Monday, February 26, 2018

Religion in uniform

Brig. Gen. Eyal Krim
Haaretz has this editorial about the role of religion in the IDF. Excerpt:
The event: a party at a military post on Mount Hermon to celebrate the discharge of a soldier. The snafu: soldiers ordered pizza with sausage. The rapid response: “Two brigade commanders and the deputy division commander called me because they brought the pizza into the post.” The lesson: “The highest-ranking officers in the Israeli army get involved during a kashrut incident.”

The episode was related proudly some two weeks ago by the Chief Military Rabbi, Brig. Gen. Eyal Krim, during a speech before young men attending a military academy in Beit She’an. The averted pizza snafu was just one of many anecdotes. Krim who just two years ago was slammed for comments he made about raping women in wartime, expressing reservations about the recruitment of women in the army, and disparaging gay people made additional comments that add up to a sad truth: Israel is the only democracy in the world in which religious law plays such a decisive role in the military.
Editor's note to self: add Brig. Gen. Krim to photo gallery of hirsute officers for class on Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503 (1986).

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