JERUSALEM— Alex Katz, a 19-year-old high school graduate, wears a kippah, prays three times a day, and spends a good part of his day studying Torah. But Katz recently added a new cap to his wardrobe: the aqua beret bestowed upon members of totchanim, the artillery brigade of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).
Katz is a vivid reminder that despite all the debate in Israel about the ultra-Orthodox and the military, there are many Orthodox men who serve in the IDF. He is enrolled in a program called mahal hesder, or just hesder, that requires students to make a five-year commitment that combines intense Torah study with army service.
There are currently 4,900 participants in the hesder program, an IDF spokeswoman said. These men study at 68 religious institutions in Israel preapproved by the government that affords its students the opportunity to both learn Torah and serve in the IDF. Katz is a student at one of them, Yeshivat Hakotel.
The Orthodox and the draft have become big news since The Equal Service Bill was passed in March by Israel’s Parliament, known as the Knesset. The law made it illegal for yeshiva students to dodge the national army draft. The ultra-Orthodox were up in arms. To them, the army will force them to integrate into secular Israeli society. To them, young men studying in yeshiva, engaging with God’s text fulfill the Divine will. They feel that this is how they protect Israel, through Torah study.
Alex Katz before he is initiated into the Israeli army on March 18th at the Bakum. (Courtesy of Alex Katz)
The experience of the hesder students provides another model in that these young men merge Torah study and military service. Rabbi Reuven Taragin, a rosh yeshiva at Yeshivat Hakotel, where Katz studies, said “we encourage people to do both and follow the model of the hesder yeshiva.” He made the statement on behalf of the yeshiva.
Until the passage of the draft bill, Orthodox Israeli high school graduates had three choices: (1) apply for the an exemption because they’ve put Torah study first, (2) enter the army for a three- year stint or (3) combine the two in a hesder program.
The first hesder yeshiva, established in 1953, five years after Israel’s War of Independence, was a natural outgrowth of religious Zionist ideology. The hesder movement gained popularity and government in funding in the 1970s. The first year and a half of the program, the young man is in yeshiva, followed by 16 months of active military service. While serving, they are fully integrated into the army, serving along side all other soldiers. Afterwards, he must return to yeshiva for approximately two years during which the army can call on him if need be.
Hesder has its champions and detractors. In 1991, the hesder yeshivot were awarded the Israel Prize for their special contribution to society and the state of Israel, and yet today, this compromise of a program, which seems to symbiotically fuse the desire of the religious people to learn with the desire of the state to be defended, faces disapproval.
Hesder supporters believe that the Equal Service Bill includes harsh stipulations towards hesder. The bill extends hesder’s 16 month active duty service by one month, without increasing its already sparse budget.
Despite all of the program’s critics, Katz heeded his draft summon with excitement. He remained idealistic—“we need Torah and the army,” he chanted just before his draft ceremony.
At the moment, approximately 2,300 of the IDF’s 170,000 active soldiers are hesder young men, and 73 percent of them serve in combat units. The IDF Spokeswoman contended “the percentage of hesder soldiers who go into combat is very high compared to the general population.”
Katz chose to walk this path less traveled because he firmly believes that the security of the state of Israel will come from both Torah study and the army.
“There’s a religious side to serving,” Katz said. “We’re serving the Jewish people,” he clarified, emphasizing the country’s religious bond.
Naftali Bennett, a member of the Knesset from the Bayit Yehudi party, sings the praises of the hesder yeshivot, and maintains that he would express only “thanks” for their existence.
“There has been criticism for years about the disconnect between Torah and the state,” he said in light of the draft bill. “Support for hesder yeshivot has been a source of growth and connection between Torah and the state and Torah and Zionism.” Bennett supported the draft bill.
Hesder detractors like Ofer Shelah from the Yesh Atid party, criticize the program because the soldiers do not serve the full three years of active duty.
“If I were a graduate of a hesder yeshiva, I would be very embarrassed,” Shelah said at a Knesset meeting in September. He has notoriously branded hesder as “an escape route for someone who isn’t interested in serving three years.”
Omer Lupa, 24, who finished the hesder program two years ago, is not nearly embarrassed about serving in hesder—he’s proud.
Sitting in his family’s den in Israel’s Newe Aliza neighborhood, Lupa, gestures towards a picture of him in his purple beret, which marks him as a member of Givati, an elite infantry brigade. He wants Ofer Shelah and other detractors to know something: “people who do hesder have integrity,” he began. “Look at your friends who have done hesder. What kind of people are they now? They have a moral backbone, right? Now, tell me, would you cancel hesder after all it has given to the country and to the army?” Lupa asked, alluding to prominent political figures like Yitzhak Levy, who served in coalition governments between 1988-2005.
To anyone who says that he and his fellow hesder soldiers are looking for an easy way out, Lupa laughed: “In hesder, we’re out of commission from age 18 to 23. We’re not allowed to work. We’re not allowed to leave the country, whereas other people at 21, they’re done,” he said. “For people who say it’s not fair, that we’re serving less time, look at those figures.”
Because of this extended contract where people are committed to the army in some capacity for five years, hesder culture is deeply influenced by army life. During their army service, many hesder men spend at least part of their vacation leave at yeshiva, their second home. Yeshiva is a place that “It helps us figure out who we want to be and how to live. It’s our spiritual food,” Lupa reflected.
The IDF has strict rules for active soldiers on leave. When they take their gun home, which combat soldiers must do, they must either wear it on their person at all times or else double lock their gun and the magazine- separately- in a safe in a locked room or closet.
When people revisit yeshiva, many of them feel uncomfortable leaving their guns in their yeshiva dorm rooms. Instead, they have their gun at their person at all times- even while they’re learning in the beit midrash, the sacred hall of Torah study.
To outsiders, this creates an odd scene in hesder study halls. “In Gush,” a nickname often given to one of the largest hesder yeshivot, Yeshivat Har Etzion, “it is not uncommon at all to see guns around the beit midrash,” explained Rabbi Jonathan Ziring, who is learning in the post rabbinic studies program at the yeshiva. “People are always tripping over M16s.”
These M16s belong to both soldiers on leave and the 4th and 5th year students who returned to yeshiva post army to complete their commitment, like Katz will next summer. During this time, they are not on active duty, but they have different kinds of army responsibilities. They have, for instance, shmira, guard duty rotations around their yeshivot, most of which are located in occupied territories or disputed land.
This experience holds true in Katz’s home yeshiva, HaKotel. In the white and wooden walled beit midrash, the large windows and wooden tables are no stranger to soldiers and reservists alike. “It’s normal to see soldiers with their guns, of course!” Katz said.
Katz is a dedicated hesder member, and respects all Jews. He values the ultra-Orthodox’s dedication to God and Torah—he has a similar dedication. But just because they have the same God and sacred text, doesn’t mean they agree on everything “They view army service so differently than I do,” Katz said of the ultra-Orthodox and their protest against the draft bill. “I don’t know if they’re right or wrong, but I don’t agree.”
The ultra-Orthodox disagree with hesder too, not just the army, though they dislike the program for different reasons than secular Israelis like Shelah. They fundamentally differ in opinion with the religious Zionist’s approach to connecting Torah and the state. That is why they protested so vehemently against the Equal Service Bill, which seeks to draft 5,200 ultra-Orthodox recruits, about 60 percent of those of draft age, by 2017.
Amit Hamelnik, a 19 year old soldier stationed at Jesus’ Baptismal site on the Jordan River just outside of Jericho, resents the ultra-Orthodox for evading army service. “It’s not fair. Just do a little bit!” he said as Christian tourists asked him for a photo near the baptismal site. “At least have them do national civil service, just something. At least for an hour, for a day—just help out.”
This elusiveness got the ultra-Orthodox into the draft problems in the first place. Initially, their deferments started out small. In the state’s fledgling decades, former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion agreed to give 400 draft exemptions for full-time yeshiva students in order to repopulate the rabbinic population that had been wiped out during the Holocaust. Those 400 slowly increased until 1977 when Menachem Begin was elected. At the urging of his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners, Begin extended draft exemptions to anyone enrolled in a yeshiva.
In the decades that followed, the number of ultra-Orthodox men who worked to earn a living declined markedly, and the number engaged in full-time studies who received state support rose dramatically. Today, only an estimated 40 percent of ultra-Orthodox men are gainfully employed, and the ultra-Orthodox remain the poorest group in Israel’s Jewish population.
Now, while young men like Hamelnik wear the olive colored IDF uniforms throughout their conscripted service, the ultra-Orthodox have their own uniform—white shirts, black pants, and black skull caps, which sets them apart from the rest of the population, and, for their critics, serves as a way to identify them as the people to resent.
Though hesder ideologues also learn in yeshiva, Hamelnik, a secular Israeli, doesn’t resent them. On the contrary, “They balance religion and responsibility—it is admirable.”
Israel President Shimon Peres and IDF Chief Benny Gantz award an orthodox solider an achievement award, one of 120 soldiers awarded on Israeli Independence Day. (Photo by Chaim Tzach, via Shimon Peres Facebook page)
Israel President Shimon Peres and IDF Cheif Benny Gantz award an orthodox solider an achievement award, one of 120 soldiers awarded on Israeli Independence Day. Photographer: Chaim Tzach, courtesy of Shimon Peres Facebook page
Israel President Shimon Peres and IDF Cheif Benny Gantz award an orthodox solider an achievement award, one of 120 soldiers awarded on Israeli Independence Day. Photographer: Chaim Tzach, courtesy of Shimon Peres Facebook page
It has been suggested that, in light of the draft bill, which necessitates ultra-Orthodox serving in the army, the ultra-Orthodox adapt the hesder model for themselves. It could, perhaps, be a way for them to balance their faith in God and their duty to protect, another biblical commandment.
The ultra-Orthodox leaders adamantly refuse this suggestion on the grounds that they protect the land by studying God’s words in yeshiva, and that serving in inclusive units with non religious soldiers may cause ultra-Orthodox men to lose their spiritual way. This, however, this is unrealistic in today’s political climate.
Ideally there would be no need for a mandatory army draft, but because that is not the case in Israel, hesder has become the new ideal. Even its supporters, see it as an accommodation, not an ideal. “Hesder is a compromise with reality,” wrote Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, the rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion, in his article explaining the program, The Ideology of Hesder.
Lichtenstein doesn’t believe in military lifestyle—herding people around with guns, for instance—and that’s what he’s talking about here. His argument seems like it could suit the ultra-Orthodox community, especially now.
(Lead Photo: Soldiers praying beside an armored personal carrier unit. Photo by David Choresh via Wikimedia Commons)
