Another anti-religious scandal rocked the IDF when the
commander of a training course forced a religious soldier to
tread on a tallis during a lesson on "values." The soldier
suffered from shock and sought psychological assistance. In
another serious incident a commander in a military jail
shaved the beard off a chareidi bochur inducted
against his will.
Based on press reports the religious soldier participating in
a course at the Military Police's training base was given two
sealed bags during a lesson on "values" and instructed to
trample on the contents without looking. After doing so the
soldier was dismayed to discover one of the bags contained
white cloth while the other contained a tallis.
The soldier's family members said the soldier was in a state
of shock and had to go to a mental health officer for
psychological health. "Why me of all people? Why was I, a
religious soldier, chosen for the task?" the soldier asked
the course commander.
According to the reports the other soldiers in the course
were appalled by the sight and wondered aloud what kind of
educational message the course sought to convey. Several
religious soldiers told the course commander the incident was
an act of chilul Hashem.
The soldier's father reacted harshly to the disturbing
incident as well. "The message you are conveying is to go and
step on a tallis? Woe are we to have an army like
this. My boy did this innocently as ordered and afterwards he
learned he had stepped on a tallis. He stepped on his
own soul."
The IDF says the course commander apologized to the soldier
after the incident, claiming the bag was supposed to contain
an Israeli flag and the soldier was supposed "to see the
flag, not step on it and explain its importance to the other
soldiers." Nevertheless the IDF was unsatisfied with these
explanations and set up a board of inquiry.
In another incident reported in the press a military jail
commander forcibly shaved the beard of a 21-year-old yeshiva
student who had been arrested and sentenced to 28 days in
jail for being "absent without leave" after he forgot to
submit the deferment request he previously sent in every
year.
His mother said during one of the first days of his jail stay
the platoon sergeant at Jail 6 in Atlit came to him saying
all soldiers without a permit to grow a beard would have to
shave. The bochur explained he was chareidi, pointing
out his payos and large yarmulke, but the
platoon sergeant brought the bochur into his office,
spread a permissible shaving lather on his face and proceeded
to remove his beard.
"His face stung," recounted the young man's mother. "He was
ashamed and in shock. But the sergeant threatened to put him
away for a long time, so he did not resist." According to a
report in Ma'ariv after the incident the bochur
complained to the jail rabbi and following an investigation
it was found the sergeant did not put the shaving cream on
the soldier's face himself but merely compelled him through
threats.
The chareidi soldier's mother has a different version of
events. She claims jail officials tried to persuade him he
had applied the shaving cream himself, but he insists it was
the sergeant who did so. "The commanders told him they were
allowed to do it because he had not received a permit to grow
a beard," she said.
The IDF Spokesman's Office said according to the inquiry "the
sergeant did order the soldier to shave without speaking to
the base rabbi beforehand, but the soldier removed his beard
himself using a halachically permitted shaving cream. The
base commander determined the platoon sergeant did not handle
the situation with proper sensitivity and sentenced him
severely." The sergeant merely received a suspended sentence
of seven days' detention.
