What appears to be a growing anti-chareidi sentiment in the IDF is continuing as there is a sharp increase in the number of regulations and directives aimed at those seeking to maintaining a frum lifestyle in the IDF.
There has been a sharp increase in the number of religious soldiers instructed to remove their beards and in some cases, commanders are making this contingent on remaining in one’s unit and the quality of one’s military service for failing to comply with an order will result in one being charged with insubordination.
Arutz-7 reports of one chareidi recruit, whose family report was instructed prior to the beginning of basic training to shave his beard. The soldier, 19, a scion of a chassidus court, on Wednesday 20 Menachem Av was thrown off the bus heading for basic training. He was instructed to shave or present authorization from the IDF permitting him to maintain a beard for religious reasons.
The family contacted askanim and in a few hours learned that instead of assigning him to a chareidi unit, he was sent to a regular unit. He now has authorization for the beard.
Unfortunately, for the young soldiers in the field facing commanders, the situation is frightening at best and at times, embarrassing or worse. In the meantime, IDF commanders insist they hope to continue increasing the annual quote for chareidi inductees, insisting the IDF can and does
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
6 Responses
Good. Let them just continue forcing the beards off from chareidim until they’ll learn that Gedolei Yisrael were right all along and stop setting foot in the Shmad Army.
I am expecting silence from gadolhador, zionflag, and berlin rabbi…..when it comes to these types of incidents they usually have nothing to say..
But if someone insults the medina..watch out!
I still am waiting for their reasoning…
“Growing anti-chareidi sentiment in the IDF” my foot. Growing anti-IDF sentiment in YWN is more to the point. So, a charedi recruit did not ask for the required beard permit at the Baku”m and after being assigned to a unit his commander then correctly ordered him to shave his beard. The soldier obviously refused to do so and quickly got a beard permit. Having the permit, no one will order him to shave. The moral of the story is that a charedi (or D”L) recruit who grows a beard for religious reasons must be sure to get a beard permit while he is at the Baku”m. Most recruits know this (hence the thousands of bearded soldiers serving in the IDF at any given moment). A few clearly don’t, or drop the ball for some reason, and then have a problem until the issue is resolved.
But when a chasidishe boys camp condemns the state and idf it’s called a chilul hashem.
Please correct your reporting. The recruit did not file the paperwork necessary to have a beard. I have many neighbors with beards in the IDF and they don’t have issues. In fact, if a soldier has tgs proper paperwork and is mistreated because of his beard, the commander in question faces jail time.
The army has been having a very difficult time with beards in the past few years. While religious soldiers who do not shave should be allowed to keep their beards, there was a problem with too many soldiers with goatees or other weird facial hair configurations. That’s when the need for special permission was required. Commanders in combat units will usually not cause any problem, and if you are not in a combat unit, talk to the unit rabbi.