[Avodah] IDF

[Eli Turkel]

I find this whole discussion of charedim in the IDF very strange. We are
not dealing with summer camp here but a working army with thousands of
people of which the charedi group is a small (tiny) part.

Soldiers are grouped into small units (machlaka) which are part of a pluga
which are part of a gedud etc. In a typical training base there are many
different groups and someone is in charge of planning for this combination.
>From my experience in basic training (eons ago) the toilets are holes in
the ground and not modern toilet facilities. They can become quite filthy
and smelly. I remember people who would not use the facilities if they were
going home that weekend. One group is in charge of cleaning all the
bathrooms for a period of time. It is just almost impossible to start
rearranging schedules so one group does only the men bathrooms and one
finds some other group to do the women's bathroom. One does not rearrange
the army so they these guys dont do women's bathrooms.

Similarly pilots are on some sort of rotation. The guy in charge has better
things to do than to switch the entire rotation because some few soldiers
dont want a female pilot.
Any such change affects many other factors, it is a non-trivial change. I
was just in Shaare Tzedek hospital which is used by many charedim. There
are female nurses and doctors all over the place. I didnt see any charedim
requesting not to be handled by a woman physician even though it was not
pikuach nefesh. Any charedi who works for some general organization can not
expect the entire organization to make basic changes that affect the entire
running of the organization and would reduce efficiency because someone
doesnt want to be together with a woman. There are local changes that can
be made. Thus, when basic training is set up the officer of the charedi
unit is a male officer etc. However, this does not guarantee that during
all army operations there will never under all circumstances be women
around.

-- 
Eli Turkel
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