Educational Resources
A collection of web resources and background materials useful for educators in teaching and learning.
Originally publish in Hebrew in Ma’ariv, on January 25, 2009. Translated to English by the Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA).
Hello,
While the world watches the ruins in Gaza, you return to your home, which remains standing. However, I am sure that it is clear to you that someone was in your home while you were away.
I am that someone.
To honor women's service in the IDF in celebration of International Women's Day, the following is a collection of some of the interesting and noteworthy roles women are taking on throughout their service. Women have served in the IDF since its inception, and in Israeli defense organizations before the creation of the State of Israel (exceptional women such as Hannah Senesh and Sarah Aaronsohn, for example). Each year, 1,500 female combat soldiers are drafted into the IDF, a number which has remained consistent in recent years.
Women served in combat roles in pre-state Israel. There was a need for all able-bodied people, both men and women, to help establish and then protect the State of Israel. Zipporah Porath’s induction into the Haganah (pre-state military) exemplified the desperate need for soldiers during the years leading up to the foundation of the State. The following is a clip of an interview where she describes that experience:
When Yehudit Grisaro says "I am not Wonder Woman," she speaks in a gravelly, deliberate voice. This might be because English is not her first language. Or because she wants to make sure she has your full attention, something she attracts easily from women forging careers in the military as well as many from her native Israel.
Well known author and social critic Yossi Klein Halevi comments in Tablet magazine on his personal feelings as someone who opposed the prisoner exchange deal for Gilad Shalit.
A video, which documents Gilad Shalit as he is released after fiver years in captivity.
The former kidnapped soldier gives military investigators an account of the attack that led to his capture and the deaths of two of his comrades.
A timeline publish by Haaretz which documents the significant moments in the 1,940 days between Gilad Shalit's capture and his release.
Following cries from terror victim widows willing to have their loved ones' killers released in exchange for Gilad Shalit, Terror Victims Association head Zeev Rapp, who also lost his daughter to terror, furiously opposes such a notion.
The killer of Baruch Mizrahi, the senior Israeli police officer killed in a Passover eve terror attack near Hebron, was a Palestinian released in the prisoner exchange deal which saw Gilad Shalit freed in return for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.