Tensions Between Military Service and Jewish Orthodoxy In Israel: Implications Imagined and Real

Recent years have witnessed a significant rise in the numbers of "national religious" soldiers in IDF combat units. As a result, their sociological and cultural profile has become a matter of considerable public and academic interest. Particular attention has been focused on the strains that might be placed on the military loyalties of national religious troops, should they be required to carry out missions that they interpret as being contrary to Jewish religious teachings. In this context, their behavior when confronted with orders to dismantle Jewish settlements in the occupied territories is generally considered to constitute the litmus test of their allegiance. The article contends that national religious soldiers in the IDF do indeed often sense a conflict of loyalties between their military duties and their Jewish religious obligations. Research indicates, however, that such tensions cannot be attributed solely, or even mainly, to factors associated with their commitment to possession of the Holy Land. The article argues that the principal sources of tension between religious observance and military service in Israel lie elsewhere: in matters of an essentially ritual and behavioral dimension. From that perspective, the almost complete absence of conscientious objection on the part of national-religious IDF troops during the 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria was by no means an aberration. The article is based on both in-depth interviews and on a reading of primary materials, including published epistolary exchanges between soldiers and their rabbis.