The Pre-Army Service Year (Shnat Sherut) is a one-year voluntary service program prior to drafting to the IDF or volunteering for National-Civil Service. Participants in this program volunteer in various frameworks, such as youth villages, youth groups, schools, kibbutzim, and disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Volunteering to a Service Year occurs before drafting to the IDF and does not replace it; the IDF permits a limited number of volunteers to delay their draft each year to participate in a Service Year.
Nowadays there isn’t any special treatment regarding the trans community in the Service Year program. There are various organizations with which it is possible to volunteer as part of a Service Year; the full list is available here.
Additionally, you can sign up for a pre-military Mechina. Currently, there are no designated Mechinot for the trans community, but many of them can accommodate people on the trans spectrum. The full list is available here.
Service Year Accommodated to the Trans Spectrum
IGY is the only LGBTQ+ youth group in Israel and it is possible to do a Service Year through them. Other organizations accommodate the trans spectrum as well in the Service Year program. The following list will include organizations that it is known that people on the trans spectrum serve in:
IGY
During a Service Year with IGY, the volunteers instruct IGY groups and youth clubs, manage and instruct field trips and seminars, and operate in schools and youth centers around the city. They become significant role models in the lives of LGBTQ+ and heterosexual teens, lead the local Pride community, and help Israeli society become more equal, democratic, just, and hopefully a bit queerer.
Volunteers in a service year with IGY live with another 7-8 volunteers in one of the cities that have an IGY communal apartment: Carmiel, Haifa, Ashdod, and Tel Aviv. The volunteers get to experience an independent communal life. Together groups of allies from different backgrounds take responsibility, and choose to bring change into the spaces we live and exist in.
Before starting the Service Year with IGY, you will join a preparation course that begins in July-August after 12th grade. During this course, a volunteer group will be formed, you will split up into the communal apartments, go to seminars, and together you will shape your shared choice to join the fight.
Noar HaOved
A volunteer year involving significant social action, group living, and critical learning. A year of independence and responsibility, experiences and memories for life, and true calling. A place to express your creativity and beliefs!
The Noar HaOved VehaLomed (Working and Studying Youth) is one of the largest youth movements in the country. The movement has hundreds of “nests” (branches) around the country. The volunteers (“komonar”s) hold a key position in the movement as young leaders with thousands of Jewish, Arab, and Druze working and studying youth; old and new residents, from cities, the periphery, kibbutzim and moshavim; youth with special needs and at-risk teens. The activities are accommodated to the specific needs of each location.
Tarbut
Tarbut is a growing and changing movement of artist-mentors working to advance the culture in the periphery, and particularly to build a more just society. During a service year with Tarbut, the volunteers operate in cultural centers around the Israeli periphery.
Groups of 10-15 volunteers do a service year at Tarbut together in each place, and they meet with groups from other locations at seminars throughout the year.
The activity of the Tarbut movement aims to advance and strengthen the relationship between the arts, culture, education, and community around the country. Our goal is to create change and build community through art, creativity, and conversation.