The leaders of 12 yeshivas said Tuesday that they will no longer send their students to join tank units because of an army plan to integrate women into the Armored Corps.

The yeshivas are all part of the hesder program, which allows Orthodox soldiers to combine military service with periods spent studying in yeshiva. Service in the Armored Corps has been a mainstay of the hesder program for decades, though some of its soldiers serve in other units.

The rabbis put their names to an open letter declaring their opposition to a High Court of Justice ruling last month that the Israel Defense Forces must begin a trial program for female soldiers to serve in the corps by November, following repeated delays by the military.

Critics panned the rabbis’ missive as a call to refuse to serve.

In the letter, the rabbis wrote that they “take a very serious view of the decision by the High Court of Justice to require the IDF to integrate female combat soldiers” in the Armored Corps.

“Virtue… is the foundation for the spirit of the IDF and its success in eradicating the enemy,” they said. Putting female soldiers in tanks alongside with male soldiers “has a spiritual and practical impact on combat ability.”

“We have decided that service in the Armored Corps is prohibited by Jewish law, and so we will not send students to serve in tanks beginning with the coming draft,” they wrote.

The rabbis called on the army to find suitable alternative combat roles for their soldiers.

Among the signatories were Rabbi Elyakim Levanon and Rabbi Shahar Imber, the joint heads of the Elon Moreh yeshiva; and Rabbi Baruch Wieder, head of Hakotel Yeshiva in Jerusalem.

The leaders of nine yeshivas put their names to the letter, while the heads of another three asked that they not be identified, the Ynet news site reported.

Many members of the religious Zionist community currently enlist in the........

© The Times of Israel