The last two decades have seen a decrease in the number of women joining the IDF, a study by the right-wing religious NGO Chotam has found. The drop was noted despite the fact that the military has set up several new units, including a combat unit for women.
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The report further showed an increase in the number of women who requested an exemption from military service on religious grounds, which indicates that the IDF's current trend of drawing recruits from the religious sector is not as effective as some institutions claim.
Data obtained by Chotam, which works "to restore Judaism to the public agenda," including the recruitment of religious girls to the IDF, showed that while in 1999 the recruitment rate of young women was 61.8%, it currently stands at 55.9%.
The significant decline began in the early 2000s but seems to continues.
As for exemptions on religious grounds, in 1999, 26.98% of potential female conscripts appealed for an exemption, while in 2019, the number rose to 35.8%. This shows that the IDF's efforts to minimize this phenomenon are not effective.
Another statistics deals with exemptions on medical grounds. While in 1999, 1.7% of women received an exemption of this kind, by 2009, the number rose to 2.5%, in 2019 to 3.9%.
Chotam also revealed that s data from a 2019 Central Bureau of Statistics report shows that military service affects the religious observance of female recruits.
According to the report, of female recruits ages 20-29 who grew up in a religious home and served in the IDF, only 36% defined themselves as religious. The rest defined themselves as traditional or secular.
In contrast, among young women of the same age who performed National Service, 82% who grew up in religious homes continue to define themselves as such.
The National Service program offers an alternative to conscription for those who are ineligible for IDF service for medical, religious or other reasons but still wish to serve their country.
"Despite the extensive efforts by the IDF to get religious girls to enlist, and presenting time and again that their campaigns are a success, it turns out that the trend is the opposite," the Chotam organization said in a statement.
"The numbers create a great dissonance and public distrust in the institution that should be at the heartof the greatest public consensus.
"Most of the decline in the recruitment results from the demographic growth of the ultra-Orthodox and religious population," the IDF Spokesperson's Unit said in response. "We note that this trend also characterizes the percentage of men recruited."
The Ne'emanei Torah Va'Avodah religious Zionist organization also disputed the findings, saying, "The 'investigation' by Chotam as published in Israel Hayom claiming that the increase in the percentage of girls exempt from IDF service on religious grounds because 'most prefer the National Service' is more wishful thinking than the truth.
"According to the data, in 2000 the percentage of women from the religious Zionist sector who enlisted [in the IDF] used to be 25%, and currenly it stands is 30%.
"A study conducted by Ne'emanei Torah Va'Avodah shows that most of the increase in the last decade is due to a significant increase in the proportion of religious Zionist women from the 'mainstream' religious Zionist communities who enlist in the IDF.
"At the same time, there's a significant decrease in the number of religious Zionist girls who perform National Service. The reported increase in the percentage of women who receive exemptions from the military service on religious grounds is simply the result of the demographic growth of the ultra-Orthodox sector, which isn't relevant for the religious Zionist public," it said.
"Women have served in the IDF since Israel's inception when there was a shortage of manpower and an immediate existential threat to the young state of Israel," the Torat Lechima NGO that works towards reducing the number of female recruits in the IDF wrote.
"Since then, there've been accelerated processed in the IDF in which the women's corps became the Women's Affairs Adviser to the Chief of Staff, later the Gender Affair Adviser to the Chief of Staff out of a radical feminist trend through outside progressive organizations.
"This diverted the army's resources and efforts from recruiting male soldiers [religious and ultra-Orthodox], and dealing with the problem of motivation for combat, to over-engaging in recruiting female soldiers and breaking the glass ceiling.
"Also in the recommendation document of left-wing INSS NGOs and the Israel Democracy Institute to the IDF from 2013 [it was] required of the army to give up recruiting male soldiers (religious and ultra-Orthodox) just to promote female recruitment, as stated for feminist reasons. The army accepted this, and since then, male soldiers were pushed [aside] to advance the [feminist] agenda, violating the obvious security considerations.
"The religious and ultra-Orthodox public in the State of Israel is growing, and the senior command must wake up from the feminist-radical illusion of breaking the glass ceiling for the purpose of civic advancement, to properly prepare for the next war and invest efforts in the recruitment that is tailored to draw manpower who will assist the IDF's original goals, while renouncing dubious ties with far-left organizations that distract the IDF from its only role: victory in war."
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