Rabbi Avraham Stav weighed in Monday on the public uproar following an incident in which soldiers from the Givati Brigade's Rotem Battalion refused to board an armored personnel carrier with a female paramedic. The soldiers were sentenced Sunday evening to 10 days in military prison.
Writing from a training exercise, Rabbi Stav offered an analogy: "I'm currently at combat training and imagining if the kitchen commander decided that fish isn't meat, so vegetarian and vegan soldiers could eat tuna." He noted that while he personally agrees with this position, having devoted a chapter in his book on Jewish vegetarianism to arguing that fish isn't exactly meat, "it wouldn't be reasonable for him to make such a decision on behalf of my vegetarian friends in the battery who believe otherwise."
The rabbi emphasized that "the IDF cannot operate like a neighborhood. It's impossible for every soldier to consult a rabbi before an operational activity. But it's also impossible to demand that religiously observant combat soldiers align with a halakhic standard that the Military Rabbinate approved during an emergency situation, which commanders are gradually eroding during routine times."
