Religious Jews in Israel in collective settlements today published a proclamation repudiating the stand taken by the Chief Rabbinate in opposing the mobilization of women of military age for service in agricultural colonies. The proclamation also supported Premier David Ben Gurion’s proposal for such mobilization on condition that conscripted women be assigned to service in religious settlements or religious immigrant camps.
The proclamation which was issued by the Hakibutz Hadati, central body of the religious collective settlements, points out that “the religious woman in Israel underwent training in pioneering agricultural work and participated in the defense of religious settlements in the War of Liberation as a full member and an equal partner in the struggle of the religious worker for the country’s spiritual structure.”
The Rabbinate’s ban on compulsory service of religious women, “under the present circumstances,” is contrary to the aspirations of religious Jewry “as a public partner in Israel’s upbuilding and in the consolidation of the structure of the Jewish state,” the document asserts. It expresses adherence to the resolution approved recently at the conference of the Orthodox Mizrachi Laborites which condoned the drafting of young women into the Nahal, a semi-military youth organization.
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