appointment at an Israeli hospital, still believes passionately in peace and co-existence between…
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