Prominent religious Zionist rabbis voiced strong opposition Tuesday to a planned pilot program in the Armored Corps to integrate women into frontline combat roles, beyond border security duties.
The rabbis joined calls from activists and yeshiva students and sent a sharply worded letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning against the move.
“We can no longer remain silent,” the rabbis wrote. “Turning the Armored Corps into a mixed-gender framework will place our students before an impossible contradiction between their faith and their operational service.”
Among the signatories were Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, former chief rabbi of Ramat Gan; Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, chief rabbi of Safed; Rabbi Yaakov Shapira, head of Mercaz Harav Yeshiva; Rabbi Aryeh Stern, former chief rabbi of Jerusalem; Rabbi Dov Lior, former chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba; and others affiliated with the Torat Ha’aretz Hatova rabbinical organization.
In their letter, titled “Harm to Operational Resilience and the Service Capacity of Our Fighters,” the rabbis wrote that their students serve on the front lines of the Israel Defense Forces out of deep devotion and see their service as a supreme religious and national duty.
However, they expressed what they described as deep concern over what they called an accelerated trend of integrating women into frontline combat units.
“The IDF is not ‘just another army’; its strength and secret of victory lie in divine assistance that accompanies it,” they wrote. “Preserving holiness and modesty in the camp is not a private matter of the religious soldier, but a fundamental condition for the resilience of the entire army and for divine assistance on the battlefield.”
The rabbis said they had chosen to remain silent during months of fighting out of national responsibility, but that the current situation required them to act.
“When the army moves toward gender mixing that is forbidden according to Judaism, contrary to logic and security needs, we can no longer remain silent,” they wrote.
2 View gallery
Rabbis opposing the integration of female soldiers into the Armored Corps
(Photo: David Cohen)
They warned that making the Armored Corps a mixed-gender unit, as has been done in the Artillery Corps, would have serious consequences.
“This move will effectively exclude Torah-observant fighters from contributing to the security of Israel solely because of their way of life,” the letter said. “That will weaken the entire combat array and undermine the people’s army. Surrender to foreign social agendas that are not the army’s concern and are not part of the values of victory harms state security, especially at this time.”
The letter concluded with a demand for an urgent meeting with Netanyahu to prevent what the rabbis described as a “disaster.”
The Dvora Forum — Women in Foreign Policy and National Security — criticized the letter, calling it “a direct and serious threat of refusal to serve.”
“An attempt to condition service or to set terms that weaken the combat array directly harms state security and the resilience of the IDF,” the group said in a statement.
Citing IDF data, the forum said that one in five combat soldiers is a woman. It urged the rabbis to focus on strengthening state security and promoting broad and equal enlistment, including in the ultra-Orthodox sector, rather than campaigning to exclude women from combat roles.
“The arguments in the letter do not reflect the religious sector,” the forum said, adding that according to IDF Personnel Directorate data, more religious young women are choosing military service, including in combat positions.