For God and Country?: Religious Student-Soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces - Brossura

Rosman-stollman, Elisheva

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0292758529 ISBN 13: 9780292758520

Casa editrice: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 2015

Riassunto

In many modern armies the religious soldier is suspect. Civilians and officers alike wonder if such a soldier might represent a potential fifth column. This concern is especially prominent in the public discourse over the presence of religious Orthodox Jews serving in the Israel Defense Forces. Will they obey their commanding officer or their rabbi? With research collected over almost a decade, including hundreds of hours of interviews, Elisheva Rosman examines this question of loyalties and reveals how religious soldiers negotiate a place for themselves in an institution whose goals and norms sometimes conflict with those of Orthodox Judaism.

For God and Country? focuses on the pre-service study programs available to religious conscripts. Many journalists and scholars in Israel are suspicious of the student-soldiers who participate in these programs, but in fact, as Rosman's research demonstrates, the pre-service study programs serve as mediating structures between the demands of Religious Zionism and the demands of the Israel Defense Forces and do not encourage their students to disobey orders. This was especially apparent during the disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Many in Israeli society predicted student-soldiers would defy their orders, per the instruction of their religious leaders, but this did not happen as expected. In high profile cases such as this and in matters encountered daily by religious soldiers—the mixing of the sexes, for instance—Rosman has discovered that the pre-service study programs can successfully serve as agents of civil society, both able to curb the military's efforts to meddle in civilian affairs and vice versa.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Center for Middle Eastern Studies
• Data di pubblicazione: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0292758529
• ISBN 13: 9780292758520
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 306