In a tip of the hat to Charedi soldiers fulfilling their national service, the IDF is working dilligently to set up Mikva’os for Charedi soldiers fulfilling their mandatory service. The Mikva’os are being installed on all bases in which a company or battalion of Charedi soldiers is serving.

According to the HR department of the IDF, and the supervisors of the project Major Amir Vaknin and Mendi Katz, the Mikva’os are currently being built on the training bases of the Givatiת Paratrooper and Kfir Corps with future expansion to other bases where Charedim serve already slated for the future.

In the mean time, until the work is finalized, some bases such as the Paratroopers base has reached an agreement with the nearby town to allow the Charedi soldiers to use the town’s mikvah on a daily basis. The town nearest to the paratrooper training bases is Shomriya, and the town’s secretariat has agreed to this arrangement.

Lieutenant Colonel Eliav Elbaz, who oversees the Paratrooper Corps. said: “We are doing everything that we can in order to allow the Charedi soldiers who enlist in the paratrooper corps. to maintain their religious lifestyle in the best way possible. Our training base provides food that is up to the strictest kosher standardization, we allow our soldiers to keep Shabbos and all of the commandments and even allow them daily dips in the Mikvah. Our partnership with the town of Shomriya is something special and will allow our soldiers a great sense of ease. Once a week the IDF will pay for a bus to the town’s mikvah and allow any soldier that wants to use the facilities there to do so. This is just one of the steps being taken on our base to allow the Charedi soldiers to have the easiest and most successful acclimation to military life possible.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)