4/8/2007 Haredi and in the Military
Source: Yediot Acharonot
Haredi and in the Military Translated
Although eight years have passed since the establishment of the Netzach Yehuda battalion known as the Nahal Haredi, Noam (22) and his wife Rivka (24) prefer to remain anonymous and not divulge their identities on the pages of a newspaper. In the Haredi town of Kfar Chabad where Rivka and Noam live, almost everyone knows that Noam serves as a soldier in the Nahal Haredi; but the young couple prefers to "play it safe" and avoid any publicity that might – G-d forbid- hurt their siblings' chances for a good shidduch (match).
"I didn't want him to enlist", Rivka admits. "My family is Haredi so I said to myself: What? Bring home a groom that served in the army?" Noam agrees and, in his view, had he not met his wife before he enlisted, "she would have rejected the shidduch".
Upon its inception, Nahal Haredi encountered much skepticism and great opposition from the Haredi community. Haredi leaders saw it as an escape route for Yeshiva students that wanted to stop learning. Some families whose sons enlisted refused to accept such a decision and decided to excommunicate their "wayward son" for fear it would hurt their family's standing in the eyes of their Haredi neighbors and leaders. In extreme cases, families sat "shiva" for their son who exchanged his black suit and a shtreimel for the green uniform of Tzahal.
"The ultimate test of success in the Haredi community is the "good shidduch test" explains Captain Shai Daum (37) Chaplain of Nahal Haredi for the past four and a half years." The moment we understood this fact, we decided it would be in our best interests to recruit married soldiers. We realized that the success of our battalion is not only a function of how our soldiers perform during the term of their military service itself, but rather, it is also measured by the success our soldiers achieve once they return to so-called "normal life" within the Haredi world. For every soldier who succeeds at that aspect, we validate the thesis that it is possible to be Haredi and a soldier".
The decision reached three years ago, to encourage soldiers of the battalion who are interested to wed during their military service, has proved to be a good one. Currently, the battalion proudly boasts 40 married couples some of whom are parents to small children. This statistic means that the battalion leads all other military units in the number soldiers married. The next closest unit has 10 times fewer married soldiers than Nahal Haredi.
"When a young Haredi man meets a girl on a shidduch date, there is no way to tell him "wait until after your service, and then get married'", Daum explains."In the Haredi community a young man who would make such a statement would be considered crazy. We want to minimize our soldiers disconnect from the Haredi world, and as such, we cannot tell them to wait and postpone the wedding. To the contrary, we help them as much as possible even though this is a great burden on the military social services division".
Sergeant Yaki Kimchi (24) from B'nai Brak was a 17-year-old Yeshiva student when he heard about the establishment of new battalion. "I got really excited", he remembered. "I loved the idea: a Haredi combat unit"! However Kimchi, who grew up in Jerusalem and was educated in the finest of the Lithuanian Haredi institutions, did not dare leave his Yeshiva. He continued from the Yeshiva to studies in a Kollel, and was married to Sivan three years ago. A year later their son Yehonatan was born. "Although I do not regret one minute of it, from a young age I realized that I was not going to be a Yeshiva student my entire life", Kimchi said, after starting to work while continuing his studies. "When the army discovered I was working, they voided my special status as a Yeshiva student". Kimchi could have appealed the decision and return full-time to the Yeshiva, but he decided to join the army.
"My parents didn't like it, my elder brother had already been ordained to the Rabbinate, and they were sure I would follow in his footsteps". Kimchi's new wife, Sivan, was also shocked by the news. "It was not easy for me to understand the idea, especially not after our wedding. My aspirations were to be married to a Kollel student, and at the time, our son was only a month old".
Sparks of pride
The Nahal Haredi unit is deployed in the Jordan Valley and in the vast mountains surrounding the Judean dessert. The soldiers endure eight months of basic and advanced training. Kimchi, who as a father, was permitted to return home every day, did not give in one bit. He hiked all the long treks; never requested special treatment and finished all eight months of the grueling training camp without taking advantage of any of his benefits. "It was a very difficult period", Sivan recalls. "We encouraged each other. We were newly married, and when I returned home all I wanted to do was sleep. We both had our breaking points". But during the exhausting service, Sivan noticed some changes in her husband. "The army did something to him. He felt productive and he felt like he was giving back which made him feel better about himself. Through all the hardships he was happy, it was worth every moment".
How can you raise a family life like that?
"I served in the army with him", Sivan joked. "Every other weekend, he had to stay on the base and I used to take the bus down to the base in the Jordan Valley and spend Shabbat with him -- with our baby and the carriage. Even then it's like being with him and not being with him, because he can only spend time with us between his guard duty hours and he was very tired. But with all of that, we never gave up. There is a fabulous Shabbat spirit on the base with beautiful singing during the meals. We spent the Pesach seder together on the bases".
"It's obvious", Kimchi continues. "The lifestyle of the battalion is far more Haredi then your average Haredi on the street today. People grow in the army. I met people in the battalion, who had already thrown away their Haredi ideals, yet they returned to them in the battalion, where they started to learn again and reflect". Even Kimchi's parents have come to terms with his army service. "They haven't said it explicitly", Kimchi explains, "however, I can see sparks of pride in their eyes". "My father is an IDF veteran, and he was injured in the Lebanon war", Sivan adds that her family became religious when she was 13. "Yaki's enlistment was very difficult for my father. He never thought that that is what a son in law of his would do. Today he is very proud. The non-religious parts of my family used to say she will marry someone who won't go to the army but today I can proudly say that my husband is a combat soldier".
The tour of duty in the battalion includes two years as a combat soldier followed by a year devoted to either finishing high school or learning a trade. There are some who actually prefer to spend an additional year as a combat soldier. Motti Mueller (23) from Jerusalem will soon finish his tour as a combat soldier and will continue his studies in electrical engineering. Unlike Kimchi, Motti and Yochi (19) were married during his service in the military. Mueller grew up in a Haredi family, and it was clear that he would continue his studies in the Yeshiva. "I think that there is no Haredi person out there who has a problem volunteering for his country's security. The problem is how that idea coincides with his religious practice". "We came to this decision together", Yochi says. "I wanted him to enlist. I saw how he was torn between the Yeshiva and a yearning to go to the army". After lengthy deliberation Mueller chose to enlist. "Although today it is considered far less of a shame, it is still a difficult decision", he said. "I told my parents about my decision only four days before my enlistment, right after Pesach. Even the army didn't know about my decision. The following day I informed the recruitment office that in three days there is a new enlistment cycle for the Haredi battalion and I will only go there’".
After his first tour of duty, Motti and Yochi were married. Currently, Yochi is expecting a baby and they have only good things to say about Nahal Haredi. "The battalion has helped so much. After I got married, I could've asked that I no longer be sent on combat missions and return home every day", Motti explained. Although that might have seemed attractive, he stayed on as a combat soldier. Here to, it was Yochi who supported him. "I felt that he hadn't yet fulfilled his combat duties. I wanted him to be content with his decisions. How would I have benefited from him being home if he were feeling both bitter and regretful?"
Yochi also used to come to the base every other Shabbat to spend Shabbat with her husband. "It wasn't fun sleeping on the base. Sometimes he would be called up in the middle of the night, and I would remain alone in the room. The last Shabbat we spent together, I only saw him for two hours. He was exhausted; he hadn't slept all night and when he finally came into the room he collapsed into a deep sleep. In the morning, I was embarrassed to go to breakfast alone. I stayed in the room. Luckily I had some apples that I had brought from home".
With the eruption of the second Lebanon war, Mueller, along with other members of the battalion, were deployed to the northern border. "When the first tank that went to chase after the abducted soldiers was blown up, we were sent to the scene", he remembers. "We used our hands to search for the limbs of the dead soldiers. For two and a half weeks I didn't go home".
Noam and Rivka were married during his military service immediately after his first tour. They have been married for two years and have a one-year-old son. Just like the other couples, for Noam and Rivka, life in the military has not been easy. Rivka needed a lot of help from her parents in raising their child and Noam had difficulty dealing with the distance from home. "The fact that I could only see my son every other week was a choice I made, but Rivka had to pay a heavy price". In Noam's company there are four married soldiers, two of them are parents. "It was really funny", Rivka remembers, "If the wives were coming for Shabbat, a soldier used to spend all of Friday cleaning the bathrooms".
Noam, who is currently finishing high school during his third year of service, feels comfortable going to the community Synagogue wearing his uniform. "When I meet somebody who has been rejected by the system, I turn to their parents explain to them about the battalion", he says. "If the parents are convinced, I speak to their son directly and then send him to the recruitment office. You have to understand that the Haredi world doesn't really understand what the army is all about. There is no one to tell would be recruits stories about the army; no one to keep them informed. For Haredim, the army is all about the less than "kosher" mingling between guys and girls. I explain to them that the army is also about Torah classes; that a Sefer Torah accompanies the soldiers to training exercises, and that the battalion makes sure to pray three times a day. Anywhere the battalion goes, they build an Eruv ".
The disengagement created a real crisis in the battalion. Many of its soldiers resided in Gush Katif, and Tzahal decided not to use soldiers from the battalion for the disengagement. "We wouldn't have been able to handle it", Noam says. "We went there to help friends of ours from the battalion pack their houses. It was a very difficult moment". Yochi drove to support the residents of Kfar Darom. "Motti was in the army, and I fought the soldiers", she tells. When we met, after the disengagement in Jerusalem, I couldn't look at him. I demanded of him –'take off your uniform’. The disengagement broke mel if it would've happened earlier, I would have told him not to enlist".
With regard to the question of whether to marry before or during the army service, the couple's opinions differ. "My answer is clear", Mueller states decisively, "don't get married during your military service. Although the battalion goes far beyond the call of duty to assist married couples, it is not an ideal situation for a couple to be separated that much during their first year of marriage. It would be preferable for the guy to finish his duties and then get married. I don't believe it will hurt his shidduch. Today, there are even some girls who prefer soldiers. "You have to think about it very clearly", Noam claims. "You can only understand the full meaning of your decision after you actually go through it: after you spend two weeks straight on the base knowing you have a wife and child waiting and thinking about you at home".
Kimchi insists, based on his personal experience, that one should get married before enlisting. "In the Haredi world, marriage is like finishing a tour of duty. You are much more in control of your life and have more of a clear head enabling you to make your own choices. In any event, it is not an easy process, and realistically the decision has to do with the woman you chose to spend your life with". Sivan agrees: "it's better to get married first, so as not to hurt your shidduch".
Wives' Club
The "Netzach Yehuda" organization, led by Rabbi Tzvi Klebanow, was established by Tzahal in order to assist the Haredi battalion project from its inception.
The organization consists of rabbis who, together with top army officials, have created regulations and religious guidelines for the battalion. It also ensures that the army keeps to all those regulations and guidelines. "We are involved in every detail of the battalion's activities from A-to-Z", Rabbi Klebanow remarked. "We recruit youth; assist them throughout their enlistment; teach Torah shiurim, and keep in constant contact with the commanding officers. Our rabbis also ensure good shidduchim for our soldiers and assist the young couples in any way possible".
Recently, the Haredi world has become much more open to the idea of a Haredi battalion. From its first group of 30 soldiers, who had to enlist in almost total secrecy, the battalion can now numbers more than 2000 soldiers who have graduated the program. A year ago, the battalion joined the Kfir infantry brigade, a fact that gives much pleasure to the organization’s rabbis. “Now it feels like home”, Klebanow muses. "The battalion's name is featured next to units such as Shimshon and Duchifat".
"Today, the Haredi world understands that serving in the army is not considered a stain on one's record", Rivka says. "They see that the boys maintain their Haredi lifestyle during their service and for years afterwards". Noam agrees: "At our wedding, a ’black’ wedding in the middle of Kfar Chabad, 30 guys from the battalion suddenly crashed the party. They came in uniform, with guns, beards, yarmulkes, and tzitzit, they danced like no one else at the party. I noticed that all the members of the community looked up at them with appreciation and esteem. These are facts. In the last enlistment cycle, six out of a hundred soldiers were from Kfar Chabad. This is a big improvement from the community’s one soldier here, one soldier there during the previous cycles".
The battalion has great plans for the future. Recently, they have considered the possibility of creating an elite unit as well as a new settlement for soldiers after they are discharged.
The battalion is also continuing to invest in married soldiers. "The process is still in creation", Chaplain Daum explains. "When we bring the wives and children to the base for Shabbat, other soldiers see that it is possible. It's not easy to be a married soldier, especially in the battalion. In other communities, when the husband enlists in order to serve the country, the entire community is supportive. Here, the parents ask their children ‘are you nuts? Do you have nothing better to do?’ Not only does the wife have to endure being alone at home, she has to endure an unsupportive community. That is why it is important for us to worry about them. More than once I have visited parents of soldiers as well as the rabbis of potential brides' parents. I help them understand and they accept me. It was easier for them to talk to a Rabbi. Sergeants and captains mean nothing to them".
The organization has raised considerable donations from abroad. "Right after Pesach we will purchase four luxurious caravans, and, with the help from the battalion commander, we will place them on the base for married couples. That way they will be much more comfortable”, Klebanow promises. He also plans to create a support group for the soldier’s wives, “we will strengthen them, so they will be able to support their husbands”.
Last August the Nahal Haredi lost staff sergeant Roie Fergon (21), who was commanding a checkpoint in the Jordan Valley next the community of “Bekaot”. A terrorist, who got out of a Palestinian taxi, pulled out a handgun and shot at Roie as he was busy inspecting a different car. He was the first casualty for the battalion. "Roie was a close friend of mine", Kimchi says sadly. "We spoke a lot. He also wanted to get married and he had thought of becoming a commander. I told him to wait. I told him ‘finish your service, and then do anything you want, because when you're married, everything is more difficult’. His death made me understand the minute of silence on Yom HaZikaron. This year on Yom Hazikaron I will stand in his memory, I will recite a Mishna or a chapter of Tehilim in his memory and I might cry. My service has made me understand that it is the Jewish way - to respect those that have fallen. He has turned me into an Israeli Haredi".
