Jewish Leader Says Monday October 13, 2008 By Jason Leopold
Some members of the Jewish community are calling for the immediate removal of a retired Navy captain who represents the interests of Jewish soldiers at Fort Benning, Georgia Army base that they said made light of anti-Semitic attacks on a soldier. Three weeks ago, Pvt. Michael Handman was lured into a laundry room at the Fort Benning Army base by other soldiers, knocked unconscious and beaten while he lay on the ground. He was rushed to the hospital by ambulance where he was treated for a concussion, facial wounds, and severe oral injuries. The beating, first reported by The Public Record, took place about a week or so after Pvt. Handman wrote a letter to his mother, Randi Handman, informing her that his drill sergeants used anti-Semitic slurs against him because he wore a yarmulke with his military uniform. In an interview, retired Navy Captain Neil Block, the Jewish Lay Leader at Fort Benning, seemed to place blame for the brutal attack and the prior incidents of anti-Semitism on Pvt. Handman for naively believing that wearing a yarmulke would not invite ridicule by his fellow soldiers. “When he told me that he was going to wear a keepah (the Hebrew word for yarmulke) I said God bless you, but be prepared, there’s a consequence to it and you’re going to be challenged,” said Block, who has been the advocate for Jewish soldiers at Fort Benning for the past eight years. The military uses volunteer Jewish lay leaders due to the shortage of rabbis at the nearly 1,000 Department of Defense military installations around the world. “He has a drill sergeant who has never seen a keepah in his life and treated him less than mommy and daddy would and made some derogatory comments about his faith," Block said.“This whole thing is an issue of overreaction. Should his drill sergeants have known better? Yeah. But they didn’t. I was at a party where people talking about Jewing somebody down. It goes on. Does it make it right? No. But it’s basic training. You can’t control 100 or so soldiers. I mean everybody uses the “n” word now and then” to refer to African Americans.” In addition, Block suggested that Pvt. Handman used his “minority status” as a Jew to play the “Jew card,” in other words, a “victim.” “Any young Jew who uses his minority status to play the system is villainous,” Block said. “There’s that element that I am being discriminated against.” Block said he takes his Jewish faith seriously and there has never been anything “amiss” at Fort Benning on the scale of what Pvt. Handman has alleged. Block became involved in the matter after Pvt. Handman’s father, Jonathan Handman, contacted Mikey Weinstein, the president and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a nonprofit government watchdog group that aims to keep a close eye on the military to ensure its adherence to the law mandating the separation between church and state. Weinstein spent a decade working as a U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate (JAG), was formerly legal counsel in the Reagan White House and was General Counsel to Texas billionaire and two-time Presidential candidate H. Ross Perot. "The moment we were contacted by the father, Jonathan Handman, MRFF did what it always does in these ever more frequent, tragic matters of unbridled, military-sponsored Christian religious oppression; we moved at light speed to ensure the victim's immediate safety. Next, we demanded that the victim's chain of command comprehensively and fairly investigate and punish those responsible,” Weinstein said. Indeed, media coverage of the incident after Weinstein’s involvement led the U.S. Army’s Chief of Staff, General George W. Casey, to make a personal phone call to Fort Benning last week to inquire about Pvt. Handman’s safety, the Pentagon confirmed Monday. The anti-Semitic attacks on Pvt. Handman received widespread media coverage following The Public Record’s initial report, which angered Block who believed the incident was blown wildly out of proportion. Last weekend, Block fired off a harshly worded email to Weinstein accusing him of creating a “disaster for us as Jews in and of the military” due to Weinstein’s alleged failure to verify or substantiate the information. “If you really wanted some perspective instead of merely spewing regurgitated invective and uninformed opinions delivered as verity, it might have been well to contact me for some insight, verification and reality checking,” Block wrote. “Your reflexive assumptions that hate and discontent permeate the military relative to us Jews is publically prejudicial, uninformed and inane. Unfortunately, your public media approach to dealing with these kinds of issues gives you some sort of authority, which you do not deserve. You give comfort and sanction to those who would really try to marginalize us and an excuse for those of us who don’t or won’t measure up and use our ethnicity as their excuse.” In an interview Monday, Weinstein said he was “alarmed” that Block has chosen to trivialize the anti-Semitic attacks on Pvt. Handman and "is blaming everyone but himself and the Army for this immense travesty, perhaps he will next castigate Private Handman for illegally using his head as a battering ram/jackhammer to smash against the innocent clenched fists of his fellow soldiers. “Mr. Block displays a truly alarming and willfully reckless disregard for the truth of this tragic Army hate crime and subsequent cover-up. His egregiously transparent, self-aggrandizing and self-serving screed that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) did not immediately gather all salient and germane facts attendant to this civil rights crime and, further, that MRFF is “creating a disaster for us Jews in and out of the military” is blatantly untrue and quite beyond the pale,” Weinstein said. “The incontrovertible facts speak volumes for themselves. Mr. Block is apparently the current reigning Poster Child for Army religious predator apologists.” Prior to Weinstein’s involvement, Jonathan Handman sent a letter to Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the Republican of Georgia. Chambliss immediately contacted the Pentagon to investigate. The Department of Defense sent Chambliss a detailed letter two weeks ago confirming that Pvt. Handman was the victim of anti-Semitism. “Based on [Private] Handman’s statement and the seriousness of the allegations, the command immediately initiated a commander’s inquiry,” stated a Sept. 26 letter sent to Chambliss by Samuel Selby Rollinson, the Department of the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff. “Based on the inquiry, the Army found that two [non-commissioned officers] inadvertently violated the Army Regulation concerning the free exercise of religion by requiring the Soldier to remove his yarmulke and by using inappropriate terms when referencing the Jewish faith. “While the actions of the NCO’s were not meant to be malicious, and were done out of ignorance for regulations and cultural awareness, this does not excuse their conduct. The command intends to reprimand both NCO’s for their conduct; require them to present formal blocks of instruction on what religious are authorized for wear; and finally, the battalion chaplain will instruct all cadre members on the Army policy concerning religious accommodation.” The reprimand of the drill sergeants took place a few days before Pvt. Handman was beaten. Block believes there is no connection between the two incidents and he claims the Army has 100 sworn affidavits stating that the beating of Pvt. Handman was not motivated by anti-Semitism. “To extrapolate and say that the beating was connected to anti-Semitism is just wrong,” Block said. One soldier has been held accountable for the beating, Block said, and he has been formally charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Block also recently interviewed the drill sergeants after they were reprimanded for referring to Pvt. Handman as “Juden,” “kike” and “fucking Jew.” During the Holocaust, Jews wore yellow Stars of David with the word “Juden” inscribed on the star. “Young Mr. Handman asked his drill sergeant if arrangements had been made for soldiers to attend Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services and his drill sergeant said ‘Yes Juden you needn’t worry. Arrangements have been made.’” Block said his interview with the two drill sergeants led him to believe that “these are two absolutely contrite individuals who did not understand what they were saying.” “One of the drill sergeants spent time in Germany,” Block said. “Juden is the German word for Jew. To some Jews it may have a pejorative impact. But it’s a legitimate word in German.” Block said his email to Weinstein was obviously shared with members of the Jewish community who have been sending him emails over the past several days accusing him of being insensitive and demanding he step down or be removed as Jewish Lay Leader. Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak, who maintains the popular Jewish affairs website JewsOnFirst wrote a letter to Block Sunday stating that he intended to immediately write to the “Jewish Welfare Board which oversees the services rendered to Jewish Armed Forces personnel.” “I will, in turn, ask the Union of Reform Judaism to review and investigate your hurtful behavior as "Jewish Lay Leader" at Fort Benning. I want to see that you are swiftly removed,” Rabbi Beliak wrote. Block said he has received numerous other emails from members of the Jewish community accusing him of being a “self-hating Jew” and a “poor excuse for a Jew,” and unfairly turned him “into the story.” “They’re accusing me of all kinds of dastardly things,” Block said. “I am the champion of Jewish rights in the military.” SUPPORT MRFF As we continue to fight in the courts, the media,
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