We don’t check our snail mail much. We have to go to a central mailbox area and its mainly ads. Anything of use comes by email or text message around here. You can’t function in Israel without texting for security codes and parking and Whatsapp is also a near necessity. Unlike America, businesses regularly use Whatsapp. Unlike America, Whatsapp phone calls are more useful than the regular phone – which I barely use.

Tzav Rishon: Army Callup Notice in Snailmail

Actual snailmail to my daughter at camp from a teacher.

Then my daughter received a callup notice in the mail … which we saw after the deadline.

In America, a deadline means if you miss it, you get fined, penalized … something. In Israel it’s usually just a suggestion.

We call the army and explain. They say, “come tomorrow to Jerusalem first thing in the morning.”

We ablige. Did we need to come so fast? Unclear.

Did we need to show up in the recruitment office when we’re seekeing an exemption? Unclear.

Religious girls are exempt from the army, should they choose, and go to a bais din, a religious court, which gives then a petur, an exemption.

The Dementor

We get there (“we”, not meaning “me” because I wasn’t the one who went – this story is second hand from a reliable source and guardian of my daughter along with myself). There’s a long line with bars and a gate like you’re walking into an embassy. Young soldiers are having a good time on the other side of the gate and my daughter can enter – parents cannot. My daughter’s in there alone.

Outside a woman who looks like a “dementor” accosts my wife. She’s one of these ladies covered from head to toe in a burka from an interesting group of Jews who are ostracized from the rest of even the most religious Jews for going so far beyond the rules of Jewish modesty by living within a black tent that they slowly pull across the ground. This group is against the State of Israel and would be happy to see it gone.

“Your daughter is a bat melech [daughter of the king]!” says the dementor. “She shouldn’t join the army! It is a horrible thing!”

Soldiers having a good time – he was playing the Mission Impossible theme

She then gave us (my wife) the phone number and address for the bais din, Jewish court, where my daughter could avoid service in the army. (Parenthetically, I would not have moved to Israel if I had boys of army age … not because I’m against people serving in the army … I just don’t want my own kids to have to spent 2.5 or 3 years of their lives in the army, delaying everything else in their lives. I think others should go. It’s called enlightened self-interest.)

Said dementor asks for our contact information and we don’t share it with her … later, when talking to others about this, we’re told, “oh yeah, she’s well known. She stands outside the recruitment center all day, every day.”

This could take all day

No way to contact our daughter and she might be there until 3pm.

She’s out an hour.

It takes all day when there are interviews about your background, drug usage, health, and they go through physical exams … they didn’t seem to realize that she was going for the exemption.

Did we need to go to the recruitment center or just to the bais din? Unclear.

Finding the Bais Din [Jewish Court]

The recruitment office sends us to the bais din to get the petur, the exemption, yet doesn’t actually tell you where it is. It’s not right there … you have to drive somewhere else, only street parking in both places. Then you’re supposed to come back, in person, the next day with the letter.

This is where the dementor was very helpful: a) she provided the address to the bais din already and b) she says you don’t have to bring the letter from the bais din – just email it. So … could we have done that from the outset? Seems so. The army sure wasn’t going to tell us any of this.

Once at the bais din and paying a small fee for the letter and showing identification, there are winding hallways of offices where it is unclear what is what and where is what and what is a bais din and what is a very large string instrument that makes a just above whisper level of background noise. Kidding – that a bass which makes a din.

On a high note, you get on a line and find the staff, figure out the tempo of the place, have to B-sharp, and notice there’s no army here … you don’t even see A major. I’ll stop now.

Your Turn to See the Bais Din

There are rows of Rabbis in seats … kind of like how everyone works around here from bankers to doctors, to … pharmacists stand, come to think of it. They’re the only ones. Everyone else you visit seems to sit when working.

They ask my daughter two questions: 1) Where do you go to school? 2) Are you religious?

They aren’t checking tznious or anything like that … they’re just checking if you go to a religious school and trust you at your word that you’re religious. A letter from the school had to be sent as well. The bais did did, however, ask my daughter for her phone number. If they catch her using her phone on Shabbos this will show that she isn’t actually religious, and she will have to join the army.

Religious girls generally spend a year doing “national service” which my daughter plans to do.

The Entire Aliyah Diary

Arrival

01. Aug 19, 2024: Preparation In America
02. Aug 25, 2024: First Few Days
03. Aug 29, 2024: Moving In
62. July 17, 2025: I MADE IT

Cultural Adjustment Fun

Cultural Adjustment Difficulties

On The Roads

Shopping

11. Oct 13, 2024: Packages. (חבילות.)
34. Feb 17, 2025: Finding Obscure Things
41. Mar 23, 2025: New Shopping Habits
44. Apr 6, 2025: Pesach Shopping & Osher Ad

Government and Bureaucracy

Politics and Thought

Travel: South Israel

Travel: Central/North Israel

Travel: From Israel to …

54. June 4, 2025: Marseille and Avignon