Interview with Yishai Fleisher: On connecting to Hevron, the expulsion from Gaza, and creating tangible change

Yishai Fleisher is the International Spokesperson for the Jewish community of Hevron. He is also an Israeli broadcaster and a frequent columnist for major news websites, including a recent oped in the New York Times. He holds a J.D. from Cardozo Law and rabbinic ordination from Kollel Agudat Achim. Yishai is a paratrooper in the IDF reserves and lives with his family in the hills of Judea.

[Interview conducted by Sharona eshet-Kohen]

Israel News Analysis by Yaakov 'Ketzaleh' Katz: Another Victory of the Maccabees

[Based on an article that originally appeared in Hebrew in Besheva and translated by Hillel Fendel]

Every generation has its Maccabees. Consider the late Uri Avnery, one of the champions of the Arab cause in the Land of Israel over the past several decades. Shortly before serving in the Haganah 's "Foxes of Samson" Brigade during the War of Independence, he was witness to the Jewish leaders' consent to the partition of Eretz Yisrael. In his terrible disappointment at this development, he wrote and publicized a poem that would not have shamed the post-Yom Kippur War Gush Emunim movement. He wrote this:

We have sworn allegiance to you, our homeland / on the day of your bitter degradation. / You will arise from the dust great and united. / The cruel wound will fester in the heart of your sons / until your banners are borne aloft / from the sea to the desert. 

Following close in his ideological footsteps of that time was the radically left-wing Al HaMishmar newspaper, which also could not contain its instinctive nationalism. Commenting on the resignation of then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, the paper wrote, "He did not quit on his own; he was all but forced out in light of and as a result of the worsening crisis caused by his failed 'anti-nationalist' policy…" Note the word "anti-nationalist;" 60 years ago, even the radical left here was nationalist.