Jewish girl soldiers. Israeli army girls photographed by Rachel Papo
Military service in the Israeli army is considered the highest expression of civic commitment.
During World War II, Jews were included in the lists of volunteer soldiers for the front. The Israelis fought mainly in British aviation. In 1948 In the Israeli army, it was decided to form a women's corps of volunteers.
Girls Tsahal
And already in 1959. the authorities thought and equated men and women in the compulsory right to serve.
At first, women's formations served 1 year and 9 months. But then women become more and more equal with the male sex and begin to serve almost always on an equal footing.
Girls in the Israeli army
Since 2003 the Israeli military, who need longer training, serve 36 months - no matter the gender of the soldier. The military commission itself determines in which generations of troops the future female soldier will be placed.
At the young age of 17, an Israeli woman must be brought before military commission, pass a medical examination, tests and an interview. And based on the results, the commission decides which troops the future soldier will be sent to.
Despite the tradition already established in Israel, there is no discussion about whether girls should serve in the Israeli army. We present you beautiful soldier girls from the Israeli armed forces Kahal.
Rabbis against the service of girls in the army. In their opinion, the representatives of the fair sex deprive religious youth of the motivation to serve. Chief Rabbi Zaf Shumel called for the release of the army chief of staff, accusing him of promulgating "radical feminist ideas." By the way, in the Israeli army there are "combined" battalions in which both boys and girls serve. I don't envy boys. I would not be able to think of anything, of any war, except for such wonderful colleagues.
In any case, Israel is in no hurry to abandon the call of women to the service. The service of girls in the army is supported by one part of society, the other is opposed. For some girls, it is a great honor to serve in the army. A beautiful soldier dressed in a military uniform and holding a machine gun in his fragile hands is a typical picture on the streets of Israeli cities. There are several tens of thousands of women in the army. Girls are allowed to dye their hair, but the available colors are limited.
When a tourist gets to Israel, the first thing that catches your eye is the girls in military uniform. The Israelis themselves have long been accustomed to this spectacle, but for visitors - including me - the sight of young pretty girls in military uniform does not cease to be a curiosity. I constantly wanted to photograph them, and at the same time, of course, I was embarrassed to do it openly. It seems to me that a forty-year-old man photographing 18-20 year old girls on the street is somehow strange, especially if half of them carry huge machine guns with them.
So I had to shoot "imperceptibly", which is why the photos came out mostly not very good. In this post, a few of those shots that more or less succeeded - plus, I will tell you where to find the best photos of Israeli military girls.
1.
We can say that girls in uniform are an Israeli feature. In many places in the world it is not unusual for a woman to serve in the military, but Israel is one of the few states where military service for women is required on a par with men. How do you know exactly when you crossed the Israeli border? When you see the first girl with a gun.
Israeli military girls are like schoolgirls in Japan - both are incredibly photogenic:
2. Especially a lot of Israeli soldiers you meet on Fridays on trains - they all go home from their bases on Shabbat. At the same time, a soldier should always have a weapon with him, in case of unexpected mobilization. It is believed that these rules are designed to instill in young people a sense of responsibility and respect for firearms, and this idea seems to be working. Even if the soldiers get involved in some drunken showdown on the day off, it never occurs to anyone to threaten each other with weapons.
3. However, as with all people under 60, the attention of soldiers and soldiers on leave is almost always riveted to mobile phones.
4. Occasionally you will see someone reading a newspaper.
5. And so, everyone buried their noses in the screens of smartphones.
6. It is very rare to see someone talking on the phone. Probably this girl calls her mother, to tell her that everything is in order, so that she does not worry.
7. In principle, it is unusual for me to see people on the street with huge machine guns over their shoulders, and it is especially strange when this is a young girl of the age of a sophomore who types SMS on the phone on the go, sometimes distracting herself from it to look under her feet.
8. I just stopped to read the message... I don't understand weapons, maybe someone knows what kind of machine guns they carry, which are two-thirds the size of a human being?
9. Now they don't give guns to everyone. When I was a boy, I dreamed that one day I would join the army and have a machine gun. I think that when I was young, I would be very upset if I didn’t get weapons when I got into the army. And from a practical point of view, it is probably a hundred times more convenient when you don’t have to carry a huge trunk around with you.
11. For many soldiers, the army is like a kind of pioneer camp, from which you can come home on weekends. Many return with suitcases.
As you can see, I got not very good photos of girls in uniform. But don't worry - as promised, I'll show you where to look at the pictures much better. This is an Instagram account.
Few people can be surprised by photographs of Israeli girls serving in the IDF, with weapons in their hands. Most often, these are sleek beauties from Instagram, invitingly otklyachivayut mouth-watering bulges. Of course, there are similar instances in real life, but it is in the pictures of Rachel Papo beautiful half the army of Israel looks like what it really is. Her models are girls of not always model appearance, often without a drop of makeup and other styling; their beauty is of a completely different order. And, together with the calm strength, which the weapon becomes the personification of, this beauty makes a completely disarming impression.
Rachel Papo, although born in the USA (1970), lived most life in Israel. After serving her compulsory military service (No. 3817131, which gave the name to the project - her individual number), Papo returned some time later to one of the military bases to capture the life of the girls serving. Her photographs are a rethinking of her own experience and, at the same time, a reflection on the phenomenon of a woman who has become part of the traditionally male world - the world of war. For thousands of years of history, a woman - the keeper of the hearth and the continuer of the family - has always been considered a kind of opposite to the war that takes lives. The ancient Greeks singled out the Amazons among the wild semi-legendary tribes, but they treated the “cultural” Greek women, like Aristophanes in his famous comedy Lysistrata, where women, tired of endless male wars, found a rather interesting way to stop them ...
One way or another, but even in our time, when emancipation and suffragism have given way to four, probably, waves of feminism, a woman with a weapon in her hands is still perceived with a certain amount of skepticism. Do not think that Papo wants to take one of the sides; her project is an attempt to understand herself and, through self-acceptance, to understand other girls. The photographer experienced a period of loneliness and apathy in the army, when she was torn out of the familiar world and circle by an eighteen-year-old girl. At the same time, her heroines do not look completely unhappy - yes, a shadow of fatigue runs over their faces every now and then, they do not always seem photogenic and ready to get into the frame, but at the same time, they look more alive than any oiled dolls from social networks(by the way, Papo herself does not disdain Instagram). Their daily work is training and studying, in the desert, under the scorching sun, and not languid posing in city cafes.
Project No. 3817131 may not give obvious answers, but it puts no less important questions, touching on the theme of the “universality” of a woman who can give and take life, be fragile and strong at the same time; also touching on universal categories, thinking about what responsibility is, the readiness to stand up for one's life and one's ideals, and about the price one has to pay for this.
Instagram users actively subscribe to The Hot Israeli Army Girls page, where pictures of Israeli military girls in swimsuits and military uniforms are published. The account already has over 70,000 followers.
The popular British edition of the Daily Mail drew attention to instagram, which publishes photos of military girls from Israel. Each girl is dedicated to a separate collage, consisting of a photo in a uniform in a swimsuit.
Citizens of Israel are required to serve in the army after the age of 18: conscripted women serve two years, men a year longer. The law applies to Jews (and non-Jewish citizens of the state), Druze and Circassians. Bedouins, Christians and Muslims can serve as volunteers in the army.
The difference from many other armies is that the majority of the country's women serve in the Israel Defense Forces (women in Israel are liable for military service). However, about a third of women receive a deferral or complete release from the army (pregnancy, religious reasons). At the end military service most women are exempt from annual military dues.
In the war of independence in 1948, due to the difficult situation of the country, women took an active part in the defense of Israel. With the end of the war, women practically ceased to participate in combat operations. Currently, most women are drafted into non-combat units. As of 2005, women are allowed to serve in more than 83% of the Israel Defense Forces.
For 2009, women serve in the artillery troops, the Magav border service. There are also infantry units where men and women serve together, such as the Caracal Battalion.
In 2001, with General Staff The Office of the Adviser for Women in the Armed Forces was established to deal with issues of equal opportunity in the IDF. The department was headed by General Suzi Yogev.
The Hot Israeli Army Girls page publishes pictures sent by subscribers, the account is already followed by 72 thousand people, and the number of subscribers is constantly growing.