A cohort of 21 hareidi paratroopers boarded an IDF aircraft on Wednesday for their first sky dive after finishing a parachuting course at the Palmachim Air Base in central Israel.
The soldiers are part of the second cohort of recruits from the Hareidi Hetz platoon of Battalion 202 in the Paratroopers Brigade.
Netzach Yehuda Foundation rabbis who accompanied the paratroopers said, “With all the grueling training the soldiers underwent, they kept to their strict prayer schedule and Torah study. It goes without saying, of course, that the new platoon observes halacha strictly. They are busy with what is called a ‘drop’ from the sky but we see them as actually ‘going up’ spiritually.”
The Paratroopers Brigade is considered one of the IDF’s elite units.
Training in the brigade is considered especially hard and includes physical training, close-quarter hand-to-hand combat, using and maintaining a wide array of firearms, long journeys on foot while carrying heavy equipment, weeks of survival in field conditions, navigating, camouflage training, parachuting, urban warfare and more.