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Idit Shafran Gittleman

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Mar 8, 2022, 12:38 PM

Women in elite combat units? Go for it!

As the people's army, the IDF – yes, even the IDF – is obliged to uphold the principle of equality and let women serve anywhere they are qualified to serve

Sep 6, 2021, 12:48 AM

The silence of the commanders

Border Police officer Barel Shmueli who was critically wounded in a shooting on the Gaza border, on August 21, 2021. He died of his injuries on August 30. (Border Police)

An ugly, false and increasingly widespread claim chalks up an IDF soldier's death to overly stringent open-fire orders. Why isn't the army setting the record straight?

Mar 8, 2021, 12:24 AM

International Women's Day

Gender integration of IDF combat units is a supremely moral issue

Soldiers from the mixed-gender Lions of the Jordan Valley Battalion take part in an exercise in the Tzeelim army base on February 5, 2018. (Judah Ari Gross/Times of Israel/File)

The army's decision on allowing women to join elite combat units goes far beyond military service and into the heart of Israeli social values

Jan 1, 2020, 2:36 PM

The decade in review: Women’s service in the IDF

Illustrative. Female soldiers in the IDF, during training, July 13, 2016. (Hadas Parush/ Flash90/ File)

An unprecedented number of female soldiers in increasingly more important roles should not be stepping aside in 'consideration of of religious soldiers'

Nov 6, 2019, 9:32 PM

A dangerous vision of the IDF as the Army of the Lord

Illustrative: Religious soldiers of the Netzah Yehuda Battalion pray while completing the final stages of a 40 kilometer journey in 2010. (Abir Sultan/Flash90)

A booklet on modesty penned by rabbis counsels behavior that humiliates women soldiers. It also cloaks the authors' true motives

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About Me

Dr. Idit Shafran Gittleman is head of the Israel Democracy Institute’s Military and Society program.