Sexual Harassment and Sherut Leumi
Haaretz's weekend magazine has a very disturbing feature about observant girls who have been sexuallly assaulted or harassed during their two years of national service (sherut leumi).
It is possible that Haaretz is sensationalizing or exaggerating the problems it identifies, but it seems apparent that the problem is growing, and that it has not been dealt with by the national-religious rabbis. For example, Haaretz quotes Ayelet Cohen-Wieder, the former head of an organization that sent girls to sherut leumi, who offered an example of the situation, and how those in charge of sherut leumi ignore the problems: "There was a girl who worked in education, she was responsible for a certain field in a high school, and there was an older man working there, who was responsible for that same field. And he put his hands on her all the time, and she said she `observes negiah' [the prohibition against touching members of the opposite sex], so he starting to have philosophical debates with her, and explained to her how it wasn't good for her to observe negiah. It was very hard for her to deal with this and she came to me and told me. We spoke to the woman in charge and they sent her away from there."
posted on 7/10/2003
