Enlistment day

The enlistment date and the assignment, if already set, appear in the personal account on the mitgaisim.idf.il site. In the official “Mitgaisim” app you can also keep track of your personal data and get reminders about summonses.

The date you receive at the end of Tzav Rishon is set by date of birth, and it is preliminary: it may change, among other things according to the role you are assigned to. The rule — the older enlist before the younger, in line with the assignment and the training dates.

The enlistment order and the assignment notice are sent about a month and a half before enlistment.

A request to postpone or bring forward enlistment, or to enlist at a different recruitment office, is submitted to the service center of the Meitav unit before the enlistment date. How to apply — on the questions and answers page of the mitgaisim.idf.il site.

Traveling abroad before enlistment? You may not study or work there, and you may not stay abroad for more than three months — whoever wants to extend arranges their status at the nearest consulate. Until when you have to return — the official pages give different numbers, so check with the Meitav service center.

About two weeks before enlistment an SMS arrives with a link to the “Stars” card (Cohavim) — the digital shopping card of IDF soldiers. Before enlistment it holds 215 stars.

With them you buy personal equipment for service — a towel, socks, T-shirts, underwear — and also winter gear, and combatants also sports gear. The chains: Hamashbir Lazarchan, Gali, Delta, Mega Sport, Columbia, Ricochet and H&O.

Combatants and combat-support soldiers receive more stars — a month after enlistment and a year after it, combatants more. The uniform is not bought: you receive it at Logistics.

In the morning you report to the recruitment office (Lishkat Giyus) or to an “enlistment site” — another place, besides the office, from which the recruits board the buses; the summons can be to either of them. You say goodbye to those who came with you, and after a short registration you travel by bus to Bakum — the reception and classification base at Tel HaShomer.

There you meet the first commanding figure in the service — the recruits' commander, who will accompany you throughout the day. You leave your bag and personal belongings, receive a sheet of stickers that marks the stations, and begin the Sharsheret Hiyul, the enlistment sequence.

In the area of the enlistment sequence — and the commanders enforce this:

• You do not enter with food or drink.
• Smoking is forbidden.
• Using a phone is forbidden: it stays in the personal bag, according to the commanders' briefing.
• Personal equipment is not brought in.

The stations don't go in a fixed order — the sheet of stickers marks the way; the last one is always Logistics.

Whoever has been growing a full, thick beard for a long time can receive on enlistment day, after a check in the enlistment sequence, a temporary permit for one month only.

Some lists of the stations also include a barber — a haircut according to army orders, and the religious markers in the hair stay; the IDF site's list has no such station.

On the Haredi tracks the sequence is run by men only, there is time for the Minha and Maariv prayers with a minyan, and the meal is strictly kosher (mehadrin).

You leave Logistics in uniform, with the large bag, and board the bus to the basic training base — Batar. At the base you meet the basic training command staff, find out who is in your team and who is in your room, and fill in intake questionnaires — for example the Tash (soldier welfare) questionnaire and a medical questionnaire.

At the end of the day there is a “Tash” hour — “pre-sleep”, time with no schedule: to shower, talk to the family and get ready for sleep.