Would-be women of the IDF busted shirking and snogging
Filed under: A New Reality, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Religion, War
The way the Israeli army interfaces with religion is not so straightforward, which makes sense in a land where the separation between synagogue and state is still being sorted out. The IDF’s Rabbinate came under scrutiny this winter for attempting to boost soldiers’ morale on shaky theological grounds.
And the Rabbinate is notorious for being stingy when it comes to handing out shaving exemption papers for soldiers looking to be able to wear beards based on their interpretation of Biblical commandments, sometimes telling soldiers that they’re “not religious enough” to qualify for the exemption. But if it’s a rabbi’s goal to foster observance, he ought to embrace the individual’s interests, regardless of that individual’s flaws or hypocrisies.
In a society where we are constantly being pigeonholed due to what we’re wearing on our heads and elsewhere on our bodies, I don’t know about you, but my inclination is to say, “Please don’t put me in a box. I’m a real person, not a tidy category.”
Of course, embracing the religious grey area gets trickier when we’re talking about exemption from serving in the army altogether. Ditching the draft is relatively common among Israel’s Orthodox, for better or for worse, and the mechanisms for obtaining exemptions on religious grounds are relatively straightforward, making pleading religious a tempting option even for those who might not necessarily truly have theological qualms with the experience of being a soldier.
After years of turning a blind eye, more or less, to this phenomenon, the IDF is getting smart and trying to crack down on young women who “lie” and plead religious. Sure, it’s possible that a young woman who is too observant to serve, whatever that means, might experience a lapse in faith, but in general, if the army’s detectives catch you making out with someone, you should probably suit up.
“We need those girls, Lt. Col. Gil Ben Shaoul, deputy commander of Israel’s military recruitment center,” told The Associated Press.
The Israel Defense Forces says the surveillance program began last year and has caught 520 young women, many who admitted they did not deserve the religious exemption and signed up for military service.
….Catching the draft-dodgers is fairly straightforward: It takes one weekend, said Ben Shaoul. The young women are usually caught driving on Saturday, drinking or smoking.
Many who attempt to shirk the draft justify doing so on the grounds that women aren’t given “real” opportunities in the IDF.
“I served for two years doing nothing. All the girls do nothing,” said Shiran Cohen, 24, a university student. She said she was assigned to check on ammunition stockpiles during her service, but was frequently sidelined by men in her unit.
Although being a woman in the army can’t be easy, this excuse simply doesn’t hold water. I have fond memories of my days serving in the IDF’s Shiryon (armored corps) unit, where everything I learned about tanks was taught to me by women.
On the first day of tank training, the training officers took me and my fellow conscripts out to the open field and gave us a powerful demonstration of tank maneuvering and weaponry. The audience loved it. When the demo was over, the tanks pulled around and parked by the bleachers where we sat. The hatches opened, and out came four women from each vehicle. Surprise surprise. The bleachers shook with hooting, extra applause and jumping up and down as a special reaction for the ladies. It was a bit embarrassing, and it might serve to highlight how rough it must be to get respect as a woman soldier, but the point is that the opportunities are there for those who are motivated to go after them.
Image of Israeli modern Orthodox teenage women courtesy sethfrantzman from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
Foto Friday – Yuval Nadel
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Religion
The world of haredi observant Jews is one that most secular Israelis never get a chance to see – and if they do, they find it alien, even threatening. Photographer Yuval Nadel, an Israeli-born Jew with a secular up-bringing, became familiar with and learned to appreciate and respect the people who lead a religious lifestyle.
In a collection of photographs called “Custom, Prayer and Ceremony – The Jews of the Land of Israel”, he documents that meeting between secular and religious without trying to explain the lifestyle or Jewish customs. “As a photographer, it was important for me to show the religious experiences of Israeli Jews from my personal point of view,” he says.
The photographs presented in Nadel’s book were taken over four cycles of holidays and intermittent days between 2004 and 2008. Nadel writes that his journey began at the annual festive Lag B’Omer commemoration at Mount Meron. “I was captivated. Over the next four years, I traveled around the country to the various outposts and locations where Jews perform their mitzvot (commandments), ceremonies and prayers… I arrived to these places as a photographer, as a bystander observer and yet as someone participating in the experience. It was so, because that’s how I was received…”
While most such books “fall prey to the sin of anthropology… based, at worst, on patronizing voyeurism and at best, on intellectual curiosity,” writes Israeli journalist Kobi Arieli, an observant Jew, “Yuval Nadel’s approach arises out of a positive attitude that is nurtured and grows with each image… This book is a story about love and light, which is why it is both good and enjoyable.”
For his part, Nadel says, “If these photographs can contribute even slightly to help unite Jews through exposing a beautiful side of the world of observant Jews in Israel, I will have reaped my reward.”
Wedding Survival Tips
Matching yarmulkes and matchbooks, engraved invitations, tuxedoes and matching bride/bridesmaids outfits, and lots and lots of flowers. Sounds like a wedding. B
ut not an Israeli one! Like most other things in Israel, weddings are like you remember them from “back there” – but different, in a number of ways.
1. Dress – What marks Israeli weddings more than any other featuring is a lack of formality. Having been to weddings where the couples were from all sorts of different backgrounds – secular, modern/ultra-orthodox, very wealthy or otherwise – I’ve come across exactly one tuxedo, and a few suits (usually on the grooms). The most formal any guest is willing to go is usually a sports jacket (not necessarily matching the slacks, either), but the vast majority wear Dockers-style pants and a shirt – white at religious weddings, or a variety of colors where the guests are of a more secular orientation.
2. Venue – In Israel, you’ve got two choices for a venue: In town, at a catering hall (usually in an industrial zone), or, an increasingly popular choice, at an outdoor country location, usually in a kibbutz or moshav. All venues, though, sport the “open chuppah” – with the actual ceremony held under the stars, regardless of the weather (I was at one where it snowed!). In urban halls, this usually entails going up to the building’s roof, which is gussied up for the occasion, while at a country location, the ceremony is held at the most picturesque spot on the property. The venue will also sport just a few dozen chairs, with most people standing – and unless you are at a very ultra-orthodox wedding, you’ll find that, even if there is nominal separation (like standing on different sides of the aisle the wedding party marches down), lots of couples end up standing or sitting together. Because there’s no American-style Sunday in Israel, a Saturday night event is unheard of, and Sunday ceremonies are rare – the preferred evenings being Monday or Thursday.
3. Food – Of course, we go to weddings to help our friends celebrate, and not for the food (yeah, right). But if you’re expected to give a couple hundred shekels as a gift for the new couple, you might as well make a night out of it. The one universal rule for Israeli weddings is – come early, because that’s often when they put out the best food. Pre-ceremony hors d’ouvres and smorgasbords, served while family and friends gather, nowadays often feature treats like sushi, Mexican tortillas and wraps, stir fry, etc., and that goes for catering halls geared to nearly all crowds. It’s at dinner that the differences show themselves; at religious weddings, you often have to wait awhile for dinner to be served, because the major celebratory dancing of the evening takes place first – and the food itself isn’t always, let’s say, gourmet level. Buffets are always better than sit-downs – and generally, from my observation, the more secular the couple and the families, the better the food (it’s all kosher, of course – otherwise no rabbi would conduct the ceremony). In either case, don’t feel like you’re missing something if you leave before dessert.
4. Entertainment – If the food is better at “less religious” weddings, the entertainment and fun is much better where the young couple come from a religious background. The bride and groom invite all their yeshivah or seminary friends, and there is wild and spirited dancing (separate, of course), with friends honoring the happy couple. Depending on how talented the couple’s friends are, you could also get a great “floor show” – with kids performing magic tricks, swallowing fire, juggling, breakdancing, or doing other “shtick” in honor of the newlyweds. At weddings with a more secular tone, they start off with Jewish-style dancing, too (with men and women usually forming separate circles, as well), which will drift into mixed horas or disco-style dancing after awhile. Regardless, after a couple of vigorous rounds of “simcha” dancing on a warm night, anyone who was wearing a jacket has stowed it on the back of their chair – and you realize why no one is wearing a tuxedo!
Lessons from The Rabin Murder
Israel can surprise you – in the most surprising ways. One thing I’ve learned in some 15 years of living here – nothing, but nothing, is what it seems on the surface. There is little, if any, black and white in Israeli life – it’s a rainbow, with lots of shades of different colors in the mix. Take my Rabin experience, for example.
I was at home with my wife and some friends, watching a movie, when I heard the news – “Four Weddings and a Funeral.” Not focusing too closely on the video (men will understand why), I overheard a couple of neighbors talking outside in the courtyard. Rather rare for a Saturday night, I thought, and especially those two, who didn’t generally fraternize, going on at length. Sauntering out of the room (I think it was around the time of the second wedding), I went out to the porch to find out what was going on.
Needless to say, we turned the movie off and watched the proceedings.
At the time, I worked for a publication owned by a major Israeli newspaper in Tel Aviv. You could count on one hand the number of observant people in this organization (to their credit, the very avant garde, very politically left people at this publication were extremely respectful to my religious principles – for example, they always made sure kosher food was served at staff meetings, etc.).
But not only was I religious – I was a “settler,” too, living in a community east of the green line. This, too, had never been an issue with these people, and my views on politics and Jewish life in Judea and Samaria were well-known. But now, with Rabin killed by a Jew wearing a kippah, and his alleged connections to residents of Judea and Samaria – this was different. With all the talk of how “the right and religious” were behind Rabin’s killing, I walked into the office that Sunday morning with great trepidation, ready for anything – dirty looks, insults, verbal confrontations, or worse.
But either the folks working at this publication were exceptions to the rule, or the very yellow character of the Israeli media had reared its ugly head again, with the tiny minority of loudmouths dedicated to ruining the fabric of Israeli society trumpeting ideas about putting right-wingers in internment camps in the Negev being given a solitary platform. Even the “star” of this publication, who today is famous for his American talk-show shock-jock style radio call-in program where he argues with everybody, and who has extremely left-wing views, didn’t speak to me any differently than usual (gruffly, like he talked to everybody). Astounded, I asked one of the editors of the publication what was going. Where was all the blame, the anger, the “we will not forgive and we will not forget” I was expecting? After all, I was a pretty convenient target!
He just looked at me like I was crazy – and asked: “Why would we want to do that to you? You may be a settler, but you’re ‘our’ settler!”
Jewish soul music
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Music, Religion
A work assignment brought me last night to the city of Beit Shemesh and the Beit Shemesh Festival, an annual music bash featuring some of the top names in the ‘Jewish soul’ field. Among this year’s performers were Meir Banai, The Moshav Band and Yood.
The central amphitheater in Beit Shemesh, a flowing natural park, boasted a white, cloth mehitza (divider), running up the middle, to separate the male and female attendees. The audience consisted mainly of religiously observant teens, many belonging to youth groups. There were some families and assorted adults there among the thousand or so people, a few not even wearing kippot, but by and large it was a religious crowd. And it looked like they were having a fine time, dancing on shoulders, enjoying a fireworks display, and checking out the other side the mehitza.
Despite some sound problems resulting from a likely blown speaker, the acts I saw performed admirably, and the band I came to see – Yood – put on a smoking set of spiritual blues rock.
There have been tons of events and activities to do during the intermediate days of Sukkot, but those folks who attended the Beit Shemesh Festival certainly got way more than their money’s worth – oh yeah, the festival was free.
Maybe next year, some of the secular crowd will come to see what all the noise was about.
Subscribe
Subscribe to Israelity via email:
Social Media
Tag Cloud
Operation Cast Lead photo exhibition photographer coexistence Gaza israeli photography IDF War vote Paul McCartney Kadima election Politics Israelis photographers festival Waltz with Bashir Environment race jerusalem Yom Kippur Religion succot photo Tel Aviv shopping Israel israeli nostalgia Music Food photograhy Dead Sea Sderot knesset tourism nostalgia Green Prophet Art hamas Nostalgia Sunday photography holiday Rosh Hashana Foto Friday TravelCategories
- A New Reality
- Art
- Blogging
- Business
- coexistence
- Crime
- design
- Environment
- Food
- Foto Friday
- General
- health
- History and Culture
- Holidays
- Immigrant Moments
- Israeliness
- Life
- Medical Breakthroughs
- Movies
- Music
- Nostalgia Sunday
- Picture of the Week
- Politics
- Pop Culture
- Profiles
- Religion
- Sports
- Technology
- Travel
- War
The Face of Israel Today
-
About Israelity
Free newsletter
Stories from ISRAEL21c.orgPopular Posts