Reading Between the Lines: and languages Soon after I arrived in the Dover Tzahal unit of the IDF, I began browsing the army's online historical archives. The Dover Tzahal is the Spokesperson Unit, essentially responsible for army PR. One of Dover Tzahal’s responsibilities is to maintain the IDF website, which is written in both English and Hebrew, features news updates and cutesy human interest stories, and a reliable weekly declaration that we will protect the State of Israel, given by Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi. With a bit of browsing, you’ll also find that the IDF has historical archives, which are basically summaries of historical events that have taken place since just before Israel’s declaration of statehood in 1948.

As a native English speaker who is also proficient in Hebrew, I was wide-eyed with both shock and disgust as I began to explore what struck me as an historically inaccurate, grammatically incorrect massacre of supposed facts. The archives weren’t manipulative or skewed in one way or another; they simply didn’t make sense. After a bit of investigation, I discovered that this mess was a result of translations by native English speakers who lacked sufficient historic knowledge and Hebrew language skills. They had been forced to translate the archives from Hebrew to English within a couple of days, an order that was given by (what I’m generous in calling) an incompetent officer that, thankfully, is no longer anywhere to be found in Dover Tzahal.  With my sincere interest in history, the written word, and the historical and political image of Israel, I requested the responsibility of editing the archives. Since then, the task has been officially delegated to me just as I’d so desperately wanted—and yet, I feel cursed.

I’ve spent the last several years of my life playing catch-up after being raised in an assimilated family and having attended public schools that glossed over the history of the Middle East and Israel, in particular. At this point, I consider myself to be more than generally knowledgeable about the topics of Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli history along with contemporary affairs, and so I’d simply assumed that editing the historical archives would be somewhat effortless and maybe even fun. I was wrong.

My difficulties are completely unrelated to historical accuracy; I can easily read one paragraph at a time and alter what is not correct, verify facts with credible sources and make certain that the information is solid. The major issue, which impedes the process most of the time, is word choice. For example, there are no generally accepted definitions of a terrorist, a Palestinian, a defensive operation, a massacre, an arrest, or any other term that is essential in describing Israel’s past. I’d become accustomed to using these words in a way that coincided with my understanding of these loaded terms and phrases. Now, however, I’m not speaking for myself, my education, my personal bibliography, or my group of likeminded friends—I am speaking for the IDF, and thus, in some ways, I am speaking for Israel.

Israel critics would have difficulty finding historical inaccuracies or biased terms in the IDF historical archives that are written in Hebrew. That said, the country also needs to express its political actions and ideals as fairly and articulately as possible in English—its second language. For example, in Hebrew, the word piguah refers to an attack. It does not strictly refer to acts of terrorism, but most English-speaking immigrants in this country—the ones that do all of the translating for the IDF—only hear this word in that particular context. If there was a piguah, in all likelihood, a suicide bomber has attacked. Linguistically, however, the word could refer to any type of attack, even a justified counter-attack, and certainly any number of attacks that are not politically motivated. It isn't easy to find translators whose understanding of the cultural and linguistic connotations of the sensitive words used to describe Israel’s “official stance" is deep enough to be published and disseminated, especially considering that they are the very translations taught in classrooms, aired on the news, and influencing voters and policy makers, everywhere.

Most people don’t have a reason to read the IDF website, especially when it comes to the online historical archives. That thought in particular has reduced some of the stress associated with editing the archives, but my general understanding of both the fate of all that is written and the ideological conflict that surrounds the State of Israel, regardless of what it or its supporters do, makes this endeavor nearly impossible. My understanding is that even if the overwhelming majority of people rely on other news sources, books, academic journals, and credible professors for their information, one thing is certain: those looking at the IDF with negative, preconceived notions about our military history and our interpretation of it will read the IDF historical archives, and they will, however unfairly, use our website to conjure up arguments that could falsely represent the position of the IDF and thus fuel the opposition in the ideological war that Israel is, and always has been, fighting.

I know that the IDF archives are misleading due to bad translations, but to most others, they are simply a representation of the IDF and its official stance regarding controversial, historical events. In Israel, we do not have the luxury of overlooking typographical errors, misquotes, or numerical mishaps. Everything associated with this country—every military operation, every sentence written in any publication, the general justification of our existence—is scrutinized in an aggressive way that no other sovereign state has had to contend with.

I see no need to embellish or to leave any portion of our narrative untold, but it's a challenge to make certain that the language coincides with the truth, both in the context of the archives and out of context. For now, I’ll continue to research both Israeli policy and international law in order to best define some of these terms. I'll strive to choose words that speak the completest truth possible, and that serve to further the understanding of our people’s national experiment.

Grannies On Patrol: unafraid of hot sun, long lines, or jaded soldiersAny effective Israeli checkpoint guard must have the following defining characteristics:

• Fearlessness
  
• Stubbornness
  
• Nosiness
  
• Chutzpa

Sound like your Jewish grandmother? Well, that’s what the ladies over at Machsom Watch thought too. Upset about the current state and management of Israeli checkpoints, they formed an organization of female Israeli peace activists to offer civilian supervision. Too many times, they say, lengthy holdups at checkpoints have caused students to miss exams, women in labor to give birth before they reach the hospital, and degrading incidents. They especially lament the treatment of Palestinians at these checkpoints, who are often not permitted to travel freely even within their own townships. They decided that checkpoints would benefit from neutral civilian supervision. But who would they send to do the job? The solution: Jewish grandmas.

Take Rahel Weinberg and Julia West, for example. Armed with sunhats, clipboards, and water bottles, they brave the heat on a daily basis in order to monitor the behavior of the Israeli checkpoint soldiers. What do they have that the soldiers do not? It's more about what they don't have: A lack of military training and an absence of M16’s on their shoulders. Like any good grandma, these two also have heart and compassion. They are willing to stand in the sun all day just so they can help speed up the checkpoint crossing process for those in need, and they understand the difficulty of the checkpoint soldier’s occupation.

Says Rahel, “They have a dreadful job. It is boring, they work in scorching temperatures and their shifts last ten hours.” What they are there to do is to make sure that these strenuous conditions do not lead to an abuse of power. Rahel continues, “When they see us, the soldiers ask themselves 'what would my mother or my grandma have to say about the way I'm behaving?'”

Bottom line: When grannies are on watch, people watch their step. And that is exactly what Machsom Watch wants.

A top IDF general will meet U.S. Admiral Michael Mullen to discuss Israel's intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program:

Mullen's visit to Israel will be exactly a week after the publication of the NIE report that claimed Iran had frozen its nuclear military program in 2003 and has yet to restart it. During his visit, Military Intelligence plans to present him with Israel's evidence that Iran is in fact developing nuclear weapons.

"The report clearly shows that we did not succeed in making our case over the past year in the run-up to this report," a defense official said Thursday. "Mullen's visit is an opportunity to try and fix that." 

Sexy sabra: One of the Maxim adsMaxim has teamed up with the state of Israel to point out what every American Jew already knows: that IDF soldiers are foxy.  Naturally, the Maxim campaign has already created controversy among those who think Israel's chosen a declassé wingman, a topic the New York Post--also a class act--covered today with the headline "Piece in the Mideast." 

But here's why this is especially interesting, at least to people like me who spend most of our lives staring into a glowing screen: Gawker's having a contest to see if their readers can come up with a better headline, and the comments are not only relatively funny, but nice.  Is it possible that bringing up Judaism makes a bunch of hardened NYC media types get all gentle and kindhearted?

Then again, the comment section also demonstrates something we at Jewcy know all too well: It's hard to come up with a new Jewish pun.  Go enjoy the lack of bitchiness, and then see if you can do them one better.  

NYT: 

Hamas responded by saying it would keep up the rocket attacks, which have killed one Israeli civilian and damaged property in recent weeks. “Our strikes against the enemy will continue — we have freed the hand of all our cells to strike the enemy everywhere in Palestine,” the Hamas armed wing said in a statement, according to Reuters.

Here's a prediction that means absolutely nothing unless this gets linked elsewhere, in which case who needs plausible deniability when you've got the "Edit" button:  Wolfowitz keeps his job, Olmert loses his. (It's a low order for prophecy, but still -- hump day is all about rolling the dice.) 

The man currently ahead in opinion polls, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party, is keeping his silence for now, his aides say. But Mr. Netanyahu’s former aide Uzi Arad said Mr. Olmert would find it “exceedingly difficult” to stay on, given that the commission made it clear that its conclusions about the rest of the war were likely to be even harsher than those about the war’s start.

Kadima's been undone by obesity and a stroke.  

It's sort of like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War; it recruits Americans for volunteer military service abroad. The difference? You don't have to be a dupe of Stalinism, but you do have to be male, haredi, and evidently well-spoken (and forget about republican notions of fraternity):

Nahal Haredi faced considerable skepticism from haredim and army generals when it was established in 1999. Few recruits applied, and many who did were not haredi; some had police records. At the same time, many haredi rabbis saw the concept as a plot to keep young men from studying in yeshiva.

Regular army officers said the unit's soldiers had a tendency toward insubordination and excess violence toward Palestinians.

In the last few years, though, standards have been tightened and the problems largely have been overcome.

What kind of men is Nahal Haredi looking for? According to its Web site, www.nahalharedi.org, the basic requirements are "Shabbat observance, wearing a kippah and a refined speech."

Theoretically, any man -- no women, of course -- who meets these basic criteria can join the battalion, but in practice some 70 percent come from fervently Orthodox homes in Bnei Brak and other haredi enclaves.

I don't like the idea of ultra-Orthodox soldiers from other countries being recruited to bear arms even in a remote Jordan Valley outpost that, by the IDF's own definition, is tantamount to a sinecure. For one thing, this is a dogmatically self-isolating battalion in a "people's" army that still operates on egalitarian-socialist principle. (Can you imagine haredi personnel being deployed to, say, rescue a captured female private from the West Bank?) For another, Nahal Haredi soldiers are licensed to divide their time between service and Torah study in a way that can't be beneficial to either, as plenty of haredi rabbis have pointed out.

When Nahal Haredi was established in 1999, recruiters were so desperate that they admitted kids with police records and Zionist tendencies alarming to most native-born Israelis. Unsurprisingly, the battalion had a higher index of aggravated assaults on Palestinians. And American telecom honcho Howard Jonas's well-publicized promise to reward all veterans of Nahal Haredi with lucrative private sector jobs strikes me as exactly the sort of mercenary messianism that does the Jewish state's international reputation, or the playing down of accusations of the dire concatenation between American and Israeli foreign policies, absolutely no good.

Whatever you may think of the late Israel Shahak, one of his least polemical long-standing complaints against the IDF was that it wasn't disciplined enough because of its tolerance of ancient religious chauvinisms that repulsed conventional standards for human rights. What happens when Gush Emunim is allowed to dictate behavior in the barracks? Insubordination by any other name and on which conservative defenders of a state's military establishment would typically look askance.

Stated in a slightly different way, how do you feel about the influx of evangelicals describing themselves as "soldiers of God" in the U.S. Armed Forces? Should they signal an allegiance to a covenant higher than the Constitution in the execution of their duty, would you rest easier at night?

Apparently, the Netzah Yehuda Battalion (as Nahal Haredi is also known) is in fitter form these days. Nevertheless, isn't the trouble with a monolithic military unit -- one comprised of a sectarian religious minority at that -- that its conduct will become increasingly less transparent and resistant to external review? The pressures of comraderie are strong, but they are not necessarily checks on individual conscience or organizational self-criticism, especially in a well integrated -- indeed, sexually integrated -- army. Brotherhood on the battlefield shall suffer if the bond is a shared metaphysics and not a shared country.

Haredi: Means what, exactly?Did anyone else catch that All Things Considered story this morning about the Haredi guy who joined the IDF?  (It isn't online yet, so I can't link it, but if you check HERE after 4 pm, you should find it) It really got me thinking about some things.

First of all, while I knew that the Haredim were often exempt from serving in the military, I didn't know there was such a stigma attached to it.  I didn't know people got shunned (like, Amish shunned) for it. This story followed a soldier for an afternoon, as he revisited his old Haredi neighborhood in Tel Aviv, and was forced to meet a friend in secret. So that the stigma surrounding him wouldn't hurt his friend.  He seemed like a nice guy, and didn't regret his choice, but it made me sad, thinking about his family, and how much he missed them all.  Only one sister would see him, and then only in secret.

And so I looked online, to find an "official Haredi stance" on military service.  And I couldn't find what I was looking for.  But I know many of you have spent more time than I have in Israel, and some of you have likely served in the IDF.  So I thought I'd ask if anyone knows any more than I can find online.

But then, after I admitted defeat on that, I got to thinking about something else.  I got to thinking about the fact that I don't really even know what the word "Haredi" means, though I've linked it here before.  Sure, I can use it in a sentence, but I can't really define it.  Which is, I think, the case with a lot of Jewishy words (for me).  That I only have a vague sense of what things mean: 

Haredi= black hat, lots of babies, beards, see also people who think I'm naughty.

So then I went back online and looked it up.

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I first discovered artist/satirist Miriam Libicki when I read a profile of the former IDF soldier on Zeek. Miriam 's now famous comic serial Jobnik documents her experiences in detail as a young American/Canadian women in the Israeli army. Additionally her illustrated short Towards A Hot Jew grapples with traditional cultural/ethnic Jewish stereotypes. Not only does Miriam's work tackle her own sexual coming-of-age and cultural immersion in a foreign land, but its backdrop, Israel in the early 2000s, lends itself to an equally charged and tumultuous environment.

Given all this fodder, I couldn't help but immediately drawn to Miriam Libicki which is why I had to contact her personally. The result, which can be seen below, was an email exchange which drew upon all of the subjects I mentioned above and more.

Misogynism in the Israeli Army: How prevalent in your experience?

No matter how individual soldiers treat each other, it is a misogynistic system. Women end up being seen as spoiled, less valuable, and there for their sexual uses, just because the IDF paints them into these roles.

I don’t think women who are unfit should be in combat, but when no woman is in combat unless she can rigorously and determinedly prove she is fit, and all men are in combat unless they can rigorously and determinedly prove they are unfit, I think it’s clear there is discrimination occurring. Misogyny isn’t a bad word for it, though it hurts both male and female soldiers.

Women are seen to have an “easier” time of it, their basic training being shorter, almost irrespective of what their eventual role will be. They have more choice in their hairstyles and footwear, and often have more relaxed relationships with their chain of command. But I think these facts lead to women looking like lesser soldiers than the men, and any achievements can be explained away by having fewer obstacles to overcome (allegedly) than a man.

 

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IDF: The beard gets in the way.Today at Haaretz, an Op-Ed on the Tal Law. And in case you don’t know, the Tal Law is:

a special exemption to the required military service in the Israel Defense Forces. It is provided only for Israelis meeting very specific criteria; Haredi men and women born in the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael) that have lived there up until their 18th birthday. To qualify women must be married no later than a certain age, and men must continue to study in a yeshiva until the age of 21.

I find this an interesting subject, not because I want to talk about whether or not enforced military service is good, or because I want to know what you think of the IDF in general… but because my gut reaction to the Tal Law is negative, although my support of American Conscientious Objectors is strong. Which makes me wonder what the difference is…

Am I just put off by the black hats? Why does this bug me?

In thinking it over, I’ve arrived at (of course) a few questions instead of answers. But mainly, I’m curious about WHY these particular people are exempt. That seems to be at the crux of the issue for me.

And this article explains the logic by saying that they:

…hoped the opportunity would encourage members of the ultra-Orthodox community to joint the workforce. At the time, former justice Zvi Tal admitted that the arrangement is unjust, but said the plan would be implemented for five years as a social experiment.

Hmmm. Is that it? Really? I was thinking it had something to do with the value of the work these guys were doing in Yeshiva… or their staunch religious opposition to the military… or maybe just the courtship of an orthodox voting block.

But UNJUST? This seems super lame to me. If this is the case, and they’ve admitted as much, how can they stand behind it?

See, when you’re (for example) a Quaker in the US, and so you get out of service, it’s because the very basis of your faith is in opposition to the military (in theory). Which I can understand. But the TAL Law doesn’t extend to an entire theological branch of Judaism. It’s based on enrollment in a Yeshiva. Which doesn’t make sense to me.

More than that, I can’t help thinking that it’s funny… I mean, if it’s wrong for these very holy Jews to fight, shouldn’t we all be aspiring to the same kind of religiosity (in their eyes)? Do they think everyone should quit fighting?

Help me out, folks? Educate me!