Tzav Rishon

The letter comes in the mail stamped with the military postage symbol. The contents of the envelope are known even before it is opened up. With the arrival of the tzav rishon (First Notice) right after your 17th birthday, the journey to the army has begun.

The notice instructs you to arrive at one of the country's five draft centers for a day of intelligence tests, medical examinations and psychological evaluation. The results of these tests have a tremendous impact as to where the soon to be soldier will serve in the military.

The first factor in determining the path of the malshab (Hebrew acronym for Candidate for Military Service) is the profil (medical evaluation) The system is graded and the malshab can receive a few different grades that will affect where he can serve. I will focus on the first four. The top grade that one can receive is a 97. A grade of 97 means that the malshab is physically eligible to tryout for all combat units in the army, from pilots school on through elite commando units. The next grade is an 82. If you receive an 82 it means that you are ineligible for pilots school but can still try out for most combat units. A profil of 72 means that you are ineligible for the infantry and commando units, but you can still be a combat soldier in the Armored Corps, Artillery Corp, and as a Combat Engineer. The next grade of 64 means that the malshab is physically ineligible for combat duty and will serve in a non-combat unit. I personally have a 97, however as a result of my glasses I cannot tryout for pilots school or for the Sayeret Matkal and Shayetet Shloshesrey commando units. I am eligible though to tryout for the multiple other elite combat units in the army.

The next factor to affect the direction that the malshab takes is the kabah. The kabah is a reflection of how well you scored on the intelligence tests as well as the interview with the psychologist. The kabah determines what kinds of units you will be invited to tryout for. The higher the kabah, the more desirable units one can attempt to get accepted to. For instance, the higher the kabah the more likely one is to get invitations to take tests for units in the Army Intelligence, or for other units that deal with classified information. Unlike the profil, the army does not tell you your kabah score, but one can figure out if they have a high score or not based on what units they are invited to tryout or get tested for.

I think that I've given a basic background as to what the introductory experience with the army is like and how the process that eventually assigns soldiers to different units begins. Hopefully in a later entry I'll continue on with later stages in this process.