The following letter is translated from the original Hebrew. It was written by IDF Captain (reserves) Ricky Damari. It is self explanatory.

My name is Ricky Damari, born in Bayit Vegan in Jerusalem. I attended religious high school and I decided to enlist [into the IDF] to fulfill my desire to contribute to Israel. The values ​​obtained in my youth led me towards the military route as a young lady, but hid from me the heavy price I would pay as a result of my successful career in the Education Corps. I was discharged after eight years of military service with the rank of captain. My contribution in the IDF was significant and along with it I was exposed to things that did not fit me or any other religious lifestyle.

Over the last decade I have been providing lectures, counseling and also with girls turning to me during their military service for advice and support. In my work, I try to be supportive to many religious women soldiers with whom I have a very open line of communication: including phone calls from the field, emergencies and requests for guidance and suggestions as they face a complicated military system which has been foreign to the religious girls until now.

I am well attuned to what has been taking place in the IDF over the past 20 years and it is from that deep understanding that I am pained today at the campaign to recruit more [religious] women while shouting slogans and trial balloons in the media in the dati leumi camp. My personal experience has led me to my conclusions, that service for religious women in the IDF is complicated and at times, even incorrect.

Before I begin with my stories about the problems that exist every morning, some history and data;

1. For many years there was a Women’s Corps in the IDF which was responsible for training women in a separate framework. This included officers training, non-commissioned officers training and other professional courses held in a framework without men on the base. The IDF decided to eliminate that corps in 2001, and since then, all professional training is done in a gender integrated atmosphere.

2. In 2002 the United States, which does not have a ‘chareidi agenda’, decided gender mixed training was an infringement of privacy, human dignity and was counterproductive for unit cohesiveness. The US army realized 12 years ago that feminist agendas have their place but to be military conduct and security must be maintained. Therefore, those agendas are honored and the generals are left to run the defense business in a professional fashion.

3. In the 1990s ACRI (Association for Civil Rights in Israel) and women’s lobbies together with Alice Miller turned to the Supreme Court. She demanded to be accepted into the air force pilot training program but the IDF turned her down. The lawsuit called on the court to compel the IDF to change its directives and open combat positions to women. She opened the door for women in combat roles including anti-aircraft. Pay attention! The IDF was compelled to accept the position of women’s organizations in stark contrast to its original position.

4. Israeli law recognizes the significant contribution and effectiveness of national service. From the perspective of the state national service has contributed significantly to the strength of civil society. The law does not view national service a compromise or alternative to evasion but a legitimate proper service to the nation. If we sum up the history in two sentences, in the IDF women were forced into combat roles leaving the army with gender mixed training which is executing the irrelevant feminist agenda. Our girls joined the army with the encouragement and support of liberal rabbi and organizations affiliated with religious Zionism. But is the army really interested in this service? Or perhaps, there is a campaign of the radical agenda seeking to make sure they adopt foreign cultures. Yes, the IDF Spokesman the Women’s Affairs Advisor to the Chief of Staff sell us the spins and tells the military cannot do without the service of the 1,500 religious women. I am sorry, but I am not buying it.

My work over the past decade exposed me to the complexities of military service for a religious daughter who grew up with a Zionist education, a daughter who grew up with clean language and defined borders which are maintained between the genders at home, at school and afternoon after school, and above all, educated to give towards helping others to better the nation and the people.

The military atmosphere is a totally different one. Everyday language is permissive and sexist and contact between boys and girls is perceived as legitimate and not harassment Heaven forbid.

Extended contact between young men and women at an age when hormones are raging is constantly hovering in the air. I think the permissive atmosphere affects girls and compels them to face situations that can easily deteriorate into a crisis situation. The girls come to me in crisis situations, ask me to help them on the basis of my contacts in the IDF to be released early or change units. Thus begins the saga of lobbying the military, a long and complicated saga, and the daughter? She often ends up continuing to serve in the same unit.

Many parents turn to me with a question about new tracks offered by the army for females. I tell them that yes, there is a difference in the recruitment process and experience and an effort to assign them to ‘less worrisome and vulnerable’ places. These ‘changes’ are limited, and only exist in choice tracks and not always significant enough to matter. In addition, the presence of five religious girls on base with a few hundred will not help them to maintain their lifestyle.

And by the way, the IDF Chief Rabbinate standard is supposed to handle hundreds of religious girls but it does not provide a reasonable response. The girls come to me often as they do not know all the officers sitting in the rabbinate who are supposed to take care of them.

I believe the mass recruitment of women that the radical organizations are pushing for is dangerous to the women and no less dangerous to the IDF. Sorry to confuse the girls who are enlisting into the IDF as a national mission towards unleashing their skills and abilities. From my knowledge in this area, the community is crying out for serious quality girls to give from their hearts and wisdom without hurting their unique interiors.

Wishing you all well with Hashem’s assistance.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)