A senior religious Zionist rabbi has said that if an observant male recruit will be forced to serve in a mixed-gender unit, he should refuse to enlist in the IDF.
Writing on the religious website Kipa, Rabbi Shlomo Aviner responded to a question about serving alongside women posted by a yeshiva student who is about to be conscripted: "It is a great blessing to serve in the army, but along with that comes the Torah instructions that men and women must keep their distance from each other.
"One must ask to serve in serious combat units where there are no women, or in frameworks such as the haredi Nahal," Aviner continued.
The young man replied that it was not always possible to receive such assignments, and Aviner wrote back: "If this is true, then, unfortunately, [religious men] must not join the army. Either a separate unit or no military service. The mitzvah [religious commandment] of army service must not be performed through another transgression."
The religious Zionist movement Ne'emanei Torah Vaavodah issued a statement criticizing Aviner's stance.
"Rabbi Aviner's call to dodge the draft cross a line. Disputes with the military must be solved through respectful dialogue," the movement said.
In related news, MK Bezalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi) on Wednesday responded to IAF pilot Maj. T. becoming the first woman to be appointed a squadron commander, as well as the IDF's efforts to open other combat roles to women.
Speaking in an interview on Reshet Bet radio, Smotrich said, "Some professions are appropriate for men, and some are appropriate for women – Heaven forbid that women turn into men."
Smotrich condemned the egalitarian values the IDF is trying to promote, saying that "the army needs to win wars, not promote all sorts of 'enlightened liberal values.'"
Smotrich also insisted that the military continue to provide religious male soldiers with service conditions that would allow them to maintain their religious way of life.
On Tuesday, the IDF reported that, in addition to the historic appointment of a female squadron commander, head of the IAF Maj. Gen. Amikan Norkin also appointed the first female commander of a flight control unit in the history of the Israeli Air Force.
