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Thursday November 15, 2007

Who is the real Israel solider — glam girl or combat partner?

by nechemia meyers

Yael Goldstof, a petite 22-year-old woman, looks like a carefree college student mainly concerned about her next date.

But she is not that at all. She just completed four years of service as the commander of a Border Police company unit made up of 40 young men. And not just males, but tough, macho types who don’t like to take orders from anyone, let alone a girl.

In the end, however, she won over almost all of them because she showed sensitivity to their needs and could hold her own when it came to carrying a heavy pack, doing a 12-hour stretch of guard duty and putting down a riot.

“Being in the Border Police broke down the middle-class bubble I had been living in since I was born. I grew up in a close, loving family and always had everything I needed.

“I was sheltered from many aspects of Israeli society by being sent to a school for religious girls,” she continued. “I was a good student, although I didn’t always follow the advice of my teachers. They urged the graduates to work in hospitals or social welfare facilities within the framework of National Service. And if the girls couldn’t be dissuaded from joining the Israel Defense Forces, they were told they should serve only as teachers.”

That was not for Goldstof. She was determined to be a combat soldier, and the army decided to let her try. She entered a no compromise course for girls with such an ambition. Seventy started; but only 40 finished, Goldstof among them. She wanted to join Golani, a prestigious infantry unit her brother had served in, but this proved impossible. So she joined the Border Police, where she was appointed the commander of a small unit.

“I came into contact with a whole new world,” she recalled. “The guys were Jews, Druze and Muslims, who mostly had grown up in deprived and sometimes broken homes. Had they not joined the Border Police, some might have ended up badly.

“Be this as it may, I learned to admire them for their determination to do their military job and then get on with life.”

Goldstof found it possible to remain observant in this new framework. The food they ate was, of course, kosher and there was a synagogue in the camp. The Shabbat was not observed in the same way as at home, but those who wanted to keep it did so, praying and reading while most everyone else in the camp was playing games, listening to the hit parade on the radio or watching soccer on TV.

The young lady with the M16, however, is little known outside her a family and her circle of close friends. Far better known is Israeli model Bar Rafaeli, who is frequently featured in overseas gossip columns and on the glossy covers of magazines published in New York, London and Paris. Her reputation stems as much from her beauty as the fact that her ex-boyfriend is Leonardo DiCaprio.

In any case, she frequently uses her public platform to criticize Israel, where she “feels uncomfortable.” When asked how she felt about having evaded military service, she replied: “I don’t regret not enlisting because it paid off big time.”

Israel’s future — even its very existence, perhaps — will depend on who becomes the dominant role model for Israeli youth: Yael or Bar.

Nechemia Meyers is a longtime j. correspondent in Israel.

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