The Netzach Yehuda battalion for Chareidi recruits was established in the IDF over 20 years ago in a cooperative effort between Rabbanim and IDF officials.

The collaboration created a unique framework that preserved the Chareidi way of life for soldiers who wanted to serve in the army without disconnecting from their community. Over the years, the battalion grew to hundreds of soldiers in each cycle, while maintaining full Rabbinical guidance, strict gender separation, and Torah content.

So what led to the situation today? An investigation by the Hakol HaYehudi website revealed that over the years, the IDF slowly but surely took over the reins of the unit’s policies from the Rabbanim, to the point that by 2022, new documents re-outlining Netzach Yehudah policy show that the Rabbanim were excluded from the decision-making process and stripped of their authority.

Firm religious boundaries were transformed into “recommendations” or deemed optional. Gender segregation, formerly a strict requirement, was replaced by a general “recommended guideline” that allowed for exceptions. IDF ceremonies were no longer separated by gender.

The goal of the unit, originally defined as “integration without change,” was altered to “the bridging of social gaps.” The result was an erosion of Chareidi trust and a sharp decline in the number of recruits.

The transformation of Netzach Yehuda was far from the first time that senior IDF officials violated the trust of Rabbanim. Much has been discussed and written about the various tracks formulated for Chareidim—and the speed with which religious regulations were disregarded.

The Kol Yehudi report confirms the facts: the IDF repeatedly violated agreements with Rabbanim, a phenomenon aptly illustrated by the details that emerge from the founding documents of Netzach Yehuda.

Netzach Yehuda grew steadily from the time it was established in 1999 with only 32 soldiers. But the number of soldiers increased year after year until it became an operational battalion. The battalion initially operated in the Jordan Valley and later in the Jenin sector, the Negev, the Golan Heights, Gaza, and Lebanon, garnering awards for excellence along the way.

In August 2014, the IDF’s Manpower Directorate established a new “Chareidi” track in Givati, the Tomer platoon, but without Rabbanim instituting its policies. Afterward, despite the opposition of the Rabbanim involved with Netzach Yehudah, the IDF continued to establish new tracks for Chareidi recruits: the Chetz track in the Paratroopers and the Negev platoon in the Air Force—also without the input of Rabbanim.

The goal of the IDF and the Manpower Directorate was to build on Netzach Yehuda’s success but replicate it without the involvement of civilian Rabbanim. Moreover, the establishment of the new “Chareidi” units without Rabbinical supervision allowed the army to haggle with Netzach Yehuda on all sorts of religious issues, i.e., if other “Chareidi” soldiers are serving in unsupervised units, why are you insisting on all sorts of unnecessary religious stringencies?

The number of recruits to the original Netzach Yehuda battalion gradually decreased until it reached a low of 70 recruits in November 2024. Chareidim interested in serving in the IDF understood that Netzach Yehuda and the new “Chareidi” tracks had long ceased to be supervised tracks, and as the years passed, the number of Chareidi soldiers decreased.

One example from the Kol Yehudi investigation of the original Rabbinic policy for Netzach Yehuda and its altered version in later years illustrates the gradual erosion of standards implemented by the IDF. The original Netzach Yehuda regulations called for absolute and unequivocal gender separation. “There will be no contact with female soldiers whatsoever: instruction, mentoring, joint duties, joint guard duty, mixed classes, joint shooting ranges, and cultural days,” the founding document stated.

All these details are omitted in the IDF’s new updated document. Instead, it states, “The service environment will be gender-based”—a vague definition instead of “strict observance of complete gender separation.” At the same time, a loophole was created: “The head of the Chareidi Military Directorate can allow exceptions in cases of operational necessity.”

Additionally, the founding documents stipulated that IDF graduation ceremonies [attended by the soldiers’ Chareidi or Chassidish families] must be carried out with “attention to modesty and separation, and if that is not possible, a separate ceremony should be held.”

However, as the years passed, this stipulation was not enforced. Unsurprisingly, a brigade commander announced at one of the ceremonies, “Here I am the commander, and I don’t accept a separate ceremony.” Since then, the order has not been implemented.

In the years since Netzach Yehudah was founded, liberal and feminist agendas have infiltrated the IDF, including the establishment of a special unit to ensure that feminist policies are upheld and a radical-left Military Advocate General, who dictates liberal legal stipulations.

“Discriminating” against female IDF soldiers by holding separate ceremonies or classes would not be tolerated in today’s atmosphere. In addition, the IDF is one of the few armies in the world with mandatory female conscription, making efforts to achieve true gender separation complex or perhaps even impossible.

This is why a group of wives of Dati Leumi soldiers established an organization called Soldiers’ Wives For The Kedushah Of The Machaneh and have repeatedly warned about the dangers of the influence of the Yahalam (Adviser to the Chief of Staff on Gender Affairs) unit and various organizations with progressive and radical feminist agendas. The interference of these entities makes it impossible for religious soldiers to serve in the IDF without compromising their religious rights.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)