Defense Minister Yoav Galant confirmed yesterday (Thursday) the IDF’s recommendation to start sending the first orders to members of the ultra-orthodox sector starting this coming Sunday. In the first round, about 1,000 conscription orders will be sent to those aged 18-26, with additional conscription rounds planned in the coming weeks.
The goal in the coming year is to recruit 4,800 ultra-Orthodox. The IDF estimates that in order to achieve this goal, it will be necessary to issue at least three times as many orders, assuming that only some of the recipients will comply with the orders.
In the discussion that took place today, the Chief of Staff Major General Herzi Halevi, the Deputy Chief of Staff Major General Amir Baram, Major General Eliezer Shakdi, the head of the ACA Major General Yaniv Asor and the Chief of Staff General Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi participated. During the discussion, Gallant instructed to divide the sending of the orders into three phases, where at the end of each of them there would be a learning process to improve the next time. It was also determined that the summoning plan in the following recruitment cycles will be based on the response in the upcoming recruitment cycle.
Yesterday, at a hearing in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, Brigadier General Shai Taib, head of the planning division and director of personnel, noted: “We are prepared to issue orders this coming Sunday to start the recruitment process for people who will be relevant in this context. We want to make an effective screening process for the ultra-Orthodox society, it can take time. If it is difficult for a person to enlist now, I must give him 45 days’ notice until the enlistment, and there is a population here that sometimes needs more than 45.” He added that “in order to reach the numbers we are talking about, we must start this process and get going. We are in the midst of the recruitment year and this is the plan we have built. We want to bring people to combat roles, we want to be prepared to receive people in the best way. It’s not a process where I send an order to people and they immediately arrive at the chain of command and within a few days in a significant unit.”
Brigadier General Taib also stated that “Regarding age, we set a target of 50% between 18 and 20, and 40% between 21 and 23 and no more than 10% over the age of 24. I treat 3,000 as one plan. The minister summarized the plan and approved it, and now I am passing it on to the best unit, the execution unit. Between 15-12% married people will be recruited, there are some with children who are about 200 out of all of them.” If they don’t show up, “we will increase the rate, and if they show up more than I thought – I will decrease it,” he noted.
It is estimated that the first orders will be sent mainly to young people who do not study Torah in yeshivas or to those who have already integrated into the job market.
