Several leading rabbis of the religious Zionist community penned a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday night expressing opposition to a planned pilot program in the military that would see female soldiers serve in the Armored Corps, claiming such a move would “effectively exclude” Orthodox troops from contributing to Israel’s security.
The letter joined other recent calls by religious activists against the Israel Defense Forces’ plans to integrate women into more combat roles in the army. The military had said it urgently needs more recruits due to the strain on standing and reserve forces caused by the war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges.
“Turning the Armored Corps [into a] mixed-gender [unit] will place our students in front of an impossible contradiction between their faith and their operational service,” the rabbis wrote in the letter.
“When the army advances toward gender mixing prohibited by Judaism, contrary to logic and security needs, we can no longer remain silent,” they wrote.
The letter was signed by former chief rabbi of Ramat Gan Yaakov Ariel, chief rabbi of Safed Shmuel Eliyahu, head of Mercaz Harav yeshiva Rabbi Yaakov Shapira, former chief rabbi of Jerusalem Aryeh Stern, former chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba Dov Lior, and others from the religious Zionist movement.
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Copies of the letter were also sent to Defense Minister Israel Katz, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir.
Female soldiers with the IDF Artillery Corps are seen on the border of the Gaza Strip, December 8, 2025. (Emanuel Fabian/Times of Israel)
The rabbis claimed that allowing women to serve in tanks in the Armored Corps, similar to how the army opened up the Artillery Corps to women decades ago, will have damaging consequences.
“This move will effectively exclude Torah- and tradition-observant troops from contributing to Israel’s security solely because of their way of life, which will lead to weakening the entire fighting array and to the destruction of the people’s army. Capitulating to foreign social agendas that are not the concern of the IDF and are not part of the values of victory harms the security of the country, especially at this time,” they wrote.
Many members of the religious Zionist community enlist in the Armored Corps — as well as in the Artillery Corps and various infantry brigades — as part of the hesder yeshiva program.
Hesder yeshivas allow observant young men, typically national religious, to combine several years of Torah studies with a shortened military service currently set at one year and five months.
The rabbis, in their letter, sought to meet with Netanyahu to prevent the integration of women in the Armored Corps, though it is unclear whether the prime minister has the authority to prevent the military from going forward with the pilot program.
Soldiers from the ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda Battalion seen before a swearing in ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, June 11, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
The army has insisted in the past that it is allowing more women to serve in combat positions out of practical considerations, not due to a progressive social agenda.
Currently, female soldiers can serve in tanks in the IDF’s Border Defense Corps as part of an all-female tank company in the Caracal mixed-gender light infantry battalion, which operates along the Egyptian border — not in wars or in fighting deep behind enemy lines.
Women soldiers were directly involved in battles to defend against Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, including an all-female tank company that fought for hours, killing dozens of terrorists along the border and in communities attacked by the terror group.
The program in the Armored Corps, which the IDF had previously seen as impractical, was originally meant to start in 2024. Its opening has been delayed twice and is now expected to begin in November at the earliest.
A female IDF combat medic on deployment in the Gaza Strip. (Israel Defense Forces)
Despite the claims made by the rabbis and other religious activists, the military has been planning only gender-segregated tank crews, in large part due to issues of modesty, as in some cases crew members must use the bathroom and perform other bodily functions within the confined space of the tank.
Women already serve in a variety of combat roles in the IDF, in many cases alongside male counterparts.
According to IDF data from 2025, some 8,500 female soldiers served in combat roles, an increase of nearly 240 percent compared to 2015. In 2025, women made up 21.2% of combat troops.
Critics of gender integration in the military often decry it as a dangerous experiment with potential ramifications for national security, while defenders hail it as a long-needed measure that puts Israel on par with other Western countries.
Detractors note that some requirements for female combat soldiers have been lowered — which they say is a sign that effectiveness is being sacrificed — and that servicewomen suffer stress injuries at a higher rate.
File: Female troops are seen at an IDF staging ground in southern Israel near the border with Gaza. January 1, 2024. (Tomer Neuberg/FLASH90)
Amid the ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, female soldiers have been on the frontlines. In September 2024, Staff Sgt. Agam Naim, 20, a paramedic with the 401st Armored Brigade, was killed in an explosion in Rafah.
The heroic and effective conduct of female combat soldiers during the October 7 onslaught and the ensuing war seems to have significantly boosted the argument for further integration into combat roles, as well as high turnout among female draftees.
The IDF has said it urgently needs 12,000 recruits — mostly combat troops — due to the strain caused by the war.
Legislation being laid out in the Knesset would continue to grant military service exemptions to full-time yeshiva students — some 80,000 of whom are currently eligible for military service — while ostensibly increasing conscription among graduates of Haredi educational institutions.
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