It turns out that haredim are also objecting to something more than the
gender of the doctors and nurses conduction the exams – they're are
objecting to the medical exams themselves, because part of each exam
involves examination of recruits' testicles (a normal screening for
hernias that is also done to check for testicular cancer).
Haredim Object To IDF Testicle Exams As “Not In Accord With Haredi Lifestyle”
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
As I reported last week, one of the two major 'mainstream' haredi factions are using IDF draft physicals as club in the war for control over the haredi community.
The more conservative Jerusalem faction, led by Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, ordered haredi yeshiva students not to answer their draft notices and report for their initial draft evaluations, because the IDF was, supposedly, "not acting in accordance with haredi lifestyle" during the medical examination each new recruit has to undergo.
Initial reports said the reason for Auerbach's unprecedented edict was that women doctors and nurses participated in the exams.
However, it turns out that haredim are also objecting to something more than the gender of the doctors and nurses – Auerbach and his faction are objecting to the medical exams themselves, because part of each exam involves examination of recruits' testicles (a normal screening for hernias that is also done to check for testicular cancer).
This explains in part why the more 'moderate' Bnei Brak haredi faction led by haredi leader Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, reacted to Auerbach's edict by issuing their own edict ordering drafted haredim to report for their initial evaluations at the IDF recruitment centers, something it would have had great difficulty doing if it was common for women doctors and nurses were examining male haredi yeshiva students.
But Shteinman's faction also ordered yeshiva students not to sign any forms the IDF gives them. It's Va'ad Hayeshivos, the umbrella organization of haredi yeshivas, has developed its own forms that declare that no matter what the IDF does, haredi yeshiva students will never stop studying full time, and that they refuse to serve in the IDF because haredi yeshiva students have always been exempted from military service.
Auerbach's faction also apparently objected to psycho-technical exams given haredi recruits.
MK Moshe Gafni of the Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism political party complained that theexam and the tests given haredi recuits were "real attempts at religious conversion."
Gafni and Deputy Health Minister Rabbi Yaakov Litzman, also a UTJ member, met Wednesday with senior officers of the IDF's human resources division. Initial reports said the officers pledged that the yeshiva students would not be examined by females
[Hat Tip: HeathenHassid.]