Na’aleh in the IDF

Shalom, Chaverim,

Yesterday we began our unit on the IDF. In the afternoon, we met with Ariel Fogelman, who opened our unit with a discussion about Ethics and the IDF. He is responsible for giving lectures to thousands of soldiers on this topic, and we were honored to have him lead us in opening this unit. Afterwords, we watched a very powerful short student film, called “Barriers” (חסימות) which portrayed the agonizing complexity of the checkpoints. In our discussion after the film, we realized that many of us became aware on a deeper level of how complicated it really is to balance security needs with human rights.

This morning we climbed up to the Kastel to learn about the War of Independence in general and the battle for the road to Jerusalem in particular. This site is also a place designed to instill values and ethics of the IDF into the visitors. Next we returned to our homebase, Neve Ilan, and watched a documentary about the daring rescue operation at Entebbe 41 years ago last week. We raised more questions about moral decisions and the ramifications of a decision to send soldiers to a foreign country to rescue Jews.

This afternoon we had an interesting panel about women in the IDF, with a range of young woman sharing about their experiences in the IDF as lone soldiers, combat communications soldiers, officers, education officers, intelligence and more. It was an important look into the many aspects of the Jewish army, and in particular the many things that idealistic young religious woman can do in the Army.

This evening we headed out to the forest to begin the practical side of our Army program. The group received uniforms and will be sleeping out for the next two nights, participating in a simulation of basic training. We look forward to sharing the feedback from this exciting activity.

Blessings to you all!

Fivel