Dual Loyalty?: Australian Jewish Military Service in the Australian Military versus the IDF
As I have been progressively documenting in this series of articles about jewish military service; the so-called ‘anti-Semitic myth’ of jewish cowardice, lack of loyalty to non-jewish states and also lack of military service relative to their numbers is not a myth at all but rather the truth. I’ve documented this in the case of British and German militaries in the World War One (1) as well as the American military in the Vietnam War (2) and the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (3)
I have also recently documented how jewish citizens of non-jewish countries are willing to serve in the IDF, but are significantly and disproportionately underrepresented among those in the US military itself (4) as well as the British military. (5)
This has long been difficult to prove absolutely in that how many foreign jews serving in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) (and from where) has long been a closely-guarded Israeli state secret, but which has begun to be exposed with relatively figures for jews from the United States having been released by the Washington Post earlier this year (2024).
We have the benefit of a reasonable media estimates of the number of Australian jews in the IDF although no clear number about how many jews serve in the Australian military. Now before we take a look at the number of Australian jews in the IDF; let’s check into how many jews serve in the Australian military.
In 2020 circa 2 percent of Australia’s military was categorized ‘non-Christian’ (but not atheist/agnostic) with ‘non-Christian’ meaning Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Muslims etc. (6) This had decreased to 1 percent by 2023. (7)
If we assume of this 1 percent that each of these five named denominations are equally represented – which is clearly unlikely since, for example, there are 8 times as many Muslims as jews in Australia – then each would represent 0.2% of the Australian military.
As the Australian military had 89,395 personnel as of June 2023 (8) then this would mean at a very generous estimate there are 179 jews in the Australian military (or 0.2%) with the likelihood being that - based on the anecdotal testimony - it is half or a quarter of this number in reality. (9)
This is further suggested by the fact that jews are barely mentioned even once in the literature on the religious diversity within the Australian military. (10)
If then note that Australian has circa 100,000 jews according to the 2021 census which is 0.4% of the total population of Australia (11) then the very generous of 0.2% of the Australian military being composed of jews is still half what it should roughly be respective to the jewish share of the Australian population.
This is clearly not a good look, but it gets much worse when we note what fairly reliable Australian media estimates about how many jews from Australia are currently serving in the IDF.
This number is 1,000 according to the ‘Herald Sun’ (12) and we know the estimate was circa 100 according to the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ in 2014. (13)
The ‘Herald Sun’ number is large but also backed anecdotally by reports of jews from Australia leaving to serve in IDF combat units (14) and open recruitment campaigns in ‘The Australian Jewish News’. (15)
As these are the only numbers that have been provided then according to our very generous estimates for the numbers of jews serving in the Australian military; there are 5.6 times more jews currently serving in the IDF compared to the Australian military and further these represent 1% of the total jewish population in Australia.
Thus we can see that just like the militaries of both Britain and the United States; their jews are radically underrepresented in their military, but radically overrepresented in the IDF.
References
(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jews-and-military-service-britain
(2) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jews-and-military-service-the-united
(3) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jews-and-the-military-the-united
(4) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/dual-loyalty-american-jewish-military
(5) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/dual-loyalty-british-jewish-military
(6) https://theforge.defence.gov.au/article/losing-our-religion-adfs-chaplaincy-dilemma
(7) https://theforge.defence.gov.au/article/still-losing-our-religion
(8) https://www.defence.gov.au/about/accessing-information/annual-reports
(9) For example: https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-chosen-anzacs-australias-distinguished-fighting-jews-gain-new-recognition/
(10) For example: https://rationalist.com.au/campaigns/religion-in-the-military/; https://theforge.defence.gov.au/article/losing-our-religion-adfs-chaplaincy-dilemma; https://www.army.gov.au/about-us/army-corps/royal-australian-army-chaplains-department
(11) https://www.jwire.com.au/australias-jewish-population-at-an-all-time-high/
(12) https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/this-is-a-moment-in-history-where-the-good-of-everyone-takes-precedence-over-any-individual/news-story/6a4e3c069955fbe667efa86b41ca0610 supported by https://www.higginschambers.com.au/australians-at-risk-gaza/
(13) https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-australians-who-go-to-war-for-the-israeli-and-greek-armies-20140911-10fj89.html
(14) For example: https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/we-are-resilient-australian-reservists-called-up-in-israel-join-fight-20231012-p5ebn9.html; https://www.australianjewishnews.com/a-warriors-commitment-to-country/
(15) https://www.australianjewishnews.com/help-free-up-soldiers-at-idf-bases/