About a week after the October 7 terror attack, H. – a young religious woman who had just finished studying in Ulpana (a girls-only Jewish high school in Israel, delivering reinforcement of religious education and social activities) and started national service – decided to make an abrupt change in her life. She rejected the state-issued exemption from military service and asked the IDF to recruit her. “I called my mother and told her that I decided to join the army. Early the next morning, I went to the recruitment center and annulled my [exemption] declaration. I still do not know when, but I am joining the army.”

H., who is 18 years old, is not the only young woman from the national-religious sector to make such a decision in the aftermath of October 7. According to various estimates, hundreds of young religious women have renounced the exemption that the state gave them, from military service, on religious grounds and decided to don the uniform. “The number of calls we have received since the outbreak of the war has increased fivefold. We are getting calls from 25 girls every week,” says Hadas Yonatan, the director of “Serving with Faith,” a program set up by the Aluma NGO. “There are other girls who directly contact Meitav [the IDF unit responsible for the intake of candidates for the security forces – AK] and not us.”

The IDF does not have official figures about the number of new female recruits but there has been a constant increase in recruitment from the national-religious sector over the past decade. According to official IDF data, 1,538 young religious women joined the army in 2012. By 2021, that figure had increased to 2,682. The recruitment rate among all Israeli females of enlistment age stood at around 30 percent in 2021 and one in every five female religious recruits chose a frontline role. In the same year, more than half of the religious women – 56 percent, to be exact – who joined the army were given what the IDF defines as “quality roles.”

This “quiet revolution” is happening despite long-standing opposition from leading national-religious rabbis. One of the central and “official” reasons that the rabbis give for their objection is that women’s service could jeopardize the concept of modesty – both for the religious women who grew up in a gender-segregated society and for the men. Other rabbis have claimed that recruiting women would “weaken the IDF,” while some argue that “the feminine character is not appropriate for the military.”

Over a decade ago Rabbi Haim Druckman, one of the most important leaders of the national-religious sector stated that “The IDF is no place for women. We believe that it is not a suitable place for girls at all, not just religious girls,” He had not disavowed this belief by the time of his death in December 2022. Around 18 months ago, following a High Court petition by female soldiers, Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, another leading figure in the national-religious sector, ruled that “according to Halacha, girls should not serve in the IDF.” Meanwhile, Rabbi Yaakov Ariel said that “anyone who advocates for female service in the military is not putting national security at the top of their list of priorities.”

Given all this, the current silence of leading rabbis to the increasing number of religious women joining the IDF – especially since October 7 – speaks volumes. It appears that the heroism of the female spotters who were stationed on the Gaza border that fateful day and who repeatedly tried to warn their commanding officers of an imminent terror attacks – as well as the capabilities being shown by female soldiers in frontline roles, including active service in the combat zones of the Gaza Strip – have left them bereft of any meaningful argument against female military service. At the same time, all the people interviewed for this article agree that the battle over female recruitment is far from over.

According to official IDF data, 1,538 young religious women joined the army in 2012. By 2021, that figure had increased to 2,682. The recruitment rate among all Israeli females of enlistment age stood at around 30 percent in 2021 and one in every five female religious recruits chose a frontline role.

Exemption Means Exemption

H. was raised and still lives in a religious community in southern Israel. Like her friends, she started looking for a job within the national service framework as soon as she completed her studies. She describes the whole process as one of railroading. “The Ulpana does not direct you to the army,” she says. “They direct you to national service, they talk to you about national service and they won’t present you with anything option ot position that could encourage you to join the army or anything that will help you join up. I too didn’t want to join a military framework. I told myself that if I have an exemption then I have an exemption. I didn’t see any other options. It was clear to me. I thought about the army but I knew it wasn’t an option.”

After a long period of deliberation, H. decided to volunteer to work with the elderly in Jerusalem. “Right from the outset, I realized it wasn’t for me. The army was in my head but I still didn’t do anything about it. I thought it was impossible. In my head, there was a barrier telling me ‘Get that thought out of your mind, it won’t happen’,” she recalls. “We are eight kids at home. The boys joined the army, of course, but it just isn’t acceptable when it comes to girls. The only one who joined was my oldest sister. It’s not that we’re forbidden from joining the army; it’s just that no one will be happy. People told me it’s not a religious thing and that my personality also wasn’t suited to the army and that I shouldn’t consider it. It’s not that anyone would be disappointed in you, but the message is ‘You don’t have any good reason to be in the army, don’t do that to yourself. You’ve got an exemption – why do that?’ But I wanted to.”

By October 7, H. was already looking for an alternative to her volunteer position in Jerusalem. Following to outbreak of the war, her repressed desire to join the army was allowed to emerge. She knew that she had to do something different. That she had to help in some active way with the war effort. “The only thing I could think about was the army,” she says. “I felt that I would either go to the army or that I wouldn’t volunteer for national service at all. At first, I tried to dissuade myself from following that path, but then I told myself: Okay, think for a minute. This is an extraordinary situation and you really want to join the army – so don’t give up on it.”

H. says that her mother accepted the decision to join the army and, the very next day, she took the bus to the recruitment center and submitted the form that would annul the exemption she received when she was in the 12^th grade. The reactions from other people close to her, however, were varied. “Nobody says it out loud. They say it indirectly. The Ulpana does not want girls to go into the army. Those who do join up from any year group are those from religious kibbutzim, which are generally more open. They knew all along that they would join the army. I come from a pretty religious and mainstream community in the national-religious camp. There aren’t many girls from my town who join the army. I’m maybe the sixth. Nobody forbade us, they just didn’t tell us we could. Even now, people tell me that it is not a suitable framework for religious girls. They think that the men should go and fight and that the women better stay home with the children.”

“The war gave me courage,” she adds. “It was obvious to me that now, when something is happening, that I want to do something and to contribute. The IDF needs every cog in the machine all the time. The war gave me a boost. In a way, it was the catalyst that motivated me.” At the same time, when asked about the option of serving on the front lines, H. says that this is a red line that she does not want to cross.

"It gave a lot of girls extra drive,” says A. – a 19-year-old who grew up in Gush Etzion. “Out of a class of 50 girls, 10 or maybe 15 have annulled their exemptions because of the war. An additional 20 joined the army irrespective of the war.”

A Domestic Obstacle

October 7 also upended all of the decisions that A. – a 19-year-old who grew up in Gush Etzion – thought she had made about her future. “I annulled my exemption even before that,” she says, “but the war gave me the drive and the final approval that I had made the right decision.”
Like H, she also opted for national service and worked with at-risk youth in Kfar Saba. She says that she reached that decision after a long period of confusion, caused by the fact that she has sisters who served in the army and others who did national service. A. decided to commit to one year of national service and then decided whether it suited her – and admits that she was disappointed. On the Friday before October 7, she reached the decision to “change direction.”

“My mother saw what my sister did in the army and told me that I was more suited to something else. But she doesn’t really know the army. Now, as far as she is concerned, I can be a frontline soldier. She told me that I am a fighter and she very much wants me to be in a role that feels significant,” A. says. And still, there was something holding her back that, in the end, made her pass on a frontline role: “My boyfriend is less keen. It’s a sensitive point but I am at peace with it. I also heard from several people that being a combat soldier is less feminine. The father of one of my friends said that it could harm her and that boys would be less interested in her.”

A. says that she has also seen the impact of the war on the desire of young religious women to serve in the IDF among her friends and classmates, “It gave a lot of girls extra drive,” she says. “Out of a class of 50 girls, 10 or maybe 15 have annulled their exemptions because of the war. An additional 20 joined the army irrespective of the war.”

From Dread to Economic Interests

The ongoing rise in the number of religious people joining the IDF is the result of profound changes within national-religious society, as well as an improvement in the IDF’s awareness of the needs of religious recruits and its move toward providing them with a framework within which they can still live a religious lifestyle. Moreover, according to Prof. Udi Lebel from Bar-Ilan University’s School of Communications, research shows that the level of religiosity among female recruits is not diminished by military service. Sometimes, it is even strengthened.

“The campaigns against female service in the IDF predicted all kinds of bad things would happen – and none of them did. These attempts to dissuade religious girls failed completely,” he says. “The army allows its female soldiers to be commanders, officers, academics, administrators, to have a personality and – most importantly – to be a different person, someone who can fundamentally change their community. In fact, these concerns are conservative. Lebel believes that behind the “discourse of dread” there is a lot of money. “If religious women join the military, they won’t go to national service and that would mean losses for the NGOs that employ them. There is a mixture of genuine concern and financial interests.”

Prof. Nissim Leon, a senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Bar Ilan University, believes that the rabbis’ silence on female recruitment is temporary. “At the moment, everyone is in pain and very worried, but that’s not a concern for the ideologues if they lose the ideological battle,” he says.

"There is absolutely no legitimacy for girls to join the army. We are against female recruitment in any framework.”

Indeed, some two weeks ago Aviner broke his silence and ruled again that female service in the IDF is something that the Torah prohibits. “We are opposed to women serving in the IDF and to pre-military academies for women,” he said in response to a question submitted by Shomrim. “If there are some girls in a religious college who go to the army then it’s a minority – and we pity these girls and allow them to remain in the college. We do not abandon girls who join the army but we do not legitimize them. There is absolutely no legitimacy for girls to join the army. We are against female recruitment in any framework.”

What have you got to say about the girls who decided to join the army after October 7 and about the heroism of female combat soldiers?

“First of all, there were also female soldiers who failed in their duty. We have to consider – from a purely military perspective and not from a Torah perspective – whether female soldiers benefit the army or harm it. To your question, it’s known as ‘a good deed born in sin.’ The fact that women have been beneficial does not preemptively or retroactively make it acceptable for them to join the military.”

Were those women who fought on October 7 committing a sin?

“Yes. As I said, it’s a good deed born in sin.”