Yoni Netanyahu’s Passover message for the ages

As we celebrate a very unusual Passover, “Festival of Freedom” this year, my mind is drawn back to dramatic events that unfolded 44 years ago when elite Israeli commandos, led by thirty year old Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, rescued over hundred hostages from Entebbe, over 2000 miles from Israel, in a daring operation that stunned the world. The only military casualty of the operation was its planner and leader on the ground, Yoni himself, who died as he had lived, leading from the front.  After the bitter-sweet success of the operation, renamed “Operation Yonatan” in his honour, his family decided that, rather than build another memorial in a country that has all too many, they would publish his writings in order to share with the world the kind of dedication, selflessness and love of the Jewish people and the Land of Israel which were the hallmarks of Yoni’s all too short, but meaningful life.

Yoni Netanyahu. Sketch (c) T. Book, 2020

Reading these letters as a young teenager in South Africa changed the trajectory of my life. They strongly contributed to my Aliyah after high school and my decision to serve in a combat unit in the IDF. As a sixteen year old, an age at which most of his contemporaries were focused on more frivolous things, Yoni penned what were to be the guiding principals of his life:

… Man does not live forever, and he should put the days of his life to the best possible use. He should try to live life to its fullest…I must feel certain that not only the moment of my death shall I be able to account for the time I’ve lived; I ought to be ready at every moment of my life to confront myself and say—This is what I’ve done.

Yoni’s letters are thought provoking, profound and unapologetically Zionistic. On the eve of Passover, a year before his death, Yoni penned an unusual love letter to his girlfriend Bruria. In it he wrote that Judaism wasn’t all about death, destruction, slaughter and food, but rather Passover symbolises that:

The idea of freedom remained, that hope persisted, that the flame of liberty continued to burn through the observance of this ancient festival, is to me testimony of the striving for freedom and idea of freedom in Israel. In this search through our past we come upon other periods-of tranquility and liberty, when we were the people of the land as well as the people of the book.

Yoni reminded us that Israel is the hub around which the Jewish world revolves. He also taught us as Jews that if we want to get anything done for our own benefit we can only rely on ourselves. It is not enough to yearn, pray and hope as the “People of the Book,” but rather Judaism’s natural state is also as the “People of the Land.” The miracle of our return to our land was not brought about passively, but by the actions of the pioneering youngsters, who reclaimed our land one tree at a time, revived our language one Hebrew word at a time, and continue to reclaim our Jewish honour and pride through defending our Jewish homeland and indeed our Jewish brothers and sisters world wide, and if necessary, are prepared to give those very lives to defend the hope (Hatikvah) of two thousand years, “to be a free people in our land.” Freedom isn’t free.  This Passover, even with all the unusual restrictions, let us remember that we are indeed free and may Yoni’s memory, words and deeds continue to be for an inspiration and a blessing!

“Shkedia” Almond Blossoms in Modiin. Photo (c) T. Book (2020)

Dr. Tuvia Book is the author of “For the Sake of Zion, A Curriculum of Israel Education” (Koren, 2017).   His forthcoming book on the Second Temple Period, will be published by Koren later this year.  He also is a free-lance Tour guide and Judaica artist.  www.tuviabook.com