How it all works: from Tzav Rishon to your role

The army doesn't hand you a role right away. First it measures a few things about you, then shows you the list of roles that have opened up for you, and you rank them yourself. The better your scores, the longer that list. The more honest and careful you are filling out the preferences questionnaire, the better your chances of landing where you actually want to be.

Here's the order: Tzav Rishon → Yom Ha-MEA → preferences questionnaire → selections (not for everyone) → the draft.

This page is checked against the official articles on the recruitment site as of September 2026. In September 2021 the selection system changed a lot: the combined Kaba score was scrapped, the Dapar became adaptive, and Yom Ha-MEA opened up to young men too. So plenty of advice online — and even old articles on the site itself — still describes the old rules.

Usually in 11th grade — you won't be called in for Tzav Rishon before that. It takes one long day. It has two parts.

Without these, they simply won't let you into the recruitment office:

• The data-verification form in your personal account on mitgaisim.idf.il or in the Mitgaisim app — personal details, family, education, contacts. Plus a phone verification: someone from Meitav will call you and go through the data by voice. Both the form and the call are mandatory.
• The medical questionnaire — you fill in part of it yourself on the site, and your family doctor fills in the rest (height, weight, blood pressure, pulse). Valid for 3 months.
• A urine test — no older than 3 months on the day you show up (one old article on the site says "6 months," newer ones say 3 — go by 3). An eye exam with an optometrist; if your vision is worse than minus 4, you also need a retina exam from an ophthalmologist. Better to get these done ahead of time at your health fund (kupat cholim), or you'll be stuck waiting at the recruitment office.
• If you have a chronic illness, an ADHD diagnosis, a Ritalin or Concerta prescription, a psycho-educational evaluation, or a school committee decision — upload all of it to the site in advance (see section 12).

What to bring: your draft order, an ID (teudat zehut, an Israeli passport, an Israeli driver's license, a teudat oleh, or a teudat shoher), your parents' details, the signed medical questionnaire, and your test results.

Transportation is free: 48 hours before your appointment, a ticket gets loaded onto your Rav-Kav card through the Rav-Kav Online app.

The order is random, depending on how busy things are.

Recruitment offices work until 5:00 PM. Didn't get through everything in one day? They'll call you back — that's normal.

These are the exact numbers that determine which roles show up on your list. They appear in your personal account (on the site or in the app) after Tzav Rishon. The site warns: these numbers aren't final and can change before your draft date.

Your score on the psychometric test, in steps of 10. Besides the overall score, you also get a score for each part — from 1 to 9.

• Four parts: verbal analogies, arithmetic (roughly a 9th-grade level), following instructions, and figural analogies. The last two only show up on the Dapar — school doesn't prepare you for them.
• The test is adaptive: everyone starts at medium difficulty; get it right and the next question gets harder, get it wrong and it gets easier. Each part has 10–30 questions, about 40 minutes total. If it starts feeling hard, that's a good sign, not a failure.
• You choose the language yourself, and that's every candidate's right, not just new immigrants': Hebrew, Russian, English, French, Spanish, Amharic, or Arabic. The Dapar tests how you think, not your Hebrew.
• Everyone gets, no documentation needed, a calculator, breaks between parts, and questions read aloud. Anyone who reports severe dyscalculia goes through a preliminary check and gets an adapted test.
• What it's for: together with your other data, the Dapar is the threshold for getting invited to elite-unit selections, part of how officer suitability is calculated, and a condition for being assigned to specific specialties. After the army it's not used for anything.

Practice tool: in your personal account, menu "Lomdot" (לומדות) → "Lomdat Dapar" (Dapar trainer). Every question type, with instant feedback, and you can add a timer — the site recommends training with one.

• If your Dapar is 80 or below, a retake is approved automatically — no documentation, no explanation needed.
• There's one condition: you've finished every stage of Tzav Rishon (Dapar, attention test, interview) and Yom Ha-MEA. A request filed before you're called to Yom Ha-MEA gets rejected; you can only file again afterward.
• How to apply: personal account → "Draft Process" (תהליך הגיוס) → "My Requests" (הפניות שלי) → new request. Write that you've finished all the stages plus Yom Ha-MEA and want to retake the Dapar. They'll assign you a date.
• Whichever score is higher counts. Before the retake, the site recommends going through the practice tool.
• A new score doesn't guarantee new selections and doesn't change an assignment you've already gotten — so apply right after Yom Ha-MEA.
• Same rule for the attention test: a score of 3 or below can be retaken through the same kind of request.

Set by how you speak at the interview; some candidates also take a reading-comprehension test. Together with your other data, it's a threshold for getting invited to elite-unit selections and a condition for some roles. Since the 2021 reform it's no longer part of how officer suitability is calculated.

A number reflecting your state of health. 97 is the max — there's no profile of 100, because back in the '50s they decided the number should have two digits, to save a column in the table.

Minor health limitations don't always lower your profile — they get recorded as separate "restriction items" that rule out specific roles instead. Combat roles also have a body-mass-index requirement: 17–32 for infantry (18 and up for special units), 17–35 for other combat roles, and no restriction for rear-echelon roles.

Don't agree with your profile? A month after Tzav Rishon you can file an appeal at a Meitav service center, with current, signed medical documents.

• The interview hasn't produced a single score since the 2021 reform: officially it's 15 metrics and sub-metrics that predict how well you'll do in different roles. In your account they show up as "interview impression."
• Officer suitability ("matam le-ktzuna") — a scale from 0 to 3: 0 means not suited (for medical or other reasons), 3 is the maximum fit. It's calculated three times: after Tzav Rishon, at the end of basic training, and after the officer tests — the last calculation is the one that counts. It's also affected by your Yom Ha-MEA scores on leadership and teaching.

Kaba ("kvutzat eichut," quality group) used to be a single score from 41 to 56: half Dapar, half years of schooling and the interview. On September 1, 2021 it was abolished — it's not in your personal account anymore. Old articles on the recruitment site, and some role listings, still say "Kaba 47" or "Kaba 52" — that's pre-reform text. Today, instead of one number, the army looks at the whole set of data above, plus your Yom Ha-MEA scores.

The interview is conducted by a psychotechnic interviewer. The goal is to figure out how suited you are to service in general, and to combat service in particular; this is also where your Hebrew score gets set. The recruitment site's official advice is simple:

• Be yourself. The interviewer wants to get to know the real you, so the data actually reflects who you are and you end up where you can make the most of yourself.
• Be patient. It's a long day, and everyone's wait is different.
• Give it everything at every station — you won't get a second shot that day.

What's worth mentioning: what interests you, what you do outside of school, whether you're ready for combat service. This is exactly where this guide comes in handy: naming 2–3 specific directions you're interested in and explaining why is far stronger than "I don't know, wherever they send me."

MEA stands for "selection, identification, and fit" (miyun, itur ve-hatama). It's the second stage after Tzav Rishon; since 2021 both young men and young women go through it. The notice comes in 11th or 12th grade — by mail, text message, or in your account. Didn't get one? Call the Meitav service center, 1111, extension 1.

It happens online, from home, 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM; it's run not by the military but by civilian selection institutes (for young men, "Keinan Shefi"; for young women, "Adam Mila").

You'll need a computer (not a phone), a stable internet connection, a webcam, a microphone, an external mouse, Zoom installed, a quiet room, paper and a pen, and your teudat zehut. No suitable setup at home? Through Meitav you can do it at an institute in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beer Sheva, or Jerusalem.

Two parts, in random order:

1. Computer tests (~2 hours, on your own). Attention, accuracy and speed, information processing, spatial perception, understanding technical systems. Everything is multiple-choice with one right answer — no writing required. The tests are timed, and wrong answers don't cost you points — if you're running out of time, guess.
2. A Zoom session with a group of 6 — three tasks: a group discussion (~1.5 hours: you're given a task, say, organizing a neighborhood event, and have to work out a solution together and present it); giving a briefing (10 minutes on ready-made material, say, "beret colors," which you then explain to the group using a prepared presentation — you don't need to come up with anything yourself); simulations (a role-play with an examiner: you're a waiter and they're an unhappy customer, or you're the head of the student council telling a student they weren't accepted).

How not to blow it before it even starts. Two days ahead, you'll get a text from the institute: you need to confirm you're coming via a link and your email address — young men by noon the day before, young women by 2:00 PM — and wait for confirmation that it went through. No confirmation, no admission to the selection. Links arrive by email in the morning, and you'll be added to a WhatsApp group for questions. Need to reschedule? In your account, go to the "Messages and Notices" tab (הודעות וזימונים), then "Reschedule" (הזזת זימונים), no later than 3 days ahead.

Scores run from 1 to 5 across twelve "arenas," grouped by type of ability:

• interpersonal: teamwork, leadership, working with people, teaching others;
• cognitive: technical operation, spatial perception, information processing;
• personal: diligence and persistence, working within limits, maturity;
• executive: attention, management and organization.

Each score is set from at least two tasks and by two examiners, and doesn't depend on the others — bombing one task isn't a disaster. The scores show up in your account; they're what opens roles in the preferences questionnaire, and the leadership and teaching scores affect officer suitability.

Without Yom Ha-MEA, the preferences questionnaire won't open — you'll be assigned wherever the army needs you. And without it, you can't retake the Dapar either.

You can dispute a score once: there's a form on the site, and valid reasons are — you weren't feeling well, a technical glitch, the score doesn't reflect your abilities, or your abilities improved after a mechina or a year of service. You'll get an answer within 14 days, and the higher score counts. Practice tool: in your account, "Lomdot" → "Lomdat Yom Ha-MEA": a video about the day, timed tests, three videos about the group part, and briefing plans to practice with.

It opens in August, between 11th and 12th grade, for anyone who's finished Tzav Rishon and Yom Ha-MEA. Everyone's questionnaire is different — built from your profile, your Tzav Rishon data, and your Yom Ha-MEA results. You see a list of the roles available to you and rank them from 1 to 5.

The questionnaire has two types of roles:

• "Kviah" (קביעה) — assignment without any further selection;
• "Itur" (איתור) — require going through a selection (gibush, tests, selection days).

It's recommended to rank both types highly.

• Marking just one single role is a bad strategy. Contrary to popular belief, it LOWERS your chances of getting it. Mark plenty of different ones.
• Ranking everything low is also bad: then you'll just get assigned wherever the army needs you.
• Answer honestly about wanting a combat role (a 1–5 scale, for young men it's at the start of the questionnaire). Your answer determines which further questions and roles you get shown. Lie, and you'll end up with a list that doesn't fit you.
• You can change the questionnaire as many times as you like while it's open. Fill it out early: some selections run on fixed dates, and if you're late for them, you simply miss out.
• For a combat profile, the questionnaire closes about 3 months before your draft date; for a non-combat profile, it closes two months after it opens (early October).
• If the role you want isn't in the questionnaire, you can file a separate application through your personal account.

Draftees are split into two draft half-years ("chatziyot giyus"): A — drafted July through November, B — December through April. Your half-year determines when your selections happen:

• Window A — November–February of 12th grade: for the A half-year draft, and in general for anyone who's finished Tzav Rishon and Yom Ha-MEA and filled out the questionnaire.
• Window B — July–August: only for the B half-year draft.
• Only those who've finished Tzav Rishon and Yom Ha-MEA and gotten a preliminary draft date get selections.
• The selection for "entertainment troupes and communications" (havai ve-tikshoret) happens once a year, in November, and there's no way in without the preliminary questionnaire, which opens starting in July.

Some roles require going through a selection: physical and psychological, lasting anywhere from one day to a week. The "recon company day" (Yom Sayarot) requires a profile of 82 and up and a Dapar of 50 and up; bring your ID and a note from your family doctor no older than 90 days — without it, you won't be admitted to the selection.

A few rules about combining selections (per the recruitment site):

• selections for entertainment troupes and communications, the academic and tech reserves, and combat selections for young women can be done in parallel with anything else;
• if you fail the selection for the "Shahakim" intelligence program, you can't try out for the rest of intelligence (with some exceptions); the same goes for failing the "Arabic-language intelligence" selection;
• the pilot's course gibush can be done in the same window, but only after you've finished the pilot-course procedures.

Failing a gibush isn't the end — all "kviah" roles and other directions are still open to you (see section 10).

1. Get the urine test and eye exam done at your health fund, have your family doctor sign the medical questionnaire, and upload everything to the site (this saves hours of waiting).
2. Fill out the data-verification form in your personal account and answer the call from Meitav — without both, they won't let you in.
3. Skim this guide and mark 5–10 roles that interest you. The interview will ask about what you want, and it's better to give a specific answer.
4. Go through the Dapar practice tool in your account with the timer on, and decide in advance which language you'll test in.

• Get a good night's sleep — at least 7–8 hours. The tests are one-shot; an energy drink won't fix that. Not feeling well? Tell the examiners — they take it into account.
• Check your route ahead of time. Transportation is free: 48 hours before your appointment, a ticket gets loaded onto your Rav-Kav card.
• Bring water and a snack — it's a long day.
• Don't bury yourself in your phone while waiting — talk to the people around you.
• Don't hide anything and don't play a part. Try to fit some imaginary "ideal type," and you'll end up in a role that doesn't actually suit you.

Selections have "second doors," and that's official practice:

• failed the physical selection for the pilot's course → a week of interviews, or selection for the "Chovlim" course (ship commanders) and the submarine fleet;
• passed the "recon company day" but failed the combined gibush → selection for "Chovlim"/submarines (it's not physical) or interviews for "Egoz" and "Maglan";
• failed the Shayetet 13 gibush → the same options apply;
• finished the General Staff or Shayetet gibush but wasn't taken → gets considered for Unit 669 and the Commando Brigade.

Dropped out of a gibush partway through (quit the course) — these backup options don't apply, but "no-selection" roles and other directions are still available.

You can take the psychometric test in Russian. Since 2021, every candidate chooses their own Dapar language: Russian, English, French, Spanish, Amharic, Arabic, or Hebrew. The Hebrew score is set separately, at the interview, and it doesn't affect the Dapar.

The army's Hebrew course — at the "Michve Alon" base near Karmiel, about three months long. For young men, two companies are formed by language level. At the end of the course: level-02 rifle training, Hebrew exams, and a meeting with an assignment officer who determines your role. Anyone slated for combat gets sent to a gibush right during the course.

The "Nativ" course — for soldiers not registered as Jewish under Halacha. It comes in three formats: at the start of service (the "Hodayot" boarding program, about 3.5 months), the "Ivri Course" — a continuation after the Hebrew course, and "Nativ during service" (for young men, after one year and four months of service). Content: Jewish identity, an introduction to Israel and tradition, and, if you want, two conversion-prep seminars.

A calculator, breaks between parts, and questions read aloud are now available to everyone, no documentation needed. Additional accommodations (like an adapted test for ADHD) require documentation.

• Documents get uploaded to the site before Tzav Rishon; specialists from the psychotechnic service review them, and you get a reply by letter or text message.
• Submitting documents doesn't hurt your scores. On the contrary — it helps show your real abilities.
• Accepted documents: a decision from a rights-and-needs committee, a full psychological or psycho-educational evaluation, a psychiatric or neurological assessment, or a prescription for ADHD medication with a diagnosis from a neurologist, psychiatrist, psychologist, or a suitably qualified family doctor.
• A document will only be accepted if it's signed by an authorized specialist, includes every page in order (attachments included), and was issued no earlier than the summer break between 6th and 7th grade.
• School accommodations don't carry over to the army test on their own — you need these specific documents.

Every number on this page comes from official articles on the recruitment site mitgaisim.idf.il and the IDF site; checked on September 9, 2026. The main ones:

• Personal data: Dapar, Hebrew, profile, officer suitability
• The 2021 selection reform: Kaba abolished, adaptive Dapar
• Dapar and attention-test retake policy (August 2026)
• What Yom Ha-MEA is and how to dispute your scores
• Which abilities get tested at Yom Ha-MEA
• The medical profile
• The preferences questionnaire
• The 12th-grade draft process: half-years and selection windows
• Accommodations on the psychometric test