A number of prominent religious Zionist rabbis took a stand Monday against women serving in the IDF, addressing hundreds of enlistment-age women.
The event, titled "About the Essence and Uniqueness of Women," was held in Jerusalem and sponsored by the Chotam organization.
Prior to the conference, a minor controversy broke out on social media when it became clear that the list of speakers on "women's specialness" included only two women.
During the conference, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, who has been a vocal opponent of women's military service, asked the audience: "They put boys and girls together in an APC, on guard duty – how do they expect the woman to have a family after that?
"What is this good for? Out of 192 countries, only two have compulsory military service for women – Israel and North Korea. Why do it? It's been turned into a banner [issue] and the girls' desire to contribute to Israeli society, their true desire to contribute and do [something] are taken and used to defend the country," he said.
"It doesn't contribute, like the former head of the Shin Bet [security agency] said – it isn't a military consideration, it's a question of values. We aren't talking about equality here, or about respecting women. This is about a new value – gender."
In fact, a number of countries, such as Norway, Bolivia, and Cuba, also have compulsory military service for women.
Rabbi David Fendel, head of the hesder yeshiva Afikei Daat in Sderot, said, "We won't let any agenda obscure femininity. … We aspire to reach a generation of redemption, of homes of sanctity and purity, that combine male strength and female strength."
Rabbi Yehoshua Van Dyke chimed in: "There is a female character, female uniqueness, and when they try and turn women into men it decreases the birth rate. It is contemptuous of women, offends their dignity. Not every rabbi can make decisions about laws of Jewish observance for the public. The Chief Rabbinate of Israel has decided that the army is no place for women. We aren't weakening the army; we believe in the army; we believe in the state; so we have the strength to fight for this."
Speakers at the conference also included Tal Geller, a former IDF officer, who argued that the military struggled to meet the needs of minorities in general, and religious girls in particular.
Religious educator Idit Itzkovitch told the audience that "feelings are more dominant in a woman's spirit, and women's role at home is to build feelings of sanctity."
The conference also featured videos of Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, who has taken a strident stance against women's service in the military.
"All rabbis in Israel agree that mixed-gender service in combat units is absolutely forbidden, and that [religious men and women] must not serve in these units," he says in one of the videos. "Most Israeli rabbis also agree that service in other [noncombat] mixed-gender units is forbidden. In principle, we oppose men and women serving together in the army."
