Haredi yeshiva leaders will send students to the Armored Corps in August after talks with IDF chief

At the annual assembly of Hesder yeshiva heads, attended by about 50 rabbis, the leaders decided on Thursday that their students will enlist in the IDF Armored Corps this coming August. The decision comes after ynet reported about two weeks ago that 12 Hesder yeshiva heads had sent a letter to the army saying their students would no longer serve in the Armored Corps, because such service was, in their view, contrary to Jewish law.

The confrontation between the IDF and the yeshiva rabbis began after a pilot was launched to examine integrating female tank crew members. The Hesder Yeshiva Association said representatives of the schools met this week with the chief of staff and other senior officers, and described the discussion as very important and meaningful. According to the association, the talks covered problems in implementing the army's joint-service order and the need to ensure that observant soldiers can serve according to their beliefs and values.

In its statement, the association said Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir stressed his duty, and the IDF's duty, to examine every pilot in light of the joint-service order and presented the principles of the frameworks the army has developed. The rabbis thanked him and senior commanders for the meeting. Despite the agreement to continue sending students to the Armored Corps in August, the statement made clear that no full resolution has been reached in the wider dispute over mixed-gender service.

The rabbis warned that the current crisis around integrating male and female combat soldiers violates the joint-service order and prevents observant troops from serving in several army branches, including the Artillery Corps and the Combat Intelligence Collection Corps. They said a pilot that mixes men and women in maneuvering tank units would also block observant soldiers from serving in armor, where Hesder students have been involved since the scheme began. Speaking at a officers' graduation ceremony at Bahad 1, Zamir said, "We need every fighter and fighter," adding that the IDF must balance sensitivity to different populations with an integrated and unified framework. The IDF later said the female-tanker pilot will ultimately run outside the Armored Corps, in the Border Defense Array, with no men in the tank or the company, while the Armored Corps will provide professional guidance. Separately, Brig. Gen. Shai Tayeb said in a podcast that the army has made unprecedented moves over the past three years to enable ultra-Orthodox enlistment, and that in the 2025 draft year it will surpass 3,500 Haredi recruits.