'It contradicts our entire way of life'

Religious Zionist rabbis say students will not enlist in Armored Corps with women

Heads of yeshivot from both liberal and hard-line sides of the Orthodox community express concern about co-ed tank units after High Court instructs military to start pilot program

Religious Zionist rabbis from a plurality of institutions representing the community expressed their concern over a plan to allow women to serve with men in the Israel Defense Forces Armored Corps, with at least some vowing to instruct the students not to serve in tanks as long as that remained a possibility.

The development comes after, earlier this month, the High Court of Justice said that the IDF must begin a trial program for female soldiers to serve in the corps by November 2026, following repeated delays by the military.

The military has been planning only gender-segregated tanks. If the number of recruits allows, platoons or companies would also be divided by gender. An Armored Corps company is normally composed of 11 tanks.

This is due in large part to concerns surrounding modesty, as in some cases, crew members must use the bathroom and perform other bodily functions within the confined space of the tank. However, women and men would likely end up serving together at the battalion and brigade levels.

“It is impossible for a person keeping Torah commandments to serve in a co-ed place,” said Rabbi Zalman Melamed, head of the Bet El yeshiva in the West Bank settlement of the same name, according to the Ynet news site. “In the [religious] Zionist ‘high yeshivas,’ we have decided that we are not going to the Armored Corps as long as there is no clear decision against [having men and women serve together].”

“High yeshivas” are Torah institutions where men can indefinitely defer their army service, even though the vast majority of students who attend eventually draft, albeit sometimes at a late age and for a shorter period.

Melamed was one of the heads of several prominent yeshivot, pre-military programs, and high schools who met to discuss the issue last week at the home of the late Rabbi Chaim Druckman, who was considered one of the spiritual leaders of the community before he passed away in 2022.

Notably, the rabbis who met came from both the liberal and hard-line sides of the religious Zionist community.

“We will not serve in a field unit where there is gender integration with women,” said Rabbi Yaakov Medan, co-head of the flagship Har Etzion Yeshiva in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut. “I am not opposed to women serving, but we will not serve in a place where there is such mixing.”

Many members of the religious Zionist community currently 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 students to combine several years of Torah study with a shortened military service, currently set at 17 months, compared with the current 30 months for men.

Female soldiers can already 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 fighting deep behind enemy lines.

The tentative co-ed pilot program in the Armored Corps — whose units are trained to enter deep into enemy territory — was originally scheduled to start in 2024. The  IDF had previously deemed the program impractical. Its opening was delayed twice during Israel’s multi-front war, and the IDF last said it was expected to begin in November.

“We are an inseparable part of the IDF, but we will not be able to allow under any circumstances for our male and female students to serve in gender-mixing that places them in impossible situations, like what is currently proposed in the Armored Corps,” said Rabbi Meir Nehorai, who teaches at the Migdal Oz women’s Torah seminary and is the chairman of the liberal Orthodox organization Beit Hillel.

Other participants in the meeting included Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, co-head of the prestigious Eli pre-military academy, Rabbi Yitzhak Sabato, head of the Mitzpe Yericho yeshiva (both located in the West Bank), and Rabbi Yehuda Gilad, head of the Ma’ale Gilboa yeshiva, who served as an MK for the now-defunct left-wing religious Zionist party Meimad in the early 2000s.

“On the ground during the war, everything gets mixed up,” Levinstein said. “During battle, if a team is hit, you immediately reassign, and combat soldiers get on the tank, and it could also be female combat soldiers – what do you do in such a situation?”

The moderate Tzohar rabbinic group also stated its opposition to co-ed tanks, calling on the army to start a discussion with the heads of the hesder yeshivas and pre-military academies.

“I fully understand the desire and the right of women when it comes to military service,” Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, a founder of Tzohar and the director of its Center for Jewish Ethics, said in a statement on X. “They and we – and the IDF and we – are not on opposite sides of the divide, we are on the same side. But with mixed-gender teams in combat units, we simply cannot live.”

“It contradicts our entire way of life and our worldview,” he added. “So what do we do? We find a solution that will allow all of us to fight in the best possible way — not through coercion. It’s possible.”

Women already serve in a variety of combat roles in the IDF, in many cases alongside male counterparts.

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.

The army has insisted in the past that it is allowing more women to serve in combat positions for practical reasons, not as part of a progressive social agenda.

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.

Women soldiers were directly involved in battles to defend against Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, including in 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 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.