Army Private Subjected to Anti-Semitic Attacks Brutally Beaten by Soldiers

Army Private Subjected to Anti-Semitic Attacks Brutally Beaten by Soldiers
Jason Leopold


The Public Record

Oct 01, 2008

September 30, 2008 - A U.S. Army soldier was brutally beaten by other soldiers in his platoon earlier this month following two incidents in which a drill sergeants allegedly used anti-Semitic slurs to address the soldier.

Pvt. Michael Handman, 20, who has just completed his fifth week of basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, was recently released from a hospital where he was treated for a concussion, facial wounds, and severe oral injuries following the attack, according to the boy's father, Jonathan Handman.

The soldier's father said he received a disturbing telephone call last week from his son's commanding officer "to tell me that my son is OK and out of the hospital."

"Apparently he got his clocked cleaned and beat to the point that he was sent to the hospital by ambulance with a concussion," Jonathan Handman said in an interview. "He was in bad enough shape that they did a head and neck [CAT] scan."

Jonathan Handman said his son 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.

Michael Handman enlisted in the Army earlier this year. He wears a yarmulke with his uniform, which apparently led his drill sergeants to refer to him as a "fucking Jew" and a "kike" and a demand that he remove the yarmulke during dinner, according to his father. The soldier recently wrote a letter to his mother Randi recounting the anti-Semitism he has endured by his drill sergeants and members of his platoon since arriving for basic training at Fort Benning.

"I have just never been so discriminated against/humiliated about my religion," Michael Handman wrote his mother. "I just feel like I'm always looking over my shoulder. Like my battle buddy heard some of the guys in my platoon talking about how they wanted to beat the shit out of me tonight when I'm sleeping. It just sucks. And the only justification they have is [because] I'm Jewish. Maybe your dad was right...The Army is not the place for a Jew."
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