Replies

Only the service in the IDF is a must, when the Israelis are 18 years old (except some Haredim with religion problems).
In the age of 17 every Israeli gets the first order to the IDF's recruiting office. There they are passing medical checks to put a military profile, interviews, psychotechnical tests and other things.

After that, according to the tests results and medical checks and interviews, they get options to choose a duty that they would prefer to serve at. Some get their wishes, while others dont (depends of course on their physichal and technical abilities).

Those who can serve at combat and elite forces try to pass many other tests so the IDF will decide where to mobilize them.
Others dont know where they are going to serve until they get the mobilization order in the age of 18.

Only when they start their service on the day the mobilization order says, their first trainings start.

Hope I cleared something.

A little personal anecdote you all might enjoy..at the time of the Yom Kippur war, I was living with my then girlfriend in the NY suburbs. I'd been back home for about 5 months, after 4 years overseas..mostly in Spain. I'd visited Israel 4 times in that period, made some friends in the IDF, and had visited some of the battlesites, so I had a good sense of the capabilities of the IDF. Most of our friends felt the Israelis could handle the situation. I had a more realistic point of view, and after four years in the Marines, probably a better sense of what the Israelis faced, and also the knowledge that things often go wrong in battle.

At the time the Yom Kippur war started, information, without satellites, 24 hour news channels, and cell phones, was a totally different animal than now,,( looking back, it seems almost prehistoric).. Anyways, the first night of the war, I remember we're in bed, maybe 1 am or so, watching the news, think it was Huntley/Brinkley.. and the phone rings. It's for my girlfriend, the UJA phoning for an emergency fundraising appeal. We of course made a pledge. Next morning..5 am, I'm up at my usual time..and take the dogs for a walk. Going out the door, I see tucked in our mail slot an envelope. I'm curious...I had picked up the mail last night, and the paper never came that early in the morning..what was it?..An envelope from the UJA/Federation, confirming our pledge, with an s.a.s.e asking us to send it in immediately, as it was urgently needed, and to consider adding more if we could.

I remember grinning as I went back inside to show my girlfriend. The logistics of the task were so impressive. It took less than 4 hours to solicit and record our pledge, prepare the envelope, and the personally addressed appeal, and in the middle of the night, have it in our mailbox. I told her that if a bunch of little old Jewish ladies ( metaphorically speaking, or course) could pull this off...( and again, imagine it happening tens of thousands of times more in the same night) then the Arabs didn't have a chance..logistics is perhaps the major component of any military victory, after the initial contact, and the Arabs were not in the same league..