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8 | JANUARY 23 • 2020 

1942 - 2020

Covering and Connecting 
Jewish Detroit Every Week
jn

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How to reach us see page 10

guest column
IDF: Choose Tank Crew Members
Based On Capabilities, Not Gender

A

fter facing various legal pressures, 
the IDF’
s new Chief-of-Staff, Aviv 
Kochavi, recently decided to reinstate 
a pilot program that would test the possibil-
ity of integrating female tank crews into the 
Armored Corps. The pilot’
s goal was to train 
all-female tank crews and ultimately deploy 
them to the Jordanian and Egyptian borders. 
Of the 15 women in the pilot, 13 completed 
the training, four of whom also became tank 
commanders. Although deemed successful 
upon completion in 2018, the pilot’
s con-
tinuation was put on hold, as its next phase 
would require more funds and resources that 
were unable to be allocated. (Haaretz, 2020) 
The announcement of the pilot launch 
in 2017 was controversial and immediately 
became a “hot topic” in the media, as well as 
in my social circle. As a former Lone Soldier 
who served in the IDF as a tank shooting 
instructor, and someone who has fired 
tank cannons and taught soldiers shooting 
techniques, I felt an enormous amount of 
pride. While my friends who served as tank 
instructors felt empowered, many voices 
across the country were outraged. Aside 
from the concerns over immodesty from 

ultra-Orthodox leadership, male soldiers and 
officials claimed that women lacked the level 
of physical fitness needed to fulfil the duties 
of a loader or to conduct frequent tank main-
tenance routines.
Most frustrating of all, many claimed that 
the integration would lower the morale and 
motivation of the male soldiers in the unit, 
and that soldiers would feel emasculated 
if women could work the job with them. 
Despite the great strides that the IDF has 
made over the past few decades to include 
females in various combat units — such as 

accepting women as pilots in the Israeli Air 
Forces’
 Flight Academy for the past 22 years 
(Israeli Air Force, 2017), these reactions were 
alarming.
Women have been serving as tank instruc-
tors since 1976. From the get-go, they have 
been the most knowledgeable about the tank 
and have had to first do or simulate what-
ever it was that they would teach to others. 
Today, a male soldier in the Armored Corps 
is trained by a female instructor from his first 
day on base, through his advanced training, 
throughout commander school, and even in 
officer school. Alongside his commander, it 
is the (female) tank instructor who teaches 
him to be a skilled and successful tank crew 
member. 
When I was selected to be a tank instruc-
tor along with 30 young women in 2013, my 
service began with an intensive three-month 
basic training. After learning the “101s” of 
dozens of technical tank topics, my friends 
and I underwent screening in order to be 
assigned to the specific profession that 
was most fitting to our capabilities. I spent 
another nine months training as a simulator 
instructor and became fluent in topics such 

STEPHANIE HORWITZ SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

Stephanie Horwitz

COURTESY OF STEPHANIE HORWITZ

continued on page 10

