A new regulation set by IDF Armory Commander, Colonel Ehud David, stipulates that every soldier under his command is to be brought on a visit to the Kotel, the Western Wall.

Every Sunday, IDF soldiers are brought to different sites around Israel to learn about the history and culture of the nation of Israel from up close.

Colonel David decided there was a need to revamp entire IDF educational program after it was revealed that half of the soldiers in the units under his command ‘ many of them new immigrants to Israel ‘ had never visited the Kotel.

He learned from talking to individual soldiers that many were lacking basic knowledge of Jewish heritage and Israel’s geography and history. ‘I saw soldiers didn’t know how to draw a map of Israel, didn’t know how to recite Hatikva [Israel’s national anthem] and didn’t know the names of Israel’s Prime Ministers,’ David said. ‘A soldier must know about all of Israel’s wars and recognize the country’s borders. There are soldiers that don’t have any idea what our struggle with the Arabs is about and things like ‘the Peel Commission’ mean nothing to them.’

Because of this, the educational department prepared an educational program to combine heritage, history and geography to be taught to the soldier’s in all the various companies under David’s command.

As a result, in recent months, soldiers from the unit have taken part in one-day trips to the Western Wall and the Kotel Tunnels, which run along the western wall for the length of the Temple Mount.

In addition to the visit to the Kotel, company commanders developed programs including visits to relevant sites tailored to expose soldiers to specific historic sites under their jurisdiction, such as Latrun and Ammunition Hill. The trips have become a weekly occurrence.

‘If soldiers come over to me after a tour and say ‘Thank you very much,’ I feel I have earned my bread,’ said David. ‘This is the mission, in my view ‘ to strengthen the Zionism of IDF soldiers and to train them to be even better citizens.’

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 12th, 2005 and is filed under news.