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Meitav () is an

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...

(IDF) unit responsible for overseeing new IDF recruits and sorting them into their respective corps or

basic training Military recruit training, commonly known as basic training or boot camp, refers to the initial instruction of new military personnel. It is a physically and psychologically intensive process, which resocializes its subjects for the unique dema ...

bases, similarly to

USMEPCOM The United States Military Entrance Processing Command (USMEPCOM) is a Major Command of the United States Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense. The organization screens and processes Enlisted rank, enlisted recruits into the Unit ...

in the U.S. military. Other responsibilities include (but are not limited to) initial allocation of basic gear and discharging soldiers at the end of their service. Meitav was created in May 2006 by merging the Bakum (בסיס קליטה ומיון, ''Bsis Klita UMiyun'' lit. Reception and Sorting Base) and the Minhag (מנהל הגיוס, ''Minhal HaGiyus'', lit. Recruitment Administration). Meitav's headquarters are located at the Tel HaShomer military base, and its current commander as of March 2023 is Colonel Alon Matzliah. In 2010, Meitav was the third-largest IDF unit, with 1,026 soldiers.

History

With the founding of the IDF, Meitav was called Kelet () and was under the jurisdiction of the manpower branch of the Ministry of Defense. It was located in

Tzrifin Tzrifin () is an area in Gush Dan (Dan Region) in central Israel, located on the eastern side of Rishon LeZion and including parts of Be'er Ya'akov. The area proper is defined as an 'area without jurisdiction' between the two cities. Nearly the ...

. The Kelet unit, which inducted soldiers, was separate from the sorting unit/base, which was located in the Kiryat Meir base in Tel Aviv. In the 1950s, the two units were merged into the ''Bakum'', and moved to Tel HaShomer. In 1966, the jurisdiction of the ''Bakum'' passed from the Defense Ministry to the army.

Recruitment Offices

Under Meitav's responsibility is the management of 5 regional recruitment offices across the country (Tel Hashomer,

Beer Sheva Beersheba ( / ; ), officially Be'er-Sheva, is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the centre of the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in Israel, the eighth-most po ...

Tiberias Tiberias ( ; , ; ) is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Heb ...

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

and

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

. The recruitment offices are in charge of the sorting process for service, including Tzav Rishon, medical exams, interviews and tests.

References

External links

Meitav website
{{coord, 32, 2, 46.87, N, 34, 51, 2.18, E, region:IL, display=title Military installations of Israel Military units and formations of Israel