Israeli soldiers were ordered to attend the introduction of a Torah scroll into their base's synagogue in honor of the Bar Mitzvah of a Jewish-American donor's son.

The ceremony was held at an IDF base near the Hatzerim Air Base about 10 days ago. The base's soldiers, including cadets, were ordered to present themselves at the base's entrance in order to accompany the scroll inside.

According to the soldiers, it was only after they arrived at the entrance that they found out that the scroll was donated as part of the Bar Mitzvah celebrations of the donor's son.

The soldiers were also outraged to realize that due to the ceremony they would be released to their homes at a later hour. Some of the soldiers were angry at being treated as "extras" at the ceremony.

After the ceremony, the base also held a toast, attended by the donor's guests, the base's officers and non-commissioned officers, as well as rabbis from Air Force headquarters.

The soldiers were invited to attend the toast, but weren't ordered to do so. According to one of them, a DJ stand was set up at the base, and several attendants delivered speeches, including the Jewish-American donor.

Since the soldiers were not ordered to attend the toast, most of them left following the ceremony.

The army said in response that the ceremony was a military ceremony to all intents and purposes, and that this is why the soldiers were ordered to attend.

The army added that the ceremony was not a Bar Mitzvah, but a Torah scroll introduction ceremony, approved according to IDF protocol. According to one of the soldiers, they were invited to the base's synagogue to attend the Bar Mitzvah itself.

Last year, members of the Israel Defense Forces’ elite counterterrorism and canine units performed drills for the guests of a bar-mitzvah party at the Adam base, near Modi’in. The party was held by a New York businessman, a veteran donor to various IDF units, on the occasion of his son’s bar mitzvah.

Following the Haaretz report, Colonel Ariel Ben Dayan, in charge of the unit, was reprimanded for the unit's conduct and for the contact between the unit and the donor's family, which was unsupervised.

Following the affair, the IDF ordered a comprehensive probe into the donations given to the army.