TEL AVIV – Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli generated a firestorm of controversy on Instagram for posting a message honoring the memory of Israel’s fallen soldiers, with angry users calling her a hypocrite for never having served in the IDF.
Refaeli on Wednesday uploaded an image of a candle with the Hebrew word “Yizkor,” a special prayer for the dead, in honor of Israel’s Remembrance Day.
Users were quick to point out that Refaeli is a draft dodger, having married an older family acquaintance at 18-years-old in order to evade enlistment. She divorced a year later.
“If only you had given two years of your life, then people would leave you alone,” one Instagram user wrote.
“You refused to enlist in the military and you married a family acquaintance,” another wrote. “Then you also said that you didn’t understand why it was necessary to die for the state. It’s a good thing there were other suckers here who enabled you to live here.”
Refaeli has expressed controversial views on serving in the army.
“Why should 18-year-old kids have to die? It’s dumb that people have to die so that I can live in Israel,” Refaeli said a year after her draft dodging was exposed.
She also said she has no regrets about not enlisting “because it paid off big time” and “celebrities have other needs.”
In 2014, during the summer war with Hamas in Gaza, the supermodel posted several items expressing solidarity with her fellow countrymen who were serving.
Her posts garnered backlash from both the pro-Israel camp, who were up in arms at her failure to enlist, and from the pro-Palestinian camp, who sent anti-Semitic hate messages.
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