A new storm is brewing in the religious-Zionist public, with the decision by IDF Personnel Corps Commander Maj.-Gen. Elazar Stern to disband the special yeshivat hesder units in the army.

Beginning with the upcoming recruitment in March, the hesder yeshiva students – who combine army service with yeshiva study in a five-year combined program – will not serve in special hesder companies. Instead, they will be dispersed in smaller groups throughout larger battalions.

“We have no interest in ideological units in the army,” said Stern, himself an observant Jew, to Army Radio today. “The IDF is an army of the people, and people should get to know each other, and not think that the other side has horns.” He implied that even the Nachal Hareidi - special units that enabled many hareidi-religious soldiers to serve in the army because of their nearly-total separate nature - might be dismantled as well.

The special hesder units were established to enable the observant soldiers to pray together and otherwise their religious way of life.

Stern denied that the new decision’s timing is connected with the scheduled disengagement and a fear that entire units might refuse expulsion orders.

“There is no phenomenon of refusal in the army,” said Stern, “though we are taking preventive measures so that it will not sprout in the future.”

MK Effie Eitam, a Brig.-Gen. in the reserves, is up in arms at the attempt to destroy the hesder units. “I commanded these units very often during my 30 years in the army… No one ever considered them to be ideological units; they are combat units for all intents and purposes. The timing of this decision is clearly political, and the army has allowed itself to become embroiled in the public political controversy.”

Eitam said he plans to fight the decision: “I will submit a Knesset query to the Defense Minister, I will bring it up for debate in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and I will speak with the Chief of Staff as well.”

Rabbi David Stav, head of the Petach Tikvah hesder yeshiva, accused Gen. Stern of acting “without integrity” in making such a unilateral decision: “He asked us what we think, we told him we object - and then he suddenly makes this extreme decision,” Rabbi Stav said. “This is the first time such a thing has been done, without consultation and without trying to reach agreement.” He said that it is not true that the yeshiva soldiers do not mix with the regular army: “After ten months in the army, in any event, they are dispersed in different units.”

Another concern is the increasing number of young female soldiers serving in combat and other units in the army – a situation with which the yeshivot hesder wish to avoid coming in contact. One former hesder student told Arutz-7 that this will apparently not be the main problem: “The battalions [gdudim] will remain the same [all-male in most cases – ed.], and the new change will affect mainly the companies [made up of approximately 30 soldiers each]. Until now, in many cases, one of the three companies in a battalion was made up of hesder soldiers; now, according to what we understand, the hesder students will be spread out among each of the companies. For soldiers coming straight out of yeshiva, this will be a very difficult beginning of their army service.”

One non-religious former commander of hesder students speaking on Army Radio about the new move was asked to grade their professional performance. “On a scale of one to ten,” he said, “I give them eleven.”

Rabbi Stav said this morning that the yeshiva heads will convene and decide on their next steps, “which may include a petition to the Supreme Court, and possibly more extreme steps.”

Later in the day, MK Zevulun Orlev of the NRP said that both Gen. Stern and yeshiva heads had expressed willingness to meet and discuss the matter. “The decision’s timing obligates both sides to separate it from the disengagement issue,” Orlev said, “and to find the right combination that will both manifest the unique nature of the hesder students’ service and allow the army to integrate them in a way that will help all the battalions.”

MK Orlev called upon politicians to stay out of the issue and to allow the sides to solve the problem themselves.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 25th, 2005 and is filed under news.