One of the many challenges that faces the Israel Defense Forces is the fact that its conscripts are essentially kids. A few weeks before getting their uniforms they are sitting in classrooms and being told by their moms not to stay out too late. The army finds itself in loco parentis. A heartbreaking example of…
Christians have many. We Jews have a few. Muslims and Buddhists do, too, and the Hindus and Wiccans may soon get theirs. But despite the fact that 3,000 chaplains minister to the needs of active-duty service people in the military, none serve atheists. That may soon change. “Groups representing atheists and secular humanists are pushing…
Playing “Farmville” on Shabbat isn’t a great idea if you’ve told the Israeli army you’re too frum to serve. That’s one of the lessons about a thousand Israeli women have learned after the Israel Defense Forces used Facebook to check out claims of religious observance. By using the hugely popular social-networking site, the military managed…
Has the U.S. Army set a double standard by refusing to allow an Orthodox rabbi to serve as a chaplain because he won’t shave his beard? Menachem Stern’s lawyers think so. Attorneys Nathan and Alyza D. Lewin told the Washington Post that the Army “has granted a waiver to two Sikh captains and an enlisted…
18-year-olds have been known to do some pretty stupid (but entertaining) things. We’ve all been there (and, in most cases, would rather forget ). But a recent Youtube video of six IDF soldiers performing a Macarena-style dance to pop singer Ke$ha’s song “Tik Tok,” while on patrol (not to mention during the Muslim call to…
I began my phone call to my friend Karen with the same question that has launched all of our recent conversations: “How’s Noah?” And so I get the latest report on her 18-year-old son who recently entered training for a combat unit in the Israel Defense Forces. Noah is the first child of a close…
“Israeli youth are tired of the army and the government and all that macho stuff,” Aviv Geffen, the original Israeli musician-rebel told Rolling Stone back in 1996, saying that they should “go travel, see the world, have their freedom.” Well now Geffen has really seen the world in true rock star style. He has just…
This will show you never to eat stadium food. At Yankee Stadium yesterday, the wife of a prominent New York rabbi was saved from choking to death by an Army medic who had served in Iraq. It all started when Toby Weiss, wife of Rabbi Avi Weiss of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, began choking…
