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Meir Shalev and Yehonatan Geffen were Israeli cultural royalty. Their deaths leave a hole on the left.
(JTA) — Over the last few months, since the far-right government announced its plans for an overarching constitutional overhaul, Israel’s embattled liberal camp has experienced a renaissance. Unprecedented mobilization on the part of protesting masses, business leaders and the IDF vanguard has left the government in disarray and, in the wake of a seemingly endless string of electoral defeats, invigorated the left to an extent that it had not seen since the 1990s. The left may be dead, but it is not quite buried yet.
But amid this process of rejuvenation and weeks before Israel celebrated its 75th anniversary, the Israeli left experienced two symbolic blows in ironic proximity when two cultural titans died within days of each other.
Meir Shalev, an eminent novelist, and Yehonatan Geffen, an incredibly prolific journalist, author and songwriter, were also prominent public intellectuals. Both had spent decades dabbling in current affairs as columnists for the mass-circulation dailies Yedioth Aharonoth and Maariv, respectively.
Shalev was 74 when he died on April 11. Geffen, who died on April 19, was 76.
The symbolism did not stop at their premature and almost simultaneous passing. It was, rather, the final chapter of two lives that also began in great proximity: Shalev and Geffen were born a little over a year apart in the agricultural community of Nahalal, the Camelot of the Labor Zionism movement. Both were descendants of Zionist aristocracy: Shalev’s father was the Jerusalemite author and educator Yithzak Shalev, and Geffen’s maternal uncle the legendary general-turned-politician Moshe Dayan. Like many of their cohort, they were groomed for the driving seat of the newborn State of Israel.
Their formidable life’s work, thus, was largely an ongoing attempt to deal with the burden bestowed upon them by their pedigrees. And this is where they differ, despite the eerie similarities in their biographies.
Many of Shalev’s novels, especially the earlier ones, were loving tributes to his lineage. They included “A Pigeon and A Boy,” which is set during the War of Independence and won the National Jewish Book Award in 2006, and “The Blue Mountain,” set on a moshav (an agricultural cooperative) shortly before the founding of Israel. Though never overly sentimental and always strewn with a heavy dose of irony, Shalev’s writings were adoring accounts of a bygone generation, complete with their shtick and quirks and foibles. His protagonists were shrouded in a certain mythology, which Shalev did not labor to deconstruct entirely; he was just attempting to humanize and bring them down to earth.
But while Shalev looked up to his parents’ generation, Geffen blew a raspberry in their faces. He was part of a tight cohort of musicians and artists who grew up in Israel post-independence — a tribe that included David Broza, Arik Einstein, Gidi Gov, Shalom Hanoch and Yehudit Ravitz, all household names in Israel. Geffen’s song “Could It Be Over?”, featured on Arik Einstein’s 1973 album sporting the deliberately ironic title “Good Old Israel,” exemplifies the challenging relationship. From the opening line (“They say it was fun before I was born, and everything was just splendid until I arrived”), the song is a mischievous and self-deprecating take on Israel’s founding myths. Enumerating them one by one — the draining of the swamps, the heroic battles for Jewish sovereignty, the nascent Hebrew culture in the pre-state Yishuv — Geffen sarcastically concludes: “They had a reason to get up in the morning.”
More broadly, Geffen was bent on smashing every aspect of the Zionist ethos. In defiance of the image of the Hebrew warrior, of which his uncle Moshe was the poster boy, Geffen was an adamant pacifist as well as, famously, a very bad soldier himself. Having been called for reserve service during the first Lebanon War, in 1982, he was performing for soldiers ahead of the IDF offensive on Beirut when he was dragged off stage by the commanding officer for calling on the troops to refuse. His song “The Little Prince of Company B” (sung by Shem-Tov Levy), about a timid and frail fallen soldier praised as a hero against his will, was one of the first and best-remembered anti-war songs in the Hebrew canon.
Geffen’s counterculture instincts were informed by his great American heroes — notably the Jewish iconoclasts Bob Dylan and Lenny Bruce — and this admiration was in itself a jab at his upbringing, characterized by vain parochialism masquerading as self-sufficiency. Geffen felt more at home in New York (where he spent several years) and Tel Aviv than in the fields of the Jezreel Valley; his tools were not a sickle and a plow, but rather a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of whisky.
Shalev, in his political writing, also advocated for left-of-center politics that is sometimes derisively described as “Ashkenazi”: moderate, civil, Western in its orientation, calling to rally around a common good — a type of political discourse that, as recent events show, speaks to fewer and fewer Israelis. “The Israeli public is moving more and more to the right. The war in 1967 may have destroyed Israel,” he told an interviewer in 2017. “We took a big bite that is now suffocating us. All Israel has done since 1967 is deal with aspects of the occupation. Israel has not been dealing with the things I feel it should deal with. With my political views, I am a minority in Israel.”
Shalev was a pastor of sorts; Geffen was sometimes a Jeremiah and sometimes a court jester, and often both.
They were representatives of two distinct streams within the traditionally fragmented Israeli left; the very same left that, despite the current resurgence, seems too often to have more streams than members.
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The post Meir Shalev and Yehonatan Geffen were Israeli cultural royalty. Their deaths leave a hole on the left. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Accuses US of Ground Assault Plans as Pakistan Hosts Regional Talks
Foreign Ministers Badr Abdelatty of Egypt, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, Ishaq Dar of Pakistan and Hakan Fidan of Turkey pose for a group photo during their meeting to discuss regional de-escalation, amid the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, in Islamabad, Pakistan, March 29, 2026. Photo: Muammer Tan/Turkish Foreign MinistryHandout via REUTERS
Iran said it was ready to respond to any US ground attack, accusing Washington of preparing a land assault while seeking talks, as regional powers met in Pakistan on Sunday to try to bring the two sides together.
The initial discussions in Islamabad with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt focused on proposals to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, sources familiar with the matter said. More talks will be held on Monday.
Iran’s effective blockade of oil and gas shipments through the strait since the US and Israel began attacking the country on February 28 is spreading economic pain around the world. Food and energy security and supply chains were among issues discussed in Pakistan, Egypt’s foreign ministry said.
As the conflict entered its second month, Israel‘s military said it had launched over 140 air strikes on central and western Iran, including Tehran, over the 24 hours to Sunday evening, hitting ballistic missile launch sites and storage facilities, among other targets.
A chemical plant in southern Israel near the city of Beer Sheva was hit by a missile or missile debris as Israel fended off multiple salvos from Iran, prompting official warnings to the public to stay away due to “hazardous materials.”
Another missile hit open ground near homes in Beer Sheva, located near several military bases, injuring 11 people.
The war has killed thousands of people and affected countries across the Middle East, with major aluminum plants in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates damaged by air strikes over the weekend.
The UAE, which has faced more Iranian missile and drone attacks than any other country, is seeking reparations from Iran for attacks on civilians and vital facilities and clear guarantees to prevent any repetition, an adviser to the president said.
Pakistan has offered to host peace talks, but the United States, Israel and Iran have set out maximalist positions to end the warfare, complicating the path to a solution.
Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf accused the US of sending messages about possible negotiations while at the same time planning to send in troops, adding that Tehran was ready to respond if US soldiers were deployed.
“As long as the Americans seek Iran’s surrender, our response is that we will never accept humiliation,” he said in a message to the nation.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis joined the conflict on Saturday launching their first attacks on Israel and raising the prospect they could target and thus block a second key shipping route, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Analysts say renewed attacks there would pile further pressure on the world economy.
US MARINES START ARRIVING IN MIDDLE EAST
Washington has dispatched thousands of Marines to the Middle East, with the first of two contingents arriving on Friday aboard an amphibious assault ship, the U.S. military has said.
The Washington Post quoted US officials as saying the Pentagon was preparing for weeks of ground operations in Iran, adding that it was not yet clear if President Donald Trump would approve such plans.
Reuters has reported that the Pentagon has considered military options that could include ground forces.
Trump faces a stark choice between seeking a negotiated exit or escalating militarily that risks a protracted crisis, and would likely weigh further on his already low approval ratings.
“President Trump has poor options all around to end the war,” said Jonathan Panikoff, former US deputy national intelligence officer for the Middle East.
“Part of the challenge is the lack of clarity related to what a satisfactory outcome would be,” Panikoff added.
Washington said last week it had offered a 15-point ceasefire plan, with a proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restrict Iran’s nuclear program, but Tehran has rejected the list and put forward proposals of its own.
ISRAEL HITS DOZENS OF TARGETS ACROSS IRAN
An Israeli official said Israel would continue carrying out strikes against Iran on what were described as military targets, adding there was no intention to scale back the campaign ahead of any possible talks between Washington and Tehran.
A building housing Qatar’s Al-Araby TV in Tehran was hit on Sunday, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported, with video showing walls and windows blown out of the multi-storey block.
“The missile hit. The ceiling and everything fell on our heads. Unfortunately, we couldn’t continue to work. It was a real miracle we survived,” said Al Araby camera operator Mohammadreza Shademan. “There was no military target here.”
With US midterm elections due in November, the increasingly unpopular war has weighed on Trump’s Republican Party. Demonstrators took to city streets across the US on Saturday in protests against the conflict.
Trump has threatened to hit power stations and other energy infrastructure if Iran does not open the Strait of Hormuz, though he has extended a deadline by 10 days through April 6.
A European diplomat warned that any further military escalation could make it harder to bring the two sides together, potentially delaying the possibility by weeks, if not longer.
Iranian threats against ships have kept most oil tankers from attempting the waterway. Iran has agreed to let an additional 20 Pakistani-flagged vessels pass through the strait, with two ships permitted to transit daily, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has said, calling it a “harbinger of peace.”
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Pentagon Preparing for Weeks of Ground Operations in Iran
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth holds a briefing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, US, March 19, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Evan Vucci
The Pentagon is preparing for weeks of ground operations in Iran, the Washington Post reported Saturday, citing US officials.
The plans could involve raids by Special Operations and conventional infantry troops, the Post reported. Whether President Donald Trump would approve any of those plans remains uncertain, according to the Post.
The Trump administration has deployed US Marines to the Middle East as the war in Iran stretches into its fifth week, and also has been planning to send thousands of soldiers from the US Army’s 82nd Airborne to the region.
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America’s oldest synagogue closed. Then an unlikely group tended its cemetery.
In 1833, Herald of the Times, a Newport, Rhode Island, newspaper, reported that the remains of Mrs. Rebecca Lopez had been brought from New York by steamboat and placed inside Touro Synagogue.
Dedicated in 1763, the building is now recognized as the nation’s oldest surviving synagogue. Newport had once been home to a thriving colonial Jewish community, but after the Revolutionary War and the city’s economic decline, that community had largely faded. The cemetery remained, and so did the synagogue. It was during that long interval of near-absence that Lopez’s funeral briefly reopened Jewish ritual life in Newport.
After prayers were read by Rabbi Isaac Seixas of New York, the body was carried to the cemetery on Touro Street, with “the clergy, town council, and a numerous concourse of spectators” joining the funeral procession. The paper noted that a Jewish ceremony had not been performed there “for the space of forty years.”
Newport’s Jewish burial ground dated to 1677. In 1822, Abraham Touro left money for the upkeep of the cemetery, the synagogue, and the street on which they stood. The fund was placed under trustees appointed by the Rhode Island legislature, and Newport’s Town Council was later authorized to use the interest for repairs.
While Newport’s Jewish population declined, the endowment ensured that the synagogue building and cemetery grounds continued to be maintained. In 1826, the Town Council reported that it had tried to repair the synagogue using the Touro fund, but could not proceed because it had not been able to obtain the keys from Shearith Israel in New York. Many of Newport’s former Jewish residents had relocated there, and the congregations had longstanding ties.
In 1842, the council contracted to enclose the synagogue lot with a substantial stone wall and an ornamental cast-iron fence, modeled on the fence around the Jewish cemetery. The work included a Quincy granite base and a gateway on Touro Street designed to correspond with the synagogue’s portico. The project cost $6,835.
The synagogue’s doors rarely opened, and often only for moments of mourning. In June 1854, Newport received the body of Judah Touro, one of the most prominent American Jews of his era, a native of the town and brother of Abraham Touro. The Herald of the Times reported that “the streets was [sic] crowded with people, the stores all closed, and the bells tolled.”
The City Council assembled at City Hall and marched in procession to the synagogue, where “thousands remained outside” during the service. At the funeral, Newport’s mayor, William C. Cozzens, spoke of the trust that had long existed between the city and local Jewish families, recalling that the synagogue and cemetery had been left in Newport’s care and maintained there “with ample means for their preservation.”
When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited Newport’s Jewish cemetery that same year, he wrote of the graves as “silent beside the never-silent waves.” He noticed, too, what endured there: “Gone are the living, but the dead remain,” he observed, “and not neglected.”
Newport’s preservation of Jewish sacred space was shared. Jews endowed these places and returned to bury their dead there. Christian officials repaired, protected, and publicly honored them. In this way, a Jewish inheritance was carried forward until communal life returned.
In 1883, Touro Synagogue was rededicated and a new Jewish community established in Newport. But even in the window of years when the congregation was gone, the dead were not abandoned.
The graves were kept.
The post America’s oldest synagogue closed. Then an unlikely group tended its cemetery. appeared first on The Forward.