Jewish model struts off Tyra Banks’ catwalk into IDF khakis

After finishing in seventh place on the fifteenth season of “America’s Next Top Model,” aspiring model Esther Petrack, the only Orthodox Jewish contestant to have appeared on the reality show, has made an abrupt career change – from strutting the catwalk to sitting in an Israel Defense Forces tank.

This week, the model will become an instructor in the IDF Armored Corps in a festive ceremony at the Shizafon base in Israel’s south, Channel 2 has reported.

Petrack joined the IDF last December. “I decided that if I’m already enlisting I’d like to do something significant, and also something I would never have an opportunity to do as a civilian, like driving or operating a tank,” the young soldier told Channel 2.

Raised in Brookline Mass., the 19-year-old Petrack took part in the season that premiered in September 2010. She reportedly angered members of her Orthodox community when, among other incidents, she told show host Tyra Banks that she was willing to violate Shabbat for the sake of the competition.

In addition, Petrack famously spoke candidly about her bra size and strutted the catwalk in nothing more than a bra and underwear.

“You have to do it, if you want to be part of the show,” she explained to Israel’s Channel 10 in November. “It’s just not a show where you can be Orthodox,” she said.

Petrack claims that careful editing was responsible for her widely criticized comment that she was willing to violate Shabbat. Nevertheless, after the show aired she found herself at odds with friends and community members. “It’s weird to me that they used to like me for who I am, and afterward, there was a change,” she told Channel 10 in fluent Hebrew with an American accent. “Fine, they’re angry with me, it’s not the end of the world. I’m not 3 years old.”

In the same interview with Channel 10, Petrack admitted that the fallout from her television appearance influenced her decision to move to Israel and join the IDF. “Yes, this is a kind of running away, from all the reactions and the problems,” she says, smiling sheepishly.

Petrack was born in Jerusalem and spent the first six years of her life in the city’s German Colony neighborhood.

She said she is open to working as a model in Israel. And contrary to all the cat-fighting she experienced on the reality show, she told Channel 2, “The girls in my army course are a lot nicer than the girls on the show.”

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