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Hi,
I just spoke with someone VERY involved in that meeting in Washington between the Roshie Yeshivas and the ambassador of Israel. He said that 50%-70% of frum boys (even mizrachi, he said more than once) go off the derech due to being in the IDF. I found that hard to believe, especially since I myself spoke with a young frum veteran, and he said that the charadi battalians are pretty good for keeping the Torah. I’d like to hear from anyone with reliable statistics on this. Thanks!
LuckyStrike: The figures you quoted for the IDF OTD rate is an underestimate. The correct figure is r’l higher.
If this is true – this is either to a bad job educators are doing or maybe because they are allowing only the weakest students to go to IDF. We do have halochos that anyone in some Parsha or stam afraid should stay home. Maybe, yeshivos should have a special pre-army track – take physically capable students and teach them middos and halochos of how to behave in the army and show the world what the Torah education can produce. Start with a small group as a pilot project.
LuckyStrike:
I also find it hard to believe, but for the opposite reason: the Zionist army is expressly designed – from all the way back – for exactly that purpose: shmad.
Zionism is all about changing Jews and Judaism into godless atheist Zionism and Zionists. Their shmad army is the main indoctrination organ of that Zionist shmad.The true number of those who exit that army with the belief of and in Zionism, is obviously very close to, if not exactly, 100%. The “Religious Zionist” idolaters already believe this as part of their heretical religion, and the secular Zionists have also been similarly brainwashed in that idolatry from birth and on.
As to the others, as Rav Steinman told a boy who came to him asking to go to that army, he banged on the table and told him that if goes to that army, regardless of framework, he will come out of it “a total Goy”.
Besides, even if a small percentage still does put on Tefillin each day, what about the fact that they’ve become kofrim instead of maaminim, which means their wine is yayin nesech, they have no share in the world to come, etc.?
To those who still don’t get it, imagine sending a group of boys to a Catholic Seminary. How many of those would come out of that with zero heretical ideas and zero damage to their Judaism? At least there, they are taught that there is a Creator, unlike in the Zionist shmad army which replaces Him with Nationalism. Just read the Zionists’ own “Jerusalem Program”: “the future of the Jewish people”, these heretics claim, “depends on a strong and secure State of Israel”. Not on G-d, of course, and not on any of the infinite ways that He could assure that future. The truth, of course, is Ain od milvado.
Zionism is such an offensive and putrid heresy.
I’m also very curious how many members who join “Jews for J” also go off the derech…
Maybe otd doesn’t mean all the way, it may mean that they come out cooled off from yiddishkeit from the exposure. This makes a lot of sense. A sheltered person being exposed to all forms of travail, will lose their sensitivity to kedusha.
I only have anecdotal evidence. I made Aliya to a settlement, and befriended a group of guys. Because I was an oleh, my enlistment was deferred by a year, and in the meantime, my friends who were all religious, some even shtark, joined. All of them except for one went OTD. I saw this and threw out the enlistment papers.
A year later, one or two of the OTD boys kind of came back, meaning they don’t violate Shabbos and mostly wear a kippa.This is an unmitigated lie; all my boys enlisted, all my nephews enlisted, and in fact became more committed to Torah and Mitzvis, none of my boys or nephews know any Mizrachi guy who went off the derech in the army, not one!
50–70%? That number is laughably inflated and collapses under the slightest scrutiny. If it were true, we’d be watching tens of thousands of religious dropouts flooding Israeli society every single year. No serious researcher, statistician, or even anecdotal observer can back that up — it’s scare tactics, nothing more.
And let’s be honest: just as many young men go off the proverbial derech after 12 years in the Charedi yeshiva system itself. Anyone who’s spent time in the real world knows this. Pretending the phenomenon only exists in the IDF is cheap, predictable, and a shameful case of passing the buck.
Worse yet, it is disgraceful to constantly demonize the IDF — the very institution where young Jewish men and women fight, and too often die, protecting all of Am Yisrael, including those who sit comfortably at home and brand them as lowly, godless untouchables. If you want to have an honest conversation about challenges to faith in our generation, fine — but stop using the IDF as your whipping boy. It insults both the truth and the sacrifice of Jews who risk their lives for Klal Yisrael.
Just beacuse this fellow was involved in that meeting doesn’t mean much. It is very likely that he heard this from someone with a strong “anti-army” bias who just made it up or gave an estimate without any investigation. The question should be posed to the person (Rosh Yeshiva or otherwise) who quoted those numbers “is that based on a real study?” “”How many of those were already OTD before they entered the army?” “How does your source define OTD? If they change the type of yarmulka they wear, would that be defined as OTD?” Was this an independent study that is likely conducted without bias?
My guess is that if there were a real documented, professionally conducted study on this topic, we would have heard about it by now.
A fair follow-up study would also be “How many IDF soldiers became baalei Teshuva as a result of their service in the IDF? Rabbi Shalom Arush and Rabbi Lazar Brody come to mind
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