The well-known mantra – that what happens in most countries in a year happens in Israel in a day – often means that in the grand scheme of things, small moments of disbelief here are quickly forgotten. Never has this been truer than in the security and political reality we have lived through in the past three years.
And yet, there are some moments that stick with you, even as small headlines within the great struggles facing Israel and Israeli society.
One of these for me was this past August, when I read reports from Army Radio (perhaps soon to be closed as part of this government’s attempts to silence media outlets) that the Israeli Army was considering setting recruitment targets for Diaspora Jews: 600 to 700 a year.
More recently, there has been a similar public debate about drafting the children of foreign workers in Israel. While they are in smaller numbers, many of them have spent their whole lives here, are deeply ingrained in our society, and wish to enlist. But the army has hesitated on this front, given politicians’ prerogative to set immigration policy – and a far-right government such as this one is unmotivated to arrange legal status for such residents, as previous governments have done.
All of this is in the face of a shortage of soldiers stemming from increased personnel needs alongside the over 20,000 soldiers killed and wounded in the longest war in Israel’s history.
Just recently, reports say the IDF’s chief of staff warned the prime minister and defense minister that without an increase in numbers, the army’s readiness will be “severely impacted.” The army has said it is short about 12,000 active-duty soldiers.
Of course, this recent warning comes as the two ministers, both from the ostensibly proudly Zionist and nationalist Likud, push through a law aimed at legalizing, once again, exemptions from the draft for 80,000 fit-for-service ultra-Orthodox Israelis.
An existential question for Israel
What was once a debate that burned deep in the souls of Israelis about the unfairness and inequity of this exemption, is now an existential security question. The failure to bring ultra-Orthodox Israelis into the army because of political considerations, given the immense security challenges facing this country, now represents what is fundamentally a threat to the country’s security.
EVEN AFTER three years – since the height of the judicial overhaul, during which time the question has been what the role and limits are of Diaspora engagement with Israeli policy, having been tested and rewritten – discussing this particular issue is understandably wrought for Diaspora Jews. This is true even if it directly impacts Israel’s security today, an issue long at the core of Diaspora engagement with and support for the Jewish state. After all, their children are not obligated to serve here.
But while, for narrow political reasons, this government continues to try to find any solution but the obvious one to the army’s manpower crisis, Diaspora Jews should know this. Aliyah and enlistment are great acts of patriotism – in fact, both are codified as official core values of the Zionist Movement. They represent the very best of Zionism and Israel.
The desire to come and take part in the defense of the Jewish state is more than admirable: it is in many ways the ultimate reflection of Jewish peoplehood. There are so many right reasons to make aliyah and serve. But doing so because of a formal marketing push to reach a quota that has become necessary because of a manpower crisis – created by the government’s cowardice to make hard choices after October 7 – should not be one of them. The Jewish state must be ready and willing to welcome with open arms any Jew who fears antisemitism in their native country, but we should never aspire for antisemitism to be a reason to make aliyah, or to use it as a marketing tool to push for more immigration.
There is, after all, a fundamental difference between deciding to take part in the defense of Israel out of Zionism – on one’s own accord and laudably – and the Israeli military undertaking a formal recruitment campaign. This is besides the negative impacts this would have on the status of Jewish communities in countries rife with anti-Israel sentiment.
The Israeli government and the army should never look to aliyah and the military service of young olim (new immigrants) – or, for that matter, non-Jewish Israelis who have chosen to tie their fate to ours – as a solution to a numerical or political problem. Doing so degrades the holiness of some of the last great anchors of Zionism that have remained above politics. The Zionist solution to this problem is simple – even if this government’s political interests don’t enable it.
The writer is the vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization.