10/22/2026
If a female soldier dies while enlisted, she is taken care of by the army just as the men are. Volunteer women from around the country, who worked for the Chevra Kadishas in their hometowns, used to be called upon to assist the army professionals in the preparation for burial.
In the last ten years, more women have entering combat units in the army, therefore raising the risk of more female deaths. As a result of this new reality, the IDF Rabbinate created a designated unit in which women would be trained to assist in the identification process and burial preparation for a female fallen soldier.
In July 2023, the IDF Rabbinate decided to draft and categorize these volunteers as soldiers serving in reserve duty. Now when they come to volunteer, they are considered official members of the IDF. Thankfully, until October 7, they were not usually inundated with work.
And then the world exploded and everything changed.
I recently caught up with Sharon Laufer, the person who had recruited the women for the first three cohorts of this unit, to learn what they have been doing since that black Shabbat, and how they’ve been coping.
Laufer says, “As a child, I was very fearful and anxious about death.” At the age of 16, after attending a summer camp session at which people from a Chevra Kadisha spoke, in the context of “Life Cycle Events,” she was very moved and thought that she needed more information.
She got "more information" when she was 29 and living in Teaneck, New Jersey with her husband Nathan, she saw a notice in the shul bulletin requesting volunteers for the women’s Chevra Kadisha. She responded, and experienced her first taharah, purification in Hebrew, where the body is washed and cleansed before burial.
“That day was a turning point in my life, not only because it was the beginning of my service, but because I found that it opened my heart in a way like nothing else that I would choose to do. I served on the Chevra Kadisha until moving to Israel in 2003.”
This work helped Laufer overcome her fear of death. “You walk into the taharah room and you don’t know very much about the person on the table, however, the body and the soul speak volumes if you’re open to listening.”
Read the full article: https://aish.com/inside-the-idfs-womens-casualty-treatment-unit/
