Summary
The Yeshivot Hesder, religious seminaries established after the Six Day War in which religious youths divide army service between military duty and sacred study, mostly located in the newly occupied territories and oriented toward Gush Emunim, numbering fourteen with about 3,500 students a year in Lustick’s account (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 2750-2950).
Details
- The framework was an institutional innovation adopted by the army in cooperation with religious educators, modelled on the Nahal units, created so religious high school graduates could fulfil military service while stationed at religious seminaries in the newly occupied territories (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 2800-2900).
- The Yom Kippur War was the first major conflict in which substantial numbers of Orthodox Jews participated within regular combat units; famous for their knitted skullcaps, these soldiers came mainly from the recently created Yeshivot Hesder, and that participation gave religious Israeli Jews self-confidence and legitimacy within wider secular society (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 2400-2500).
- The overwhelming majority of teachers in these yeshivas were oriented toward the outlook and policies associated with Gush Emunim, and it was expected that the majority of graduates would remain as settlers in the occupied territories (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 2800-2900).
- Haim Druckman’s Matzad appealed directly to the yeshiva wing of the National Religious Party, the participants in the Yeshivot Hesder; the Yamit Yeshiva Hesder was reestablished in the Gaza Strip after the 1982 evacuation (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 3050-3200).
Related pages
For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Gush Emunim, Bnei Akiva, Haim Druckman