Religious Soldiers Must Attend Ceremonies With Women Singing, IDF Rules

[Purveyor]

January 2, 2012

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Religious Israel Defense Forces soldiers will not be excused from official military ceremonies at which women sing, according to an official ruling.

Monday's decision by Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz comes following the recommendation of a special committee, which also determined that soldiers could request permission to be absent from performances by females during cultural and private unit events.

Religious cadets walked out of an official ceremony last year that featured the singing of female soldiers. The cadets were removed from the officer training program.

MORE...

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/01/02/3090990/official-ruling-religious-soldiers-not-exempt-from-ceremonies

[ProgressiveProfessor]

1. To be clear...its not all of the religeous Jews that are objecting

[pelsar]

4. no, but its something that has to be nipped in the bud

its a subtle but tried and true method as evidenced in Pakistan and Turkey has shown..start with the military, work your way up, start making changes ...and welcome to the "new world"

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Somehow I do not see the Israelis going along with that...

Not in the national character.

[King_David]

2. Good

[Honeycombe8]

3. Good. nt

[oberliner]

6. Three Cheers for the IDF

Once again the IDF makes the right call.

Thanks for posting!

[shaayecanaan]

7. I would make an exception for Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive"....

I was at a Christmas party last year where someone regrettably intervened with a Playstation and a copy of the game "Singstar". After five consecutive performances of the abovementioned song I absented myself for the remainder of the evening, IDF directives about female singing be damned.

I would likewise include within the parameters of the above the song "Do-wah-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-do".

[oberliner]

8. How does Lebanon handle this situation?

I know that you are our resident expert on that country, so I was wondering if you could provide some insights into how their military handles interactions between male and female soldiers.

Both within the actual armed forces of Lebanon and the de-facto armed forces in Hezbollah.

[shaayecanaan]

9. As you would know from your lengthy sojourn in Beirut...

there is a plenary ban in Lebanon on the singing of "Doo-wah-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-doo" given that the phrase in Arabic translates roughly as "President Assad sucks donkey balls", a sentiment which if uttered out of context is liable to lead to misunderstandings. This factoid was unfortunately unknown to Henry Kissinger at a late-night karaoke session during the 1978 shuttle diplomacy talks with Syria, and the peace talks were never really the same after that.

You can read all about it in my PhD thesis: "US-Lebanese cultural exchanges 1947-2003: Singing doo-wah-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-doo".

[oberliner]

10. Thank you for that thoughtful response

I appreciate your efforts to elevate the discussion here.

[Ruby the Liberal]

11. I thought it was quite funny.