A yeshiva bochur who recently enlisted in the IDF described a painful and humiliating confrontation he says he experienced at a train station in Haifa, where a woman allegedly screamed at him for not serving in the military — and then spit in his face after he showed her proof that he had just signed his enlistment papers.

The incident came to public attention after media personality and Channel 14 host Yinon Magal shared on X a WhatsApp message he received from the young man, identified only as Ariel.

In the message, Ariel wrote: “Hi Yinon, I’m a yeshiva bochur and today I signed enlistment papers for the IDF. On my way back, a leftist woman around 60 years old started screaming at me about why I’m not enlisting. When I showed her the document proving that I signed up for the army, she spit in my face. And then people say this isn’t pure hatred of chareidim.”

Magal responded in disbelief, writing: “She spit in your face?? Crazy.”

Later Sunday evening, Ariel recounted the incident in an emotional interview with Yaakov Grodka on Kol Barama Radio’s main news program, describing the ordeal in greater detail.

“I was returning from the enlistment office after signing my IDF draft papers,” Ariel said. “At the train station, a woman around 60 years old approached me and started screaming that I’m a chareidi who doesn’t enlist. When I showed her the document proving that I had literally enlisted that very day, she simply spit in my face.”

The yeshiva bochur openly described the emotional toll the encounter took on him.

“After she spit on me, the thought crossed my mind that maybe this whole thing was a mistake and why I even needed to enlist in the first place,” he shared. “I felt deeply humiliated, and it took me a long time to calm down. At the same time, I’m not looking for anyone’s appreciation — this is something between me and myself, and I’m completely at peace with it.”

Ariel also said he believes the woman’s behavior reflected deep-seated hostility toward the chareidi community rather than anger over military service itself.

“That woman didn’t want to see chareidim in the army — she simply hates chareidim,” he said. “They hate that we are in the government, and they hate our very existence. While she was publicly humiliating me and spitting at me, several of her friends were standing there laughing together with her.”

{Matzav.com}