Related Papers
Our Forces" Become Alexei, Yuval and Liran : The Transition of the Israeli Soldier's Media Image from the Collective to an Individual
Elisheva Rosman-Stollman
The Transition of the Israeli Soldier's Media Image from the Collective to an Individual
2015 •
Elisheva Rosman-Stollman
Israel Studies Review
From Jewish Sentiments to Rational Exhortations
What exhortations were given to Israeli soldiers when sent to a possible sacrifice of their lives in war? This article introduces the genre of ‘battle missives’ written by Israel Defense Force (IDF) commanders as a prism to investigate this question. Battle missives are short texts sent to soldiers on the eve of battle to mobilize them to fight and to justify the risk to their lives. I employ narrative and hermeneutic methods to analyze an original database of 289 missives written between 1948 and 2014, which reveal the changing motivations and justifications preceding combat. My findings indicate a move from ‘Jewish sentimental’ exhortations that prevailed from 1948 until 1973 toward ‘rational’ exhortations between 1982 and 2014. This study locates battle missives as key to understanding the social norms and values relating to sacrifice in war, and the ways in which military commanders adjusted the language of sacrifice to reflect major transformations in both Israeli society and t...
‘Israeli, Zionist, Combatant, Refusnik’: Representations of Conscientious Objection in Israel
Yael Weisz-Rind
Journal of Strategic Studies
The shift to defence in Israel’s hybrid military strategy
Amit Sheniak
Armed Forces & Society
The Israel Reserve Law: The Duality of Reservists and Transformed Military Autonomy
2020 •
Eyal Ben-Ari
Enacted in 2008, 60 years after Israel Defense Forces was established, the Israeli Reserves Law is a striking expression of the decline of military autonomy in a democratic country. While not aimed at reducing the military’s discretion in regard to the training, deployment, and compensation for reservists, the formal enactment of the Law in effect did so. The legislative process was preceded by a crisis between reservists and the military and was led by several reservists’ organizations who tried to improve the standing and resources allocated to the reserve forces. The article analyzes the impact of these organizations and the coalitions they created with politicians serving in the national parliament, the Knesset. By choosing the legislative option to improve the conditions of service for reservists, they de facto reduced military autonomy since the new Law mandated supervision and monitoring (by civilian institutions) of the service of reservists and extended into the core area o...
Small Wars & Insurgencies
Beyond faith and foxholes: vernacular religion and asymmetrical warfare within contemporary IDF combat units
2020 •
Nehemia Stern
This chapter explores the vernacular roles that religious practices and experiences play within contemporary combat units of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). We argue for an anthropological perspective that highlights the modes through which rituals serve efficacious - as opposed to semiotic - ends. In this way, we seek to push back against what we term the ‘faith in a foxhole’ paradigm, where religion is primarily seen as a meaning-making system whose nearly sole function is to aid soldiers in coping with the chaos and uncertainty of combat. We demonstrate how amidst the low-level and long-term style of contemporary asymmetrical warfare, ritual practices can often function less as the matrix for broader meaning making systems but are rather mobilized in ways that are meant to support certain practical and pragmatic goals. In a broader sense this article argues that while scholars have mostly focused attention on the institutional forces and political consequences of ‘religionization’ within Israeli society, they have missed the many vernacular ways in which Israelis mobilize and instrumentalize their use of ritual and religious practices in both military and civilian contexts.
Neither a Conscript Army nor an All-Volunteer Force: Emerging recruiting models
Eyal Ben-Ari
This article develops an analytical model of force-composition that combines the advantages of conscription with those of an all-volunteer force. Using Israel as a hypothesis-generating case study, it argues that mandatory military service has undergone changes centered on five key organizing principles: selective conscription, early discharges, elongated lengths of service, forms of voluntary service and differing pay-scales and other material and non-material incentives for conscripts. These principles are “grafted” onto conscription creating a hybrid, “volunteer-ized”, model. The utility of the theoretical model lies in explaining how these principles facilitate mobilizing a needed number or recruits, providing an adequate level of military expertise, as well as maintaining the legitimacy of the armed forces by meeting domestic social, economic and political expectations about its composition and the use of personnel at its disposal. The system is adaptive and flexible, as shown ...
Israel Studies Review
Men and Boys: Representations of Israeli Combat Soldiers in the Media
2015 •
Elisheva Rosman-Stollman
Israel Studies Review
“The Chain of Hebrew Soldiers”
Udi Lebel
This article presents an ethnographic analysis of the educational and religious tensions that emerged during a five-day biblical seminar run by the Israel Defense Forces’ Identity and Jewish Consciousness Unit. We argue that despite the official focus on professionalization as a pedagogical parameter, the seminar participants themselves reacted to biblical narratives in ways that indicate a distinct kind of personal and individualized discourse. By focusing on this disjuncture, we highlight the very real limitations larger (governmental or civilian) institutional entities face as they attempt to shape religious attitudes within the Israeli public arena. Examining how seminar participants interpret biblical narratives can enable scholars to portray a more nuanced account of how religion and “religionization” function within the Israel Defense Forces.
