The Israel Defense Forces will allow non-Orthodox rabbis to officiate military funerals for fallen soldiers, ending a longstanding practice that only rabbis from the Military Rabbinate, all of which are Orthodox, can perform such services.
The decision was announced Thursday in response to a legal challenge by non-Orthodox streams that called the exclusion of non-Orthodox rabbis discriminatory.
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Under the compromise reached with the petitioners, families of fallen soldiers would get to decide whether the ceremony would be officiated by a military rabbi, the default option, or whether to have it run by religious figures from other Jewish streams.
The new rules mean that Conservative and Reform rabbis, including women, will have the same status as Orthodox rabbis in military funerals even though they are not officially recognized by the state.
However, the military will still be allowed to veto a family's request if their choice of a rabbi would drastically change the burial procedures or undermine the sanctity of the chosen cemetery.
