Thirteen additional hesder yeshivot – which combine Torah study with serving in the IDF – on Thursday joined prior institutions, bringing up to 25 the number that have banned their Orthodox religious-Zionist male students from joining the tank corps in protest at an IDF pilot program to integrate women into the corps.
According to the IDF, the program is only a pilot program, and it is unclear whether it will lead to placing women permanently in the tank corps.
Further, the pilot program involves establishing women-only tank units, such that neither secular nor religious men would be serving with women within the same tank or unit, the primary concern of the religious-Zionist institutions that are protesting.
From their perspective, it is immodest for men and women to serve together in the same tank or tank units and could lead to problematic mingling between them in such a small, secluded space.
Traditionally, religious-Zionist hesder graduates serve in male-only units, and usually in units that are composed of overwhelmingly hesder students, or at least men from Orthodox backgrounds.
The IDF appreciates the hesder program because virtually all of the program’s students, though they serve less time in the IDF than other Israeli societal sectors, because their service is split by a year of Torah study, serve in combat units, and many go on to become mid- and high-level officers.
IDF pushes to integrate women into combat
However, the IDF was informed by the High Court of Justice on April 13 that it was under a legal duty to implement, as far as possible, equal opportunity for women and men in access to combat roles, including beginning its long-delayed pilot integration of women into the tank corps by the November 2026 draft cycle.
Moreover, given that the government failed to integrate haredim into the IDF both before and since October 7, 2023, and the IDF has lost up to around 25,000 soldiers to physical or emotional harm in recent years, leaving a massive gap in human resources, the military has been pushing hard to fill combat roles with women.
One woman was even recently accepted to the elite Sayeret Matkal special forces, and women have taken on relatively new ground combat command roles as brigade and battalion commanders, and even as a missile boat commander.
Despite the IDF putting out a public response on Wednesday, noting the various ways it is still protecting hesder students from serving with women in tank units, the number of institutions barring their students nearly doubled on Thursday.
That said, two-thirds of the hesder yeshivot had not yet pulled out.
Some may be waiting to see how the pilot program pans out and whether the IDF keeps its promise to maintain women in separate tank units, unlike artillery and infantry units that now have mixed male and female units.