Some 257 current and former female IDF officers sent a letter Wednesday to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, Defense Minister Israel Katz and Defense Ministry Director General Amir Baram, warning of what they described as an “anti-women wave against female combat soldiers and women in the IDF.” In the letter, the officers called on the military and political leadership to stop what they said was the “takeover of the IDF by outside elements” and warned of damage to the chain of command.
“We stand together as one front to defend the female combat force in the IDF,” the officers wrote. “Recently, we have witnessed a dangerous reality of harm to the chain of command. As officers who have dedicated, and still dedicate, our lives to the security of the state, we see this as an immediate danger to the IDF.”
The signatories include six brigadier generals, seven colonels and 28 lieutenant colonels. They said the officers come “from across the political spectrum.” Among other things, they argued that “a reality in which foreign considerations dictate the composition of the fighting force, especially in the midst of a war, is a security failure and the dismantling of the people’s army from within.” Female combat soldiers, they said, “are not a subject for debate or a problem to be halted, but an operational fact and a strategic asset,” adding: “The apology for our presence is over.”
The officers’ letter also addressed calls by rabbis against mixed-gender service, which they described as “a call for de facto refusal” and “a blatant attempt to dictate a civilian agenda to the IDF at the expense of operational needs.” They said “the silence of senior command in the face of this dangerous interference in the assignment of forces constitutes a severe blow to national security and to the authority of commanders in the field.”
The officers demanded the publication of an official order of the day and a binding command clarification on mixed-gender service, alongside “zero tolerance toward hesder yeshiva rabbis and commanders who cooperate with the exclusion of women in the field.” They called on the defense minister and the ministry’s director general to reexamine service arrangements with yeshivas that they said in practice encourage disobedience to the chain of command.
Female combat soldier
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)
‘No one will stop us from having equal rights’
Among the signatories was Lt. Col. (res.) Zohar Lipkin, who served as a welfare, casualties and public inquiries officer and is now deputy head of the Upper Galilee Regional Council. She told ynet on Wednesday morning: “I am proud of women who choose to serve in general and in combat in particular. The transformation the army has undergone in recent years in integrating women fills me with admiration for them. Any attempt to undermine their choice to defend the country sets me off. My hope is that the exclusion of women will stop. No one will stop us from having equal rights in Israel. I am disappointed in the leadership, which is mostly male. There should be more female representation in the army and in the country in general.”
The letter was also signed by Lt. Col. (res.) Mati Zweig, who served as an officer in the Intelligence Corps and today serves as a board member at Yahav and chair of the bank’s technology and innovation committee. She told ynet: “Women in the IDF have proved over the years their strength, professionalism and necessity in every field, and their determination reached its peak on October 7. While the army suffers from a severe shortage of combat soldiers and the number of female combat soldiers is growing, a handful of rabbis and their supporters are trying to impose a completely disconnected agenda that calls for refusal and undermining the chain of command. We demand the implementation of the High Court ruling and enforcement of the mixed-gender service order.”
Gali Neshri, a reserve combat soldier in Caracal and one of the petitioners to the High Court on the integration of women in the IDF, also signed the letter. “After dozens of letters by rabbis seeking to exclude us from the army while harming national security, we call on the military leadership to draw a red line and publicly clarify the importance of our service and our operational contribution to the IDF,” she told ynet.
The letter was initiated by Moran Zer Katzenstein, a former officer and founder of the Women Build an Alternative movement, who is running in the Democratic Party primaries. “Command of the IDF must remain solely in the hands of commanders,” she said. “It is clear that the exclusion of women is a clear agenda of rabbis who want to send us back home and make us disappear and erase us from the public sphere. We must stop this madness.”
Moran Zer Katzenstein, who initiated the letter Photo: Oz MualemEarlier this week, against the backdrop of the integration of the first female combat soldier into Sayeret Matkal, that Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, head of the Bnei David pre-military academy in the West Bank settlement of Eli, called on students at pre-military academies and yeshivas not to enlist in the elite unit. He said it is now a “mixed-gender unit” that does not meet halachic requirements for observant soldiers.
That followed an announcement by heads of hesder yeshivas that they would halt enlistment to the Armored Corps following the integration of female combat soldiers. In addition, in February, nearly 1,000 hesder yeshiva students slated for combat roles signed a letter sent by rabbis to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, demanding that women not be integrated into the Armored Corps.
The IDF currently has a company of female armored combat soldiers securing the Egyptian border, and the army is considering a pilot program for women to take part in maneuvering forces as well, not only in securing positions and borders.
IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir
(Photo: Effi Sharir)
IDF chief: ‘The IDF needs every male and female combat soldier’
On Tuesday, Zamir addressed the issue of integrating women into the IDF and the shortage of combat soldiers in a meeting with rabbis from the religious Zionist yeshiva world. The meeting was attended by his deputy, Maj. Gen. Tamir Yadai; Ground Forces commander Maj. Gen. Nadav Lotan; Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Itai Ofir; Chief Military Rabbi Brig. Gen. Rabbi Eyal Karim; and Brig. Gen. Shay Tayeb, head of the IDF’s Planning and Manpower Administration Division.
Zamir noted the decisive contribution and great sacrifice of yeshiva and pre-military academy students to the IDF over the years, especially during the war, as they stood alongside other groups in the front ranks of the people’s army.
During the meeting, the IDF’s current needs were presented, with an emphasis on the required increase in manpower in light of unprecedented operational challenges and the scope of missions across all combat arenas. Zamir made clear that “the IDF is still short thousands of combat soldiers and needs every male and female combat soldier to carry out its missions and consolidate the achievements of the campaign.”
Zamir also addressed the expanded integration of women into key positions and combat roles, saying it is of immense operational importance and that the IDF will continue working to broaden it.
“These steps will be carried out according to operational needs and while meeting professional thresholds, without compromise,” Zamir said. He explained that the establishment of frameworks and the opening of positions would be implemented in full accordance with the mixed-gender service order in routine times, emergencies and war.