The Pre-Army Service Year (Hebrew: שנת שירות, Shnat Sherut), abbreviated Shin-Shin (Hebrew: ש"ש), is a one-year voluntary service program for Israeli high school graduates prior to their mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
[1] Service Year volunteers work full-time in a various fields: assisting development towns and disadvantaged communities, residential schools for youth at risk, youth movements, nature/ecological organizations, and many other civic organizations and projects.
Through the Jewish Agency for Israel, some spend up to ten months of the year volunteering in the UK, Canada, the United States, and other countries.
However, the number of deferments allowed by the IDF is limited, making acceptance into the Service Year program selective and competitive.
Conscription rates among Service Year graduates are nearly 100%, and many of the volunteers are accepted into the most elite units of the IDF.