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"The Association for Volunteering in the Nation" and National Service
The Association for Volunteering (originally named: "The Association for Volunteering in the Nation") began its operations in modest offices in Jerusalem, at 15 Shamai Street, on the second floor above the legendary She-Simone Restaurant. From there, a small group of trailblazers managed the National Service enterprise in Israel.
There were three of them:
Dov Froman, 42, a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Israel alone, studied at Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, and served as an officer in the Golani Brigade. Froman, a lawyer and social worker, held a senior position in the Ministry of Welfare (then called: Ministry of Social Affairs) and was an advisor to the supervising minister, Michael Hazani. In his role, he conceived and outlined the Association's structure and operational method, and when it was established, he was appointed to head it. He was the dominant member of the team and the driving force behind all the Association's activities.
Miriam Meir, 44, a journalist and social activist. Miriam, born in Germany, was a founding member of the Alon Shvut community settlement and one of the founders of the "Machon Nehorah" institute for producing films about the Jewish people. In her role at the Association, she managed its offices. She was considered "the girls' mother" – responsible for assigning girls to their service placements, an empathetic listener, supporting and accompanying them throughout their volunteering period.
Shaul Yahalom, who ignited the flame of volunteering when he was a high school student in the Religious Youth Parliament.After his military service, he completed a bachelor's degree in education and economics and continued to be active in the National Religious Party. There, he forged connections with the heads of the Young Guard (the party's youth and young adult faction), connections that yielded party support
. In his role at the Association, he focused on marketing the idea of National Service and recruiting 12th-grade girls to volunteer within its framework. He traveled among religious high schools and "Ulpanot" (religious girls' high schools) across the country, introducing the growing pathway to graduating students and offering them an option that hadn't existed before its establishment: to volunteer for a year of National Service.
This was a winning team, joined by two senior social workers, Avraham Raanan and Soli Zaguri. For the ongoing operation of the organization, dozens of coordinators (male and female) were recruited who served as liaisons between the Association's management and the volunteers in the field. Concurrently, Rabbi Zephaniah Drori, a member of the Board of Directors, was appointed to serve as the accompanying rabbi and advisor to the Association on matters of Torah and Jewish law, and to supervise its spiritual content. These appointments symbolized its path in its early decades: an umbrella framework for religious girls who did not serve in the IDF for religious reasons, and who bore the civic burden out of a desire to contribute to society and the state. They served in healthcare, education, and welfare systems across the country – from the Golan Heights to Eilat.
Rabbi Zephaniah Drori
Soli Zaguri
Avraham Raanan
Word of the new pathway spread quickly among the graduating students ("Shministiyot") of the Religious Zionist public.
In Bnei Akiva branches, religious high schools, Ulpanot, new settlements, and everywhere girls adhering to a religious lifestyle gathered – they heard about girls who completed high school and "disappeared" from the scene. Girls who went to distant places and returned home for weekends once every three weeks. Like female soldiers in the army, but without uniforms. They returned tired but satisfied, eager to taste the comforts of home for a moment, and by Sunday, they were gone again, boarding the bus that would take them to their operational assignments. The "hardcore" ones weren't satisfied with one year and extended their service for another year, totaling two years. None of the girls thought about adequate compensation – no discharge grant or financial benefits. The certificate they received was enough for them, and some of them proudly display it even today, four decades after receiving it.
Within a decade, this was no longer a rumor of a fascinating adventure or a youth rebellion. Not a temporary fashion or a fleeting episode. "The Association for Volunteering in the Nation" was a legitimate path that received rabbinical approval, an approval that made it easier for the girls to convince their parents.
As years passed, the service brand deeply permeated the consciousness of the Religious Zionist sector. In the first decade, the number of female volunteers stood at 1,000 annually, and a decade later – approximately 4,000 volunteers were registered each year, among them those not content with one year of service but serving two. Concurrently, additional volunteering channels opened – hospitals, clinics, Magen David Adom, Israel Police, schools, and kindergartens. The religious female volunteers, in skirts and modest attire, were seen everywhere across the country.
The team led by Froman brought about the first transformation credited to the Association: an overwhelming majority of girls from the Religious Zionist sector embarked on at least one year of volunteering within the framework of National Service.
The service became the default option for religious girls, who no longer "declared" and completely evaded any civic duty, as was the case before its establishment. The year of service was a formative life experience for them – a transitional period from adolescence to adulthood, from a protective environment to personal independence, from a small world to a larger one, from a place where they only received to a place where they could both receive and give. The experience was amplified by a sense of pioneering and partnership in a process that was changing the order of things in the religious society in which they grew up. Like female soldiers in military service, but doing it their own way. In a path where they were part of a unique social creation.
1972 – National Service volunteers in their apartment in the development town of Ma'alot. From right to left: Zehava Singer Saadon, Rachel Shiviak, Esther (Goldstein) Glantz, Rachel Presner.
In the early 1990s, following an audit report by State Comptroller Miriam Ben-Porat, Froman was forced to resign.
In his place, Rabbi Tzfania Drori, who served as Chairman of the Board of Directors, took over the management. Since then, the Rabbi guided the Association's path. He appointed Yitzhak Lange as the CEO of the Association for Volunteering, and Yaron Lutz as his assistant.
The new management team deepened the Association's presence in employment fields. They added intelligence services (Shin Bet and Mossad), as well as a long list of government ministries, where National Service volunteers served.
By their time, National Service was already an established fact.
The service within the Association's framework was not under government supervision, but successive Israeli governments gave tacit consent, allowing the enterprise to exist without interference. The government even granted de facto recognition to the volunteers' service, a recognition that added some of the rights previously given only to IDF soldiers, such as free bus travel and various National Insurance rights. Not only the government – the entire establishment recognized their National Service. Universities, public institutions, and government ministries treated their volunteering as military service, granting them priorities and rights like any discharged male or female soldier. Israeli media also celebrated the service and the volunteers – the media file in the Association's archive is full of journalistic articles published throughout its first three decades. They presented the beautiful face of the Religious Zionist sector and the contribution of its daughters to Israeli society.
And then, when National Service was an established fact, a turning point occurred that changed its face and the face of the Association for Volunteering.
More on this in the next chapter:
"The Turning Point in National Service" ( (by clicking the link).
National Service volunteers of The Association for Volunteering in the 1990s, in the Gush Etzion Operations Room (Hamlal)
Yitzhak Lange
CEO of The Association for Volunteering, 1994-2010
And these are the chronicles of National Service and the story of The Association for Volunteering in 7 chapters. Each chapter is on a separate link:
The full story of National Service is based on the book : "The Association for Volunteering - Fifty Years of National Service" Written in Hebrew and published in Israel Published by The Association for Volunteering (NPO). 2022. Research, writing, and editing:
Shlomi Rosenfeld
