We made aliyah in 2007, when our youngest child and only daughter had just graduated from the Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey. Elana was eager to move to Israel and felt strongly that the army would be the best place to absorb Israeli culture and language.
For girls who have grown up in dati leumi (national religious) neighborhoods, the decision to serve in the military rather than in Sherut Leumi (National Service) is neither simple nor common.
There is growing acceptance of religious girls in uniform—with a skirt, if they so choose—and a voluntary organization available for moral support. Female hesder programs are popping up here and there for women who want to combine Torah learning with military service.
However, many rabbinic leaders and educators argue that the army exposes young women to people and situations that could compromise their carefully nurtured values. One rabbinic opinion holds that a woman carrying a rifle violates the Torah prohibition against dressing like the opposite sex.
For Elana, who came from a coed school and a liberal Orthodox viewpoint, such concerns were irrelevant. We fully supported her decision to serve in the army, although we had no idea how it would affect her religiously— especially because rather than receiving an assignment with the canine unit or the IDF spokesman’s office, as she had hoped, she was sent to a remote tank base in the Negev, after training as a human resources coordinator.
Because Elana wears pants, she looked no different from the other recruits. However, she was the only shomeret Shabbat and shomeret-kashrut hayelet (soldier) on her training base, and the sole English speaker. Unhappy at first, she soon earned the other trainees’ respect. This manifested itself when two other hayalot walked her to a neighboring base for Friday night services and on Purim to hear Megillat Esther, just so she wouldn’t be alone. The base’s rabbi also lent her Akiva Tatz’s excellent book, The Thinking Jewish Teenager’s Guide to Life, which gave her spiritual strength in a decidedly nonspiritual environment.
On her work base, where she slept during the week, Elana met one of the only other dati soldiers on base at the end of the fast of the seventeenth of Tammuz, because they were among a handful of personnel for whom the dining hall had to be opened at that late hour. (Their friendship, incidentally, provided a fascinating window for her into Moroccan-Jewish customs and culture.)
She also became close with three hiloni (secular) comrades, who danced at her wedding last year. I believe that sharing close quarters with someone who kept kosher and Shabbat, but who was otherwise much like them, made these girls feel more comfortable with the notion of religious Jews—which is not to be taken for granted in Israeli society.
My husband and I experienced a tremendous sense of parental pride when our daughter was chosen as an “Outstanding Soldier”—twice. The first time she was chosen by popular vote of her fellow HR-coordinatorsin-training. The second time, for which we traveled to a Southern Command ceremony in Beersheva, was a tribute to her job performance. Strangers could not have discerned that Elana was any different religiously from the other awardees, but those from her base certainly did. My husband and I, therefore, felt that the award was both a personal triumph and a kiddush Hashem.
In addition to the Tanakh each soldier receives when sworn in, Elana received a siddur as one of her parting gifts from the IDF. To me, it was an apt symbol of her two years in the military. I believe that her service offered her a lab in which to test her religious mettle outside the narrow world she had inhabited through high school. She went in holding a Bible and came out holding a prayer book, her commitment to Yahadut no worse for the wear.