IDF worries about significant lack of female soldiers

Some 70.3 percent of soldiers drafted this month expressed a willingness to serve as combat soldiers, down 3% from November 2012, according to data from the most recent Israel Defense Forces enlistment class. Maj. Gen. Orna Barbivai, commander of the IDF's Manpower Directorate, acknowledged the drop in motivation to serve in combat units, but said it was not a concern.

A Manpower Directorate official said that a rise in motivation for combat service typically follows military operations, and a drop can be traced to a lack of perceived security threats, adding that following the Second Lebanon War in 2006, combat motivation among the November 2008 enlistment class only stood at 67%, even lower than this year. The downward trend is thought to be the result of a rise in interest in serving in technologically focused units.

For the fourth year running, the city of Modiin-Maccabim-Reut leads the country with the highest percentage of young Israelis enlisting, 82.4%, with many young men opting for combat service.

Rosh Haayin came in second with a 79.4% draft rate. Tel Aviv placed 48th with 68.9%, while Jerusalem was 61st with 56.3%. The ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak landed at the bottom of the list with 39.5%. Despite Jerusalem's poor showing overall, the city still came in third place for soldiers drafted to combat units, at 55.7% of its total draft number.

Modiin fell to third place in the percentage of women drafted at 82.9%. Hod Hasharon was first, with 85.7%, and Ramat Hasharon came in second at 83.1%. Bnei Brak unsurprisingly took last place in the women's draft as well, with a mere 37.3%. When dividing the country into regions for the survey, the IDF separated Bnei Brak from the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, which has a draft rate of 74.9%, just above the national average of 74.8%.

The draft data for the year showed that 26.3% of those eligible for enlistment did not report for duty, 14% of whom claimed Torah study as their profession.

The IDF, however, is more concerned about the women who are electing not to serve their mandatory two years. In 2013, 42.6% of draft-age women did not join the IDF, 35.9% of them for religious reasons. Barbivai sees this as a major problem area, saying that "a quarter of those who receive an exemption do so on the basis of religion, and a portion of them simply lie because the law allows it. Stopping this phenomenon should be a national goal."