Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, November 6, 1995                   TAG: 9511060086
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RAMAT GAN, ISRAEL                                 LENGTH: Medium

GENTLE, RELIGIOUS STUDENT HAD A DEEP ANGER

The picture of Yigal Amir that emerged Sunday, the day after Rabin's assassination, was one of contrasts.

Amir, 27, was described as a gentle person who helped widows on his block. Still, he reportedly used hollow-point bullets so lethal they are banned under international conventions.

Naftali Tannin, who sat next to Amir during their religious studies, said he was a quiet person with lots of friends.

``I knew the guy was a little more right-wing than others, a little more extreme, but nothing like this,'' Tannin said. ``He was a normal guy, an all-Israeli guy.''

A third-year law student, Amir reportedly told interrogators he took the law into his hands because Rabin was a traitor giving away the Jews' God-given birthright to the Palestinians.

Police said Amir confessed to the killing. They were still uncertain whether he acted on his own or on orders from extremists. Police Minister Moshe Shahal said Amir was not a member of any organization, but police were investigating reported links with right-wing groups.

At Bar-Ilan University, a school with a religious outlook in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan, classmates recalled that Amir distributed anti-government leaflets with members of the far-right ``Eyal'' group, an offshoot of the outlawed Kach movement founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane.

They said he also organized weekend study sessions at yeshivas in the West Bank, including ones in the militant settlement in the Palestinian town of Hebron.

Shahal said Amir, who will be arraigned today, told investigators he had also planned to kill Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, but that scheme was foiled when the two leaders walked away from a peace rally separately Saturday night.

Neighbors were stunned Sunday on the street where Amir lives with his parents and seven siblings.

Dorit Nagar, a widow who has lived across from the Amirs for 30 years, recalled how Yigal helped her carry groceries home from the market, and how he sat by her side when her husband died.

Amir helped his mother, a kindergarten teacher, raise his siblings and spent last summer teaching Hebrew to Jews in Russia, she said.

But a fellow student, identified only as Eric, told Israel radio that Amir grew increasingly agitated recently because of attacks by Muslim militants.

``He would say, `We have to stick it to Rabin and his government.' This man expressed himself for quite a long time in a very extremist manner,'' Eric said.