As Yesh Atid leader Finance Minister Yair Lapid vows to get rid of the Chief Rabbis of Israel for their opposition to women serving in the IDF, party colleague, Minister of Education Rabbi Shai Piron, does not see eye to eye with him.
Perhaps as Lapid ousts Chief Rabbis Yitzchak Yosef and David Lau, he will have to dismiss his education minister as well, for the latter sides with the psak Halacha of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel prohibiting women from serving in the military.
Orot Shaul Hesder Yeshiva graduate Ron Chori found a teshuvah from Rav Piron from when he was a rebbe in that yeshiva in which Rabbi Piron wrote “I cannot find a posek that permits females to serve in the IDF.” Chori published the teshuvah from Piron on the education minister’s Facebook page and on Lapid’s page as well.
Rabbi Piron was asked to state his opinion after a discussion in the shiur regarding women serving in the IDF. Piron stated he was not aware of any posek who permits females to serve in the IDF. Piron adds “the problem of serving in the IDF is the general atmosphere that does not permit life without needlessly falling. The pressures, the non-normal situation may result in an encounter between boys and girls in precisely some of the sides of the impurities.”
“We all have places that we don’t go, not because we are certain something will occur. Therefore, we don’t march down dangerous routes and relate with amazement to those hungry for dangerous adventure and peril. Just as we are aware of physical danger we must become increasingly sensitive to spiritual dangers.”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
1. Conscription of religious women would be very explosive. At this point in time, no country in the world conscripts women, and the United States which is Israel’s “patron” (to put it politely) has never conscripted women.
2. As it is, the army has a serious problem with sexual harassment of female soldiers (at least according to the pro-IDF, secular, zionist press).
3. If the Shomer Shabbos members of the non-hareidi parties stopped supporting the “war on the hareidim”, the war would come to an end.
I hope Rabbi Piron remembers his own ruling and holds to it.
“Just as we are aware of physical danger we must become increasingly sensitive to spiritual dangers.”
Very interesting. So Shai, how do you explain your Party’s stance on Gay Marriage & Government funded, Abortion on demand?! You can’t have it both ways.
‘the United States which is Israel’s “patron” (to put it politely) has never conscripted women.’
Franklin Roosevelt asked for permission to draft nurses in 1945, but World War II ended before the nursing shortage became sufficiently critical for Congress to grant it.
“the army has a serious problem with sexual harassment of female soldiers”
That is a good argument for kicking the MEN out of the army for bad behavior. Maybe the charedim are right — keep the men in yeshiva at least until they are mature enough to stop acting like boors.
“war on the hareidim”
This “women in the IDF” issue is really a machloket across Dati Leumi poskim. The Chief Rabbis got snookered into getting involved into something that wasn’t their issue, just as they got snookered into pasuling Rabbi Avi Weiss’s eidut by some of his enemies in the US. They should have kept out of that one, too.
charliehall: Your argument is that Israel should kick the men out of the army. I don’t want to be rude, and I’m hardly pro-war, but a zionist state defended exclusively by women wouldn’t last very long. Unfortunately, armies are dependant on adolescent males who tend to be somewhat boorish since they make the best soldiers (men peak physically at that age, they aren’t tied down with a family to worry about, and at that age they are too immature to realize why they don’t really want to prove their manhood by becoming cannon fodder). If armies relied on women and mature men, they would probably realize how dumb the war is and make peace. That’s why the grownups run the government, and the kids get blow to pieces (previous cut up, but swords are out of style – I guess originally they got stoned or merely beaten up).