The IDF has decided to open all roles to ultra-Orthodox recruits who meet the criteria, and is providing a package of services to meet the needs of soldiers from this sector.
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Haredi recruits will be allowed to postpone their draft date to complete relevant core studies and will be entitled to special training programs ahead of their discharge, giving them a leg up in civilian life.
Hundreds of students brought up in Israel's haredi school system enlist in the IDF each year, and are directed to units that have been adapted to their lifestyle requirements, including combat roles. However, the haredi recruits would prefer other roles – with some aspiring to serve in intelligence and others wanting to serve with non-haredi troops.
In some cases, the soldiers asking to be placed in non-haredi frameworks generally had low personnel classifications, either because of their ultra-Orthodox schooling – which does not include core studies or matriculation exams – or because of their socioeconomic background. This led to a situation in which many haredi recruits served in jobs that wasted their potential.
Last year, the IDF Planning and Personnel Directorate worked out a new policy on drafting soldiers from the haredi school system. The IDF stressed that the new framework was designed to accommodate not only "drop-outs" from the ultra-Orthodox lifestyle, but also those who adhere to stringent religious practice and still opted to serve in the military. These recruits will be given the option to postpone their service until they can complete their core studies matriculation, thus improving their classification. Initial screenings will discount their socio-economic background and their education gaps, and will rely on interviews to assess their potential to contribute to the IDF.
The person behind the initiative is Maj. Michael Raber, 36, who was one of those same recruits when he joined the IDF's ranks. He saw the change as imperative, even though it falls outside the scope of his job in the military prosecutor's office.
"I grew up in Lithuanian Haredi society until I was 17, and then I left," Raber says. "I studied law, but when I got to the army, they told me at the induction base to be a general worker or a kashruth supervisor. I explained I had a law degree and I wanted to serve in the military prosecutor's office, abut because my classification was very low, I had to fight to get what I wanted. In the end, I was assigned the job of 'general workers' in the prosecutor's office and only a year later did they give me the same status as recruits who postpone service to earn professional degrees."
Raber says his story is not unusual. Many soldiers raised in haredi society have been assigned relative minor roles, despite their intelligence, when they could have taken on more significant service assignments.
"I have a friend who now works as a programmer in high-tech, but for most of his service, he worked for an NCO. It didn't make sense," Raber says.
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A year ago, he began volunteering with the nonprofit group Out for Change, which supports former haredim who want to integrate into mainstream society and was advocating for the IDF to change its policy on drafting soldiers who went through the yeshiva system rather than the public school system.
Cpl. S, 22, joined the classified intelligence unit 9900 a year and a half ago. When he arrived for his induction, he discovered that he did not have many options, but he consulted Out for Change, which helped him make it through the screen process, despite his low qualifications on paper.
"I'm certain there are other people who drop out of yeshivas and the system doesn't know how to read them," S. says. "They wind up in different places, but they deserve more – and the system can derive greater benefit from them. I'm sure it's really frustration. You want to feel like your contributing and they don't allow you to. The fact that they're changing the framework and allowing them to go into fields that meet their needs, for essential service, is definitely happy news."
Raber says that the IDF is now opening all roles to haredi recruits, and that the new regulations will take effect this week.
"Finally, they aren't looking at one point, but rather the whole, and realizing that if a soldier lacks certain abilities, he studied in yeshiva had has other abilities that can be developed. This past year, we've mentored many graduates of haredi schools who were assigned to significant service roles, like Unit 8200 or the Intelligence Directorate's Research Division. Now people won't have to fight anymore to get to the jobs that are right for them," he says.
