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FEBRUARY 17, 2022 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
A Bridge Between Two Worlds Yisroel Katzover Talks About His Adventures and Insights as Israel’s Longest-Serving Defense Correspondent BY TZVI LEFF
N
ot many journalists manage to change history. Even fewer succeed in doing so while writing for an charedi newspaper largely unknown and unread outside of the insular community. Yet that’s just what Yisroel Katzover did when he blew the whistle on a massive Shabbos-desecrating ceremony at the Israeli military’s Tel Nof Airbase. The year was 1976, and Katzover was a young military correspondent at the charedi Hamodia daily when he received a strange press release from the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. The communique was inviting him to cover a gala ceremony honoring the delivery of Israel’s first squadron of F-15 tactical aircraft from the United States. Marking the Israel Air Force’s transition from the old F-4 to the fourth generation fighter jets, the celebration was to be attended by Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, along with the entire Israeli government, the IDF General Staff, and dozens of foreign diplomats. But upon checking his personal day planner, Katzover discovered something strange. The ceremony was slated to begin late Friday afternoon, making massive Shabbos desecration at an official government ceremony almost certain. This would be the first time the military openly violated the holy day of rest, as it had until then been extremely careful to respect traditional customs. “I looked at the event on the invitation and saw that it would begin late on Friday afternoon. I immediately called up the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit and informed them that
they made a mistake. This couldn’t possibly be correct,” recalls Katzover in an interview with The Jewish Home. “They checked, came back and said that there wasn’t any mistake. This is the date,” Katzover continued. “I told the clerk, ‘But it’s Friday!’ but she replied simply that ‘it is what it is.’” After receiving the less-than-satisfactory answers from the IDF spokesperson, Katzover decided to act. Openly flouting the military censor that had banned journalists from reporting on the event ahead of time for security reasons, he detailed the violation of Jewish law on Hamodia’s front page. “I debated with myself and decided to go against the instructions – maybe it would in the end prevent Shabbos desecration from happening in the future,” Katzover explained. The news that the Israeli government would break its longstanding custom of refraining from Shabbos desecration caused a bombshell. An outraged National Religious Party and Agudas Yisrael faction left the Rabin government in protest, leading the premier to call for early elections. But when the polls closed three months later, the big winner was Menachem Begin and his Likud party. For the first time since the founding of the state, the right wing had ousted the ruling Mapai party from power in what is known until today as the “Revolution.” Katzover’s scoop had literally changed history; a grateful Begin awarded the young reporter his first official interview as premier
