Tag: army

As a result of the change in the law, the IDF is putting together a number of subtracts specifically for Haredim, though no new “Haredi Only” divisions or brigades will be created. Some of the units have women serving in them, and the IDF says the role of women will not be negatively impacted by the introduction of Haredim who prefer not to interact socially with women beyond what is allowed by their community's mores.

TEL AVIV – Like any of the Israeli army's combat battalions, the soldiers of Netzach Yehuda faced a 60-mile hike during basic training meant to simulate battle conditions.

The online Irish website, TheJournal, reports that the Israeli embassy in Dublin was evacuated early Tuesday afternoon after a suspicious package was discovered. An army...

If it weren’t so sad, the draft brouhaha in Israel would be the greatest show in town. It is a masquerade ball, a tragicomedy whereby each actor says the complete opposite of what he really wants.

When Israelis say, “I worry about my grandchildren’s future,” it has a radically different dimension than similar concerns expressed in many other countries.

The State of Israel is bickering over nothing. It is like a fight between a seller who has nothing to sell and a buyer who has no intention of buying.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the Israeli Defense Forces to draft Haredi men as it does other Jewish Israelis. The order came as the...

Bashing Haredim on the dole is easy; but doing the same thing to the Muslims, who don't report income or pay taxes, is dangerous because it comes too close to a real national problem. Going on about your children being shot at because of the settlers is safe, but talking about the destructive political interests that ceded portions of the West Bank and Gaza to Islamic terrorists is a dangerous topic.

12:30 AM (Sunday) Syrian tanks shelling the town of Juvta Al-Chashav, 2 kilometers from the Israeli border. 11:50 PM Rebels looted and then burned 30...

A spokesperson for Yisrael Beytenu said, “We’ve had 64 years to evolve,” he said. “Demographically, it will be impossible to pass this bill 20 years from now.”

Despite demands for fairness and equality, the Knesset overwhelmingly voted down Yisrael Beytenu's bill for Universal Service.

Avigdor Liberman says he will continue to pursue the drafting of all Israelis at the age of 18, but will uphold the current coalition.

Legislation is being used to force a situation onto a significantly large minority sector that disagrees with the decision. Will it once again end in disaster for everyone?

As the deadline for the renewal of the Tal Law approaches and tens of thousands of people rallied to demand that all citizens of Israel perform national service, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a meeting of the Likud Knesset faction to discuss ways to include Hareidim in national and military service. With his party in agreement, the prime minister is on his way to drafting new legislation.

My oldest son, Elie, spent today in the Reserves and will be in for a few weeks later this summer. It is what happens when they finish their service in the standing army – a yearly commitment to stay ready; to be prepared.

Man is seldom satisfied with his life. Even when he has done great things, amassed vast amounts of wealth and achieved great fame, he still yearns for more and his soul is not fulfilled. "No man dies with even half of his ambition fulfil­led," say Chazal.

"Word came that hundreds of Arabs were gathering in front of the Hevron police station, demanding the dismantlement of the Shoshana settlement. Not wanting to miss the action, the reporters scattered like roaches to their cars. For all of his supposed extremism, Caleb Cohen was right. It seemed that all the brewing tension of the Middle East had surfaced in Meir's backyard."

Shoshana Bluth’s telephone number is a help hotline for mothers and wives of Israeli soldiers – a hotline of faith, emunah in Hebrew.

We are now at the beginning of Egypt’s involvement, directly or indirectly, in a new wave of terrorist assault on Israel. If the Muslim Brotherhood takes over Egypt, a likelihood made less probable perhaps by the military’s dissolution of parliament, this offensive will enjoy official support. Even if the army remains in control, the Brotherhood and Salafists will use their considerable assets to back this new insurgency war.

In the early days of Statehood, when Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, the famed Chazon Ish, and other leading rabbis reached a compromise with David Ben Gurion to provide military exemptions for yeshiva students, only some 400 students were exempted. Writing about a Milchemet Mitzvah, the Chazon Ish himself recognized that “if there is a need for them, they must come to the aid of their brethren.”

It’s been more than five years since I began writing about my oldest son’s journey into the army. At first, I wrote to calm myself and keep from sharing my greatest fears with him. I called the blog A Soldier’s Mother and watched him enter the army.

The Jewish population of the United States in 1860 was somewhere between 150,000-200,000. Approximately 3,000 Jews fought on the Confederate side in the Civil War while 7,000 were found on the Union side.

The Aleph Institute, a Chabad-Lubavitch organization catering to the needs of Jewish soldiers and their families, is helping servicemen celebrate the upcoming holiday of Shavuot with 1,000 special military edition Torah books, according to a report on Chabad.org.

Israel had no intention of capturing Jerusalem’s Old City when the Six-Day War began 45 years ago. Many of its government ministers, especially the religious ones, opposed the idea, warning that the world would never accept Jewish rule over Christianity’s holiest places. Although the army had numerous contingency plans regarding targets in the region, a plan for taking the Old City was not among them.

Sar-EL, the National Project for Volunteers for Israel, stations volunteers on IDF bases across the country. We work in army uniforms and perform non-combat support duties, working alongside regular soldiers, helping Israel shoulder its defensive burdens.

The Knesset factions are pursuing legislation that will institute an equal draft into the IDF – but something is fishy. The New Israel Fund’s propaganda has made inroads, and it looks like the upcoming elections will focus on haredi-bashing.

I have long felt the holiest Jews are members of the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces. At countless rallies I’ve called out from the heart, “Blessed is the nation that has as its army the Israel Defense Forces.”

JERUSALEM – Natalie says she’s been a dog lover from birth. “I had two dogs when I was younger,” she recalls, “then they mated and we ended up with six more, and we couldn’t give them away.”

An officer close to the issue told the Jewish Press: "It is not that we turned away 100 soldiers - had they come to us we would have taken them anyway. But we were told to stop our Haredi outreach efforts which would have netted more recruits. The Tal Law is the big story though. If a new law does not pass we will be in a position to draft 60,000 Haredi soldiers in August."

This is not the first time Arabs have been engaged in the destruction of archaeological artifacts in Hebron. But recent acts of vandalism have been more methodical, leading to suspicion that they are purposeful and orchestrated by an entity bent on the erasure of archaeological artifacts that testify to the ancient Jewish roots in Hebron.