Bella joined the IDF as a reaction to the antisemitism she was experiencing at a university in New England. Raised as a Jewish American, she always celebrated the holidays, practiced Jewish traditions, and attended Jewish camps.
“When I saw how the world reacted after Oct. 7, I just wanted to get closer,” Bella explained. “On campus, I heard the chants of ‘Globalize the intifada’ and tried to talk to the protesters, but they were rude and not open to conversation. They shouted at me in the dining hall, targeted my friends, and pasted ‘Free Palestine’ stickers on my dorm door.
“I was shocked to find out that even Jewish people were taking part in the protests,” she added. “I went to Hillel and Chabad and felt strongly about how Israel was fighting. So I left the university, went to Israel and, without knowing a word of Hebrew, I drafted into a combat unit.”
When she first joined the army, Bella didn’t know any Hebrew. She also found out that although her maternal grandfather was Jewish, according to Halacha she was not.
“I never let that push me away,” she said. She discovered the IDF Nativ program in the army, made many religious friends, and combined her love of Israel with learning more about how to become Jewish according to Halacha.
Included in her gear pack is a well-worn siddur hat she keeps wherever she is stationed. She prays three times a day, often in the field, and observes Shabbat, even during combat training.
“The commanders are amazing,” Bella said. “I’m learning from peers how it’s possible to live a life of mitzvot. The rabbanim and rabbanits are not afraid to answer any question. Everything is on the table, and now I can pray in Hebrew. There is a misconception that the IDF doesn’t serve religious soldiers, but they always give me time to pray.
“My commanding officer also did a conversion in Nativ,” she continued. “Men wrap tefillin in the field. We put mezuzot up on bases.”
Many lone soldiers from the Diaspora learn that while identifying as Jewish, they may not be considered Jewish by Halacha unless they have maternal lineage. With intermarriage rates up and the number of Jews affiliating with Jewish institutions down, the number of non-halachic Jews has risen dramatically, especially in America but also worldwide.
According to PEW data, only an estimated 4.4 to 4.8 million of roughly 7.5 million self-identified American Jews are halachicly Jewish by matrilineal descent. In Israel, a 2022 Knesset report revealed that only 28.3% of immigrants from former Soviet countries were Jewish according to Halacha.
Upon their arrival in Israel, many lone soldiers are shocked and upset to learn that although they can immigrate, they are not considered Jewish according to Halacha unless they convert.
“Most of my life, I didn’t know I wasn’t officially Jewish,” said Talli, who recently began her Nativ experience. Her father is Israeli, and her mother is a Danish Christian. Talli came to Israel in 2012 when she was six years old and grew up in Gedera.
She learned about Nativ when her older sister went through the program. “I was a bit shocked to hear I wasn’t considered Jewish. I had a bat mitzvah and everything. I began to dig in to learn more about Judaism,” she said.
“I thought since I’m not technically Jewish but I’m very familiar with the traditions, I want to officially be a Jew. I really wanted to make it official,” she explained.
Through Nativ, she is learning about prayers and practices. She said that learning the history of Torah and Zionism has helped her connect to Israel, the country she protects.
What is the Nativ program?
The Nativ program began with a Trustee Committee in 1998 and was adopted as a military program in 2000. To date, over 58,000 soldiers have begun the program, and close to 20,000 have completed conversion through the army.
Most commanders at Nativ come from religious homes, according to Chagit, one of the Nativ instructors.
“Mentors are religious and provide same-age role models,” she explained. “The boys are often paired with boys who come from yeshivat hesder.”
The soldiers are also partnered with religious families who welcome them into their homes.
Yael, a resident of Ma’aleh Adumim, has been hosting a Nativ soldier for almost six months. He visits every couple of weeks when he has a Shabbat off.
“He had never been in a Jewish religious home for Shabbat,” she said. “When my husband blessed all the kids, I remember his eyes lighting up, and he asked what it was about – and we explained. He knew the big things but wasn’t familiar with the details and the rituals. Soon it all came very naturally.”
Yael said the American soldier’s father is Jewish, but not his mother.
“We gave him an open invitation to join us any time. The first time he went to synagogue with my husband, he was very excited to see how we live and observe Shabbat. We’ve gotten very close. I feel as if he is my own son,” she said.
Watching a class of convert prospects in the Nativ compound in Gush Etzion, I was able to see firsthand how engaged the group is in classes. As Einat Leibovitch-Lerner, the instructor, introduced the concept of havdala – the ceremony that concludes Sabbath with wine, fragrant spices, and a special braided candle – one participant raised his hand.
“There is a rabbinical dispute in the Talmud over whether the aromas need to be natural or can be synthetic,” he contributed. He went on to explain the dispute and some of the rabbinical analyses behind the answers.
I asked him later how a conversion prospect was so familiar with complicated Talmudic concepts. He explained that he was from Chile and had studied to become a rabbi. However, because of a bureaucratic problem, he had not been recognized as a halachic Jew, so he needed to revalidate his status by going through the course to make everything kosher.
“You can feel the spirituality in the room full of students,” Leibovitch-Lerner said. “I became an instructor after doing shlichut [outreach] in New Brunswick, New Jersey. I realized that I want to be part of people’s journeys.”
She has been teaching Judaism for six years.
Maya Sharvit Efrati, captain of the Nativ conversion program, said she went to a mechina, a religious preparatory school program done the year before joining the army. Initially, she taught Druze soldiers to speak Hebrew, then completed an officer’s course and has been working with Nativ for a year and a half.
“I meet soldiers who come to the course to learn about themselves, the country, and Judaism,” she explained. “It’s a unique program. Soldiers come from all units of the army. They meet and make connections through the program. Many feel lonely, not being considered Jewish. They meet others in the same situation and take tours throughout Israel to feel the whole connection.”
She said that she has had soldiers in her courses whose grandparents purged all documents indicating their Jewish connections after the Holocaust.
“This gives them [the soldiers] the opportunity to reconnect to their Judaism, which would otherwise have been lost,” she said.
The six-week course at Camp Moriah covers Torah, history, philosophy, Jewish law, moreshet (legacy), and modern history, she explained.
“This connects the soldiers to their Judaism and to what they are doing, fighting for Israel. We encourage them to explore their own families, and they often learn things they never knew about their families and the places they had once been.”
After the initial course, there are two more modules of three weeks each before the beit din (rabbinical court) conversion process. The army fast-forwards what can be a long process for others.
Efrati said that hard truths are handled sensitively. These include questions such as why do Jews say the daily blessing on not being born a non-Jew? And why are kohanim prohibited from marrying converts?
“Pain and anger do come up sometimes,” she acknowledged. “We try to offer new ways to look at it.”
The soldiers spend two Shabbatot together, wearing Shabbat clothes, with the prayers explained, slowly. On the second Shabbat, they go to different communities to stay with families. They learn how religious people conduct themselves on Shabbat.
“They want to own their Judaism,” Efrati said. “Most of the soldiers who go to the seminar end up graduating. They are assigned mentor families who even accompany them to the beit din to complete their giyur [conversion]. More than 90% of the soldiers enrolled in the first course go on to Seminar A. More than half of those choose to complete the conversion process,” she said.
“Every year, around 4,000 soldiers from the Jewish sector who are not considered halachicly Jewish join the army,” said Eliezer Levine, head of the Nativ army program.
“Around 2,300 enter the Nativ program each year. Non-Jewish soldiers [with no biological tie to Judaism] are welcome but are not formally invited. We have two to three of those every year.”
Levine said that of the 2,300 students of the Nativ program, 47% complete the conversion process through the beit din.
How many of these maintain their commitment to Judaism long term?
“Probably at different levels, but we don’t keep track,” he said. “According to Judaism, once someone becomes Jewish, they are always Jewish. We learn the Halacha of conversion from Har Sinai, where the entire nation ‘converted.’
“40 days later, they worshiped the golden calf, a terrible sin that also includes a punishment by God, but that didn’t cancel the Jewish conversion,” he added.
Likewise, he pointed out, there is a paradox.
“If I meet a person who converted, when he is in shul on Yom Kippur saying ‘Vidui’ [the confession prayer], there is an immediate problem because, clearly, he hasn’t done all the mitzvot. However, like every Jew, the reason we have Yom Kippur is because no one is perfect, and every one of us tries to do it better next time.”
The vast majority of those converting in the program have a patrilineal Jewish relation, Levine said.
“This is called ‘zerah Yisroel’ according to Rav Uziel, who says you don’t have to turn these converts away. Quite the contrary – they should be invited to come and join the Jewish people. When Ruth converted, she said, ‘Your nation is my nation.’ These converts are soldiers willing to die for the Jewish people. There is no stronger way to say ‘Your nation is my nation,’” he stressed.
“They also have to say ‘Your God is my God,’” he added. “And when they do, we have a responsibility to invite them in.”■