JERUSALEM (RNS) — Over the years, many of the young Orthodox women studying at the Midreshet Lindenbaum seminary yearned to join a combat unit in the Israeli army but knew that staying religiously observant in a coed, religiously mixed setting would be difficult, if not impossible.
Then, in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, the Israel Defense Forces issued an emergency call-up of 300,000 reservists. That prompted Rabbi Ohad Teharlev, dean of Midreshet Lindenbaum, to contact IDF recruiters to propose a unit composed only of religious Jewish women.
“With the current manpower needs and strong interest from the girls, there is a natural alignment of interests. Ultimately, everyone wants what’s best for the people and the state of Israel,” Teharlev told Religion News Service recently.
The IDF agreed, and this summer, after eight months of intensive basic training, a few dozen women made history in their Orthodox communities by deploying together as combat field intelligence soldiers on Israel’s borders.
In November 2024, the Israel Defense Forces launched its first combat unit for religious women. The pilot program proved successful enough that the IDF has created two additional units for religious female soldiers. (Photo courtesy of Israel Defense Forces)
Corporal S., a 20-year-old member of the Chabad-Lubavitcher movement and a former student at Midreshet Lindenbaum, part of the Ohr Torah Stone educational network, said she felt drawn to serve as a combat soldier “because it’s important to keep people safe, and the people of Israel are my family.” (All the soldiers who spoke to RNS asked to be identified only by their first initial, in accordance with IDF protocol.)
In the Chabad community, women typically marry early and have many children, and military service for women is an anomaly. But Corporal S. said her family “supports me a lot, even if this isn’t their ideal.”
Based on the pilot project’s success, last month the Israeli military launched two additional religious women’s combat units, one dedicated to search and rescue, the other dedicated to the Iron Dome mobile air defense system.
Although Israel’s High Court …