Maximalist positions perpetuate an IDF conflict

were ordered aboard a bus on Shabbat and sent to dismantle an illegal

outpost. The soldiers obeyed, but afterward, they protested

vociferously. The response was immediate: The prime minister, defense

minister and chief of staff all apologized, stating unequivocally that

the order had been wrong, and promised that it wouldn’t happen again.

Army regulations allow soldiers to be asked to violate Shabbat only for

essential military operations, and dismantling an outpost doesn’t

qualify.

This story exemplifies what has been so sorely missing in the current

battle over “religion versus women” in the Israel Defense Forces: a

willingness on both sides to acknowledge that the other’s position has

some validity. The soldiers in the outpost incident understood that they

weren’t entitled to pick and choose which orders to obey, though they

could seek to prevent a recurrence of orders they deemed problematic.

The army brass and their civilian superiors understood that they weren’t

entitled to abuse their coercive power by gratuitously violating

soldiers’ religious beliefs.

Compare this to the September incident that started the current battle,

in which nine cadets in an officers’ course disobeyed a direct order by

walking out of an event featuring women vocalists. Five later apologized

and promised not to repeat the offense; four refused to do so and were

expelled from the course. But what should have been a minor incident

that blew over as quickly as that Shabbat outpost demolition instead

metastasized, because both sides entrenched themselves in maximalist

positions. Rabbis insisted that soldiers should never have to listen to

women singing, since some (though not all) rabbinic authorities deem

this religiously prohibited, and that soldiers are entitled to disobey

orders that violate their religious conscience. Army officers and

politicians insisted that women must never be “excluded” from the army,

and the IDF is therefore entitled to force religious soldiers to listen

to female vocalists, regardless of how irrelevant this is to the army’s

core military mission.

There was no appreciation on the religious side of how threatening this

incident appeared to secular Israelis, for whom women’s equality, and

freedom from religious coercion, are of cardinal importance. In contrast

to the Shabbat outpost demolition, here, it was the religious soldiers

who violated the status quo: Women singers have always performed in the

IDF, and for decades, religious soldiers never objected; what changed is

that sections of the religious Zionist community have begun adopting

certain religious stringencies formerly confined to the ultra-Orthodox.

And that is precisely what made it threatening to secular Israelis: If

religious Zionist soldiers are now demanding the end of a decades-old

religious status quo on this issue, what additional imported

ultra-Orthodox norms might they seek to impose on the army, and on

society as a whole? Will religious soldiers also start demanding, for

instance, that women be excluded from the growing range of essential

military positions (radar operators, weapons instructors, etc.) that

they now fill?

Yet there was also no appreciation on the secular side of how

threatening this incident appeared to religious Israelis: The army’s

coercive powers were being exploited not for legitimate military needs,

but to force religious soldiers to conform to secular norms. The event

these cadets walked out of was a seminar on the 2009 Gaza war,

consisting mainly of professional lectures on various aspects of the

fighting. What conceivable need was there to cap it with a vocal

performance that had nothing to do with the professional subject matter

and was bound to offend the religious sensibilities of many cadets,

given that 42

percent of the course’s participants were religious? Upholding this

as a legitimate use of the army’s power merely feeds ultra-Orthodox

conspiracy theories about the IDF being a tool to separate soldiers from

religion, which religious men should therefore shun.

Anyone who even tried to propose a compromise was laughed at.

Ultra-Orthodox MK Nissim Ze’ev, for instance, pointed

out that religious soldiers could observe the prohibition against

listening to women sing without either stalking out of ceremonies or

demanding that such performances be abolished, simply by putting in

earplugs when the singing began. But both sides heaped scorn on that

idea; they wanted total victory, not a way to paper over the tensions.

Secular politicians demanded that religious soldiers be forced to listen

to female vocalists, even if that violates their religious beliefs.

Rabbis demanded that soldiers be excused from any event featuring women

performers, even though excusing some soldiers from events that are

mandatory for others would undermine unit cohesion, or else that women

not perform at all, even if this made secular Israelis feel excluded.

Consequently, the conflict escalated. The army issued explicit orders

requiring soldiers to attend certain events featuring female vocalists; a

leading religious Zionist rabbi declared that soldiers should face a

firing squad rather than obey; the rabbi of a highly successful program

to recruit ultra-Orthodox soldiers resigned, sending shock waves through

the program; and so on.

Since neither religious nor secular Israelis are likely to disappear

anytime soon, it’s essential that they learn to compromise on issues

vital to the country’s survival, like maintaining an army in which both

communities can serve. The army clearly plays a vital role in saving

Jewish lives, and it can’t currently do without either religious or

secular soldiers. Thus given the religious principle that pikuakh nefesh (saving a life) trumps

most other religious precepts, I agree with Rabbi Mosheh Lichenstein’s view

that the army is a place where maximalist religious positions don’t

belong; instead, “any legitimate leniency” in Jewish law should be

applied. Nevertheless, those “legitimate leniencies” aren’t infinite; if

religious Jews are to feel comfortable serving in the Jewish state’s

army, maximalist secular positions are equally untenable.

But any workable compromise starts with recognizing that the other side

also has legitimate needs and fears. The tragedy is that there has been

far too little of that recognition on either side of the current battle

over religion in the IDF. As a consequence, what should have been a

minor incident has become a conflict that refuses to die.

The writer is a journalist and

commentator.