On August 1, Bar Kalaf, a 33-year-old Israeli reservist from Netanya, failed to secure an army disability allowance, after the IDF decided he was suffering not from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but schizophrenia and was therefore not entitled to military support.
In a final devastating protest, Bar, a quiet, sensitive man, took his own life. He set fire to himself and died at the Sheba Medical Centre in Ramat Gan two days later.
His struggle to have his PTSD recognised by the Israeli Defence Ministry prompted me to write an article in the JC last December about those suffering this trauma with no support (“The Israeli soldiers who wake up screaming”, December 30, 2022). Because he was the son of a dear friend of mine, I gave him the pseudonym Shmuel and called his mother Miriam. Their real names were Bar Kalaf and Kohava (Kochi) Arava.
The 1960s had seen Buddhist monks in South Vietnam and the young Czech dissident Jan Palach burn themselves to death as political protests. The idea that such a grim protest could happen in Israel seemed unthinkable.
But Bar Kalaf wasn’t the first Israeli reservist to choose this act of self-martyrdom. In April 2021, IDF veteran Itzik Saidyan set fire to himself outside the Petah Tikvah offices of the rehabilitation department for disabled soldiers, but has largely recovered.
At Kalaf’s funeral last week, Saidyan was seen weeping and heard to say: “That’s me, there inside the coffin. My mission is meaningless now and the saddest thing is that it’s not worth dying for our country."
In a moving and courageous tribute to her son, Kochi’s words transcended her maternal anguish: “I told him to remember on the day he was born that God decided it was impossible (to get by) without him. I don’t know what God decided but Bar, I want you to see all the people here, how much they loved you.If I didn’t succeed in protecting you, if society, the state and Defence Ministry didn’t succeed in protecting you, you did protect your brothers, me, the country.”
I met Kochi, a former Yemenite dancer with the Israeli troupe Inbal, when they came to Britain many years ago for a two-year tour. The Inbal’s creativity is evocative of the Magic Carpet Operation which airlifted 49,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel between June 1949 and September 1950.
Like all Israel’s immigrants they were hoping for a better life. But life in Israel would always depend on having to fight for the homeland. Now, so many years, so many battles later, many of the soldiers who fight and fight again are experiencing the trauma that Israel’s macho society prefers to brush under the carpet.
Last year Kochi told me that Bar had been totally traumatised by his army experiences and had suffered PTSD for the past three years.
Bar Kalaf IDF soldier with PTSD CRedit Facebook (2)
Bar Kalaf struggled to have his PTSD recognised by the Israeli Defence Ministry (Photo: Facebook)
He had served in the IDF between 2008 and 2011 and as a reservist during the 2014 Gaza war. After demobilisation he was homeless for a while, then lived with Kochi in her Netanya apartment for three years. However, he could not settle and spent his days sofa-surfing and wandering around Tel Aviv. He refused to consider outside help.
However, something changed in the last few months and Bar seemed more open to the idea of seeking help from outside sources. In June, Kochi told me he had started treatment with an organisation offering community support. But she was also seeking financial aid to enable Bar to secure independent living.
Things seemed to be improving. Now working as a dance teacher, she began sending me her dance videos which evoked memories of our earlier times together. Recently she and I exchanged messages, birthday and Shabbat greetings, but when I asked again whether Bar was benefitting from therapy she did not reply. And then I heard the terrible news of his suicide.
Many sufferers of PTSD may not know the exact trigger of their illness. It is the unknown factor that can cause such acute suffering. Kochi was convinced that something happened to her son during his reserve duty in the Carmel, but he never revealed it to her.
Bar asked the Ministry of Defence to be recognised as a wounded veteran, which would have entitled him to state support and benefits. But they rejected him on the grounds that their psychiatrists had examined him and found no connection between his mental illness, which they claimed was schizophrenia, and his military service. It raises the question, however, why anyone suffering from schizophrenia would be allowed to take part in military combat. Either way, for Bar Kalaf this rejection was the last straw.
Even in death he was denied burial in Netanya because his official address was listed in Tel Aviv. Kochi, who can ill afford it, raised £9,000 to pay for his burial in the city with the help of a friend of Bar, but the Netanya Chevra Kadisha, which oversees burials, refused.
Finally, his funeral took place in nearby Avihayil, after the intervention of the Religious Services Ministry.
It has now been officially accepted that suicide is the leading cause of death among Israeli soldiers.
Supporters of veterans who suffer trauma have condemned the Defence Ministry for not listening to their needs or subjecting them to such convoluted bureaucracy that only expensive lawyers can navigate the system. The ministry is said to have been working on reforms for years, but so far there is no tangible progress.
Now, perhaps, in the aftermath of this tragedy, courageous women like Kochi can secure their rights for tormented veterans like her son.
- Anyone who needs support can call Samaritans free of charge on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website.
