[VIDEO IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]
Rabbi Yigal Levinstein is a well-known name in Israel’s dati leumi community, a co-founder of the first mechina yeshiva, in Yishuv Eli, over a quarter of a century ago. Standing at the helm of Yeshivat Bnei David along with Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Eli Sadan, Levinstein is also a colonel in the IDF reserves. Being a veteran IDF officer and having dealings with the IDF on a regular basis over the past 25+ years, Rav Levinstein has a finely tuned handle on realities faced day-to-day by dati leumi soldiers and officers. He regularly contacts the high-ranking command of the IDF in dealings with the yeshiva and the thousands of Bnei David graduates, many serving in military’s chain of command.
During an assembly in Yerushalayim last week attended by many prominent leading rabbonim in the dati leumi community in Eretz Yisrael and abroad, Rabbi Levinstein was among the keynote speakers. He spoke of the true agenda of IDF Chief Education Officer Brigadier-General Avner Paz-Tzuk, who is working with tenacity to destroy the IDF Rabbinate while infusing his secular ideology as a replacement.
Levinstein addressed the growing problem of female combatants alongside male soldiers, from both a halachic perspective and from the perspective that today, a soldier cannot necessarily rely on the soldier at his side.
In his address to the rabbonim, Rabbi Levinstein mentions Paz-Tzuk by name, stating that the Education Corps is doing everything in its power to limit the authority and impact of the IDF, pushing its agenda of recognizing Reform Jewry, women combatants and anything and everything else that is anti-Torah. He explains the attitude in the IDF today is “We love your motivation but we don’t tolerate your religion”.
He explains that was the reason the Jewish Consciousness Unit was taken from the IDF Rabbinate and placed under the Education Corps. Clearly, this move was endorsed by IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-General Gadi Eizenkott who appears pleased with the sharp anti-religious turn taken by Israel’s army. Today, soldiers are fighting for permission not to shave their beards and are being ousted from officers training for refusing to listen to women vocalists.
Levinstein adds “they are scared to open their mouths for they understand if they do, they are marked forever” in his reference to officers speaking about Yiddishkheit and religious beliefs. One premier example is Brigadier-General Ofir Winter, who by the way is a graduate of Bnei David, a decorated officer that has been racked over the coals by Paz-Tzuk and those who support him to make certain Winter and those like him will never reach the General Staff or chas v’sholom be considered for the position of Chief of Staff.
Levinstein also draws an example from the IDF “Witnesses in Uniform” program, a program in which officers in uniform visit Auschwitz. He laments that while in the past such visits were intended for the leadership of the IDF never to forget the atrocities of the Shoah, today, under the leadership of the IDF Education Corps, they are told to look at what the Nazis have done and to make sure “we do not become like them in our activities throughout Yehuda and Shomron vis-à-vis Palestinians”. He laments that “Palestinians speakers” are now called in to address soldiers to explain their point of view as part of the education program, seeking to influence them to become sympathetic to a left-wing agenda.
Another example is the air force’s pilots course, which took cadets to a to’eva club in Tel Aviv to paint the location as a ‘chessed’. One religious cadet refused, explaining this has nothing to do with pilots training. Levinstein explains he contacted the chief education officer to confirm this, and to his dismay, this is the case as “pluralism is the new flagship of the Education Corps and he thinks the air force program is good and necessary” stated Levinstein.
Today the IDF he explains is willing to forgo on the “extremist soldiers for normal soldiers” making reference to the mechina soldiers who have become the backbone of the IDF fighting force. However, today, with officers like Winter moving up the ranks, those loyal to Torah and Eretz Yisrael, the secularists are fighting for survival and are doing everything possible to keep the dati leumi officers from becoming the future leaders of the military.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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10 Responses
Well what a shocker who would have thought that the government has sinister motives in drafting drum Jews we “really thought ” it was just about sharing the burden
It amazes me that the dati leumi population has had its head in the sand for so long in relation to the IDF.20-25% of their kids come out of the IDF not religious.They should have realized what the Gedolei Hador were saying about service in the IDF, the secularists only want the religious in the IDF for one reason-to try to secularize them.They want to destroy Judaism!
Keep on fighting against the leftist -anti Torah ideology
#1 & #2 You may have points but here you are missing the point entirely. Zionflag has it right., and fight we must. Its a huge political world-pleasing, insidious disease worming its way in to civil law, religious sacred standards (kotel geirus, marriage law and much more) and now the IDF. And the fight has to be huge on a mass scale to get the standards back. We cannot push back the clock to pre Statehood or change history. We are now responsible to protect our people. Now how can we succeed in that no matter how advanced we are, if there’s no Hashem in the picture, plus so far the other way, pushing in lifestyles so anti torah! It’s these frum IDF members who earn the protection of HakBH, and increase cnances we win. In the days of milchemes mitzvah only the yirei Hashem were accepted! There’s so much emunah and dveikus in their camps, you can’t imagine. These are the troops we need and this insane system, like the eruv rav, is fighting it Well, we need to fight, so that when we fight Hashem will help us win our fights.
Has everyone forgotten that the whole idea of a state was led by those who wanted to replace yiddishkeit with Zionist valuesח”ו. They laughed in our face when “agreeing” to keep the “status quo”. How can one even expect that lying and cheating aren’t part of their toolbox? They admit to forsaking Torah! The defence forces were always a principal weapon to wipe out Torah observance. They used to send frum soldiers to the front so they would get killed! Tell me what’s changed.
Mrs. D: The only way to win the game is not to play it. Join forces with “She’arayich Yerushalayim” – the yoshvei Beis ha’medrash – and our feet will retain a good strong footing. “Im b’chukosai teileichu.”
It’s significant that the eruv rav feels so emboldened and empowered that it coming out of the closet of “tolerance towards religioun” and showing vicious hostility in the open. The order to shave off beards was just the beginning.
The question is whether people in a position to object will open their eyes and take action to opose this, as has Rav Levenstein.
shkoyach. you found an idf officer himself admitting that there are religious problems in the idf. and you now use it to flaunt your political beliefs.
but the difference all you anti-idf commentators and this religious officer is that HE IS AN OFFICER IN THE IDF. you all see the imperfections of the idf and say “thats it boys! run away! the idf is an evil entity and we must not touch it with a ten foot pole!”
but this amazing man, and hundreds of thousands of dati leumis, see the imperfections of the idf and TAKE ON THE CHALLENGE. THEY TRY TO CHANGE IT. THEY TRY TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
if this amazing man saw you using his speech to OPPOSE enlistment into the idf he’d shun you. he himself is a senior officer.
the way to fix a problem isnt running away from it.
chas vshalom that all of us frum jews would run away from the idf’s imperfections, and let the only people who (put in hishtadlus to) protect us be chilonim!
An alarmist and misleading headline. Nobody thought that every last frei fellow there is a lover of Yiddishkeit.
To #8 justajew6: Would you encourage your son (I’m not even talking about a daughter) to join such filth? Will married women agree that their husbands do reserve army duty in such an environment? I think that even many secular Israelis don’t relish the thought of close proximity to such types while on duty in a foxhole, bunker, or outpost. In the past, the IDF used to reject to’eva-niks from army service altogether. Now, they are being drafted, and the officer training curriculum is being changed to accept them into the ranks of the army. As if “pluralism” and “acceptance of the ‘other’” is somehow going to improve the fighting capability of the IDF…. Something they didn’t realize 20 or 30 years ago. Aside from undermining morale, this will surely lead to a definite decrease in the “deterrence”factor in the eyes of the Arabs. Imagine how the Moslem world is reacting to this; and don’t think they don’t know all about it – they know! Unless the IDF thinks this to be a new secret weapon against the enemy – causing them to die by laughing…