This Tuesday, 15 Teves, a joint meeting will be held of the Knesset Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee and the Knesset Law Committee regarding regulations of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman vis-à-vis receiving a deferment from military service for one’s religious beliefs’ as is the case with frum women in Israel. If accepted, the senior minister’s regulations will present serious problems for chareidi and religious females seeking to be excused from military service.

The bill is based on Amendment No.18 to the Defense Service Law enacted in 2012. According to the law: “If the authority has a substantial basis for assuming that a candidate for security service is granted an exemption and she behaves in a manner that is not compatible with any of the conditions for which it has declared in accordance with that section, the deferment may be challenged and the committee may cancel it”.

In addition, the law stipulates that before turning to the committee, officials must inform the person in charge of the defense service of its intentions and rights in accordance with the law, and after 30 days it may turn to the committee.

The makeup of the committee was not determined in the framework of the Law. Liberman wants to change it so that rabbonim/dayanim are a minority. The proposed committee will have a majority of representatives who have not been trained to distinguish who is religious and who is not.

According to the regulations, the composition of the proposed committee – which will be appointed by the Minister of Defense – will consist of a judge, the head of the committee, two representatives of the public who served in the field of personnel management in the IDF, at the rank of at least a major, a public representative on the recommendation of the Chief Rabbis and a public representative who served as a military chaplain.

“The demand that two representatives have a past in the military personnel branch is unreasonable, and from them we hear that the whole goal is to make it difficult for the girls,” said the sources. The opponents explain the bottom line is, the rabbonim, who are most capable of determining who is really religious and who is not, will be a minatory in the committee and this they feel is absurd.

An additional problem is that there will be a clash – for on the one hand, a rav may give his expert opinion but the challenge comes before a military appeals body, and the word of the rav who signed a declaration that she if religious does not carry the same weight as the IDF committee members, the personnel experts. In addition, the officials will be give far too generous a time period to challenge a female’s declaration of being religious, more than the law requires. Hence, even if a female receives a deferment from IDF service for religious reasons, that deferment may be challenged if officials so decide.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)