The IDF under the leadership IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-General Gadi Eizenkott has been less than accommodating to religious soldiers and their rabbonim. The rabbonim affiliated with the nation’s hesder yeshivot are working hard to maintain the long-standing religious quo but it would appear they are standing in quicksand as the IDF chief is far more interested in integrating women into combat units that preserving an acceptable environment for Torah-observant soldiers and officers. In fact, it appears Eizenkott is working hard to distance the frum soldiers as much as possible and he is succeeding of late.

An earlier meeting between the rabbonim and the IDF chief left strained relations between the sides and the changes in regulations that are making life for religious soldiers increasingly intolerable in the IDF are certainly adding to those tensions.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)