An internal IDF report on the recruitment of ultra-Orthodox soldiers shows that almost all of the soldiers entering haredi IDF units are not actually haredim, confirming what FailedMessiah.com has been reporting for two years. The report also shows that the IDF is segregating new ‘haredi’ recruits by ethnicity.
Vast Majority Of Haredi Soldiers Aren’t Really Haredim, Internal IDF Report Finds
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
An internal IDF report on the recruitment of haredi soldiers leaked to the Kikar HaShabat haredi news website and Channel 2 Wednesday night shows that almost all of the soldiers entering haredi IDF units are not actually haredim, the Times of Israel reported, confirming what FailedMessiah.com has been reporting for two years. The report also shows that the IDF is segregating new ‘haredi’ recruits by ethnicity.
“At the gates of the induction center, I saw some 20 haredi youths (based on dress and appearance). I was very happy to see how the ‘new soldiers’ looked starting out, and to imagine how they would look in a few weeks with their weapons. But those people that got off the buses were not the same ones I saw at the induction center, these youths looked entirely different. Based on conversations with them, my impression is that the vast majority are not haredi today — a very small number come from haredi homes, some are not observant at all (and certainly don’t uphold a haredi lifestyle), and some wanted to be drafted to the Border Police to ‘fight with Arabs,'” Lt. Col. Ori Levy, a battalion commander in Netzah Yehuda, said in the report.
Levy wrote that he was “astonished,” after he realized “by their remarks, their behavior, their haircuts etc.,” that the vast majority of these ‘haredi’ recruits were not actually haredi. “I asked myself, how will these people bring about the [general] draft of the haredim? If I were a haredi youth, these soldiers would convince me [to join the army]?”
The report reportedly also quoted officers sorting the new ‘haredi’ recruits, who said they place Sefardim in the Netzah Yehuda Battalion (i.e., Nahal Haredi) and the Ashkenazim in the newly established Givati Brigade’s Haredi battalion.
“Mizrachi and troubled teens are drafted to Netzah, Ashkenazi haredim to Givati…It’s no secret, those designated for Nezach 97 are not for Givati and vice versa — it’s two different populations…Zionists to Nezach, haredim to Givati,” the recruiters who sort new ‘haredi’ recruits are quoted in the report.
Levy also noted that in opposition to the newer directives for handling haredi recruits and soldiers, on the day of their recruitment, the new ‘haredi’ soldiers were lined up with about 80 female recruits. The IDF recruiters, while “experienced and serious…[do] not come from a religious background and were stunned and had no answers to my questions about the challenges the soldiers face in the [haredi] battalion,” Levy wrote.
Levy urged the IDF to stick to an annual draft of “150 [haredi] soldiers, 70 percent of them who are Haredi at the time of the draft (and not those ‘registered in the past in haredi institutions who today are no longer observant’).”
He also suggested that recruiters get more instruction on how to properly handle haredi recruits, and recommended that new conscripts complete a questionnaire about their religious life on their induction day and that the IDF weed out any new recruits who have a criminal record. He also reportedly insisted that his Netzah Yehuda Battalion should be the primary haredi battalion and the new Givati unit should be secondary to it.
Netzah Yehuda soldiers are “excellent, moral, combative, but the majority of them are not haredi!” Levy concluded.
Several days ago, leaked audiotapes of Levy complaining that the majority of recruits signing up for haredi battalions were not actually haredim were broadcast by Army Radio. In those audiotapes, Levy said the non-haredi recruits joined haredi units to get certain special privileges haredim get.
The IDF spokesman’s office said in a statement that recruits are eligible to join haredi units if they attended a haredi school for at least two years between the ages of 14- and 18-years-old. But many haredi ’students’ show up on a yeshiva’s books as a full time student when in actuality they have been expelled from the yeshiva and are roaming the streets.
Sources in the Netzah Yehuda battalion reportedly rejected Levy’s allegations and claimed ‘haredi’ soldiers are interviewed about their level of religious observance. Those who did not uphold religious standards are removed from haredi units by August 14 every year. Netzah Yehuda “has always been [the place for haredi recruits] who are far from the yeshiva world, and they represent most of the battalion,” those sources said – meaning Netzah Yehuda is likely knowingly being used by the IDF as a mini factory to create haredi ba’al teshuvas.
The Givati Battalion, those sources reportedly said, was set up by the IDF to handle recruits who are actually almost haredi rather than secular ex-haredim and Sefardim.
“[The IDF] understood that it must create a framework for youth closer to the haredi world, and therefore they set up the new Haredi track in Givati,” those sources reportedly said.