The IDF is doing its utmost to ensure that all soldiers and officers on bases and outposts received yomtov meals and more on Rosh Hashanah.
Towards that end, 40 trucks left the IDF’s main food base in Tirat HaCarmel carrying yomtov items for bases around the country. This includes six tons of fish, 450 packages of stuffed fish, 18 tons of turkey, 16 tons of chicken and 7.5 tons of meat.
In addition, the military will be distributing 25 tons of apples that will be dipped in the 2 tons of honey in an effort to sweeten the yomtov for the nation’s fighting forces, those unable to make it home and spend yomtov with their families.
In addition, dining rooms in bases will receive 3 tons of dried fruits, 5.5 tons of pomegranates, 6 tons of fresh yellow dates and 6 tons of honey cake. Let’s not forget 7,000 bottles of grape juice and 9,500 bottles of soft drinks.
The military makes and effort to send married personnel home, replacing them wherever possible with single soldiers, hesder troops and others serving their mandatory service.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
Being that when I presented this question in a sarcastic way last week, it was completely misinterpreted, I will ask it in a straightforward manner.
There are a number of people who post here who say outright that the whole idea of the IDF is to make young men become non-religious (or at minimum that the IDF cares little or not all for anything religious).
If that were true, why would the IDF take the trouble to get all the Yom Tov items mentioned above to the troops?
This is precisely what I meant (that was misconstrued) when I asked why in the world the IDF would need Sifrei Torah.
Please do not respond that they are doing it to make it more chareidi friendly. The fact is that the IDF has been doing this for years!
Please keep in mind that while you are in a nice comfortable, air conditioned shul, there are young men out in the field (in very UNcomfortable conditions) helping to keep E”Y safe for us.
May HKB”H bring us complete shalom, so that we will no longer NEED an army!
I just spent rosh hashana in a small bunker with nothing even resembling a minyan. My commander was nice and didn’t send me on a 24 hour ambush. I am kind of hoping that I was yotzei with the sounds that came out of the shofar that I got the one guy who sort of knew how to blow the shofar, to blow. Not a pleasant way to spend the most important days of the year. I had to ignore the television and music blaring. I guess this is one of the hard parts of not serving in nachal chareidi.
On the plus side, the food they sent us was very good for army food. If only they would send us food like that every day; we might actually eat well.
Yanky55- I see where your frustration is, the IDF sends a very confusing message. Truth be told the IDF is a “Jewish” army in the fact that they do believe it is now the new year (Tishrei 5773), they also realize they have to instill in the troops a REASON to defend our “Jewish” country. By sending out these items they are helping to strengthen the “Jewish” identity and that’s all. You don’t hear that they had a mandatory shofar blowing in the auditorium. You don’t hear that they sent 4 tons of machzorim, yalmulkas, or transported a bal tokaya to every base? The IDF remains a Jewish army in identity only but not in practice.