Apparent Suicide of Army Recruit Raises Charges of Brutality

The apparent suicide six months ago of a religious army recruit allegedly because of ill treatment and harassment at an armored corps training center, has raised charges of brutality against certain military personnel and an outcry from the ultra-Orthodox Poale Aguda Israel that the trainee, Pvt. Yaacov Lavie, was the target of abuse because he was religiously observant.

Until now, the case had been dealt with within the limits of the army. An undisclosed number of episodes of maltreatment of both observant and non-religious soldiers have come to light and several non-coms and officers have been disciplined for their direct participation in such acts or tolerating them. But the Poale Aguda has launched a campaign denouncing army officers in general for being anti-religious and manifesting bias against religious soldiers.

A related issue is the special arrangement long observed by the army with respect to yeshiva students such as Lavie who serve in the armed forces. As a rule, yeshiva students are exempt from active duty. But many choose to serve nonetheless and the conditions of their service, worked out with the approval of the religious authorities, allow them to spend much of their time in uniform studying Torah.

This has irked many non-observant soldiers, whose required period of service is longer than that of the yeshiva students. The Poale Aguda Israel for its part, wants the arrangement abolished and demands blanket exemption for all religious youth of military age.

Twenty yeshiva heads met in Jerusalem yesterday to discuss the Lavie case and other cases where religious soldiers were allegedly mistreated by their superiors. They came to the conclusion that while there was evidence of mistreatment, there were no grounds to claim that it stemmed from anti-religious feelings. They were borne out by Lavie’s family and the families of other soldiers who said their sons had never complained of harassment because they were religious.

Nevertheless, the rabbis recommended court martials for soldiers responsible for the ill treatment of recruits. The forms of mistreatment were said to include forcing recruits to drink sea water, allowing them less than the six hours of sleep prescribed by military regulations, extra guard duty and various unpleasant tasks. The Poale Aguda has charged that religious soldiers are forced to perform duties on the Sabbath.