Rabin Killer Is Object of Girls’ Desire

He has dark, curly hair, deep brown eyes and a mysterious smile, all of which add to his allure as a heartthrob.

But the poster boy is not a television star or a rock idol. He is 26-year-old Yigal Amir, the unrepentant killer of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin now serving a life sentence.

Much of Israel was scandalized to learn over the weekend that the right-wing law student who pointed a gun at Rabin’s back in November and fired three times has stolen the hearts of a circle of teenage girls at a state-funded religious school. Some of the girls attended his trial and then started the Yigal Amir Fan Club.

“It was a hormonal attraction. What can I do? He’s got a very attractive smile,” one of the teenagers told Army Radio on Sunday.

“My dream is to marry Yigal Amir. I’ll do anything he tells me,” said another fan, 17, who has hung a photo of Amir in her bedroom. She argued that Rabin’s assassination was justified, because the prime minister was intent on giving away part of the Land of Israel to the Palestinians, and she praised Amir for being willing to do something about it.

Although the fan club apparently consists of no more than seven girls, the revelation of its existence on the television newsmagazine “Diary” on Friday night instantly touched a nerve across the country--making headlines and dominating radio and television news broadcasts.

The story compelled Israelis to confront their feelings about the assassination and ask again whether the killing of an Israeli leader by a fellow Jew was a horrible aberration or a symptom of something wrong in Israel today.

“One of the girls said [on television] that Yigal Amir isn’t alone and that there’s an entire public that stands behind and supports him, and this is exactly what I’ve been saying all along,” said Rabin’s widow, Leah Rabin.

“These girls admiring this despicable assassin must . . . shake up everyone who is worried about the face of our society.”

Maariv newspaper commentator Ron Myberg agreed: “The fact that Yigal Amir has fans who worship his acts, his appearance and his distorted political visions shows that there is no limit to our own moral deterioration.”

Reaction was swift from national leaders. President Ezer Weizman demanded a thorough investigation of the girls’ school. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it “a serious issue that must be rooted out immediately.”

Yisrael Meir Lau, Israel’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi who was interviewed on television Sunday night, admonished compatriots that “verbal violence” by splinter right-wing groups has “desecrated the name of Judaism.” But he insisted that not all religious people be put in the same category as the extremists.

Much of the immediate criticism was directed at state-funded religious schools like the one attended by the members of the fan club in Kiryat Gat, a working-class town southeast of Tel Aviv.

Funded by the government but not controlled by it, such schools have been criticized by liberals as breeding grounds of racist and extreme nationalist viewpoints. Amir was the product of a religious school before he entered the prestigious Bar Ilan University to study law.

According to news reports, some of the girls’ teachers at the Gross School in Kiryat Gat had been aware of the budding obsession for Rabin’s killer among their students but had not discussed it outside the school.

The girls’ principal added fuel to the controversy when she appeared to dismiss the club as youthful frivolity, equating it with normal teenage hero worship of rock singers or movie stars.

The principal, Rachel Buhbut, told Israel Radio that the girls, ages 16 and 17, had made a mistake that they would come to regret. But she attributed it to the “stupid years” of adolescence.

“They went [to Amir’s trial] and watched. So what?” she said. “There are also girls that are fans of singers and do all sorts of nonsense out of blind admiration.”

That drew a retort from a former education minister, Amnon Rubenstein: “Anyone who makes such a comparison doesn’t understand anything--not a thing.”

Reacting Sunday to the mounting criticism, Education and Culture Minister Zevulun Hammer--a member of the conservative National Religious Party--appointed a committee to look into the fan club. But he defended religious schools generally.

“I’m certain that it’s some sort of teenage craziness that could happen in other areas as well,” Hammer said. “It has no relation to religion or nationalism.”

Zeev Sternhall, an expert on Israel’s right wing, said he is not surprised by the emergence of the fan club and added that it is typical of sentiments freely expressed in religious-nationalist circles.

Contrary to popular belief, Sternhall asserted, “there was no soul-searching after the Rabin assassination, none at all.”

“Most people believe Rabin’s assassination was an individual act and [that] most of the religious people were horrified and this would create some kind of earthquake among the national religious circles. I never believed it,” he said. “In fact, they immediately started a counterattack.”