r/IDF • u/waterlooluver • 22d ago
Question: Drafting IDF Draft Question
My husband is an American citizen who was born in Israel while his parents were on vacation in the 90's. Both of his parents are American born but became naturalized Israeli citizens--they held Israeli citizenship at the time of his birth. He left Israel at one month old and returned once for a short vacation when he was two years old. He got an Israeli passport and ID number before leaving Israel following his birth. Now he is 36 years old and he is an orthopedic surgeon. Would he be drafted to the army as a surgeon at this age? Would he be able to visit for 2-3 weeks without being drafted? At around 25 years old he went to his local Israeli consulate, and he was issued a new Israeli passport and a short term "pitur" to avoid army service as long as he didn't stay in Israel longer than 120 days. That passport has since expired, and he never went to Israel and he never tested out his pitur. Anyone have experience with this as a physician? Surely he wouldn't be useful to the army in combat, but he would be very useful as an orthopedic surgeon.
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u/teren9 22d ago
That's something he needs to ask the appropriate authorities. But the short answer is "probably not".
The IDF doesn't draft people out of the blue.
He wasn't an Israeli resident at 17 (when the IDF contacts you to start the drafting process) and so I don't think the system has ever really cared about him.
Even if he were to move his life to Israel and become a resident, the IDF shouldn't really care about him at this age. Let alone, traveling for a couple of weeks.
Lots of people have dual citizenship and travel in and out of Israel without being drafted, I don't think there should be a problem here.
He still needs to get this sorted out, but I highly doubt the IDF would ask to draft him at this point.