IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot sent an letter Tuesday to military commanders officially announcing his decision to remove the Jewish Consciousness department from the IDF Rabbinate, and move it to the personnel directorate.

“We must preserve our image and our actions at the core of the Israeli consensus,” Eizenkot wrote to the senior officers. 

He declared that the Jewish Consciousness department will be transferred to the authority of the personnel directorate under the responsibility of Maj. Gen. Hagi Topolanski.

“Educating about Jewish-Israeli consciousness in the IDF is an important element of overall educational operations in the IDF, and we must deal with it,” he added. 

The move has faced intense criticism from both the IDF Rabbinate as well as numerous government officials, including Jewish Home MKs Uri Ariel and Bezalel Smotrich. 

Former Chief Military Rabbi, Yisrael Weiss, attacked the decision on Tuesday morning, asserting, “The IDF Rabbinate has announced it death today. It has torn its heart. There is no other Jewish army in the world and now it lacks the spirit of God. Its soul is gone.”

Former Chief Education Officer Eli Schermeister, however, welcomed the move in a recent interview with Army Radio. 

“Maintaining sovereignty is not a collection of compromises, but about preventing the penetration or influence of an ideological credo in command, operational and educations actions,” he argued.