Remembering A ‘Founding Father’ Of The Settlement Movement

While researching what became my history of the Hebron Jews, I had the pleasure of meeting Haetzni in his Kiryat Arba apartment. He welcomed me to the living room, where each wall contained shelves of books in several languages from ceiling to floor.

In his soft-spoken way, he guided me through the return of the Jews to their ancient capital city following the Six-Day War, modestly avoiding his own pivotal role in this rebirth. After our illuminating conversation ended, he and his wife kindly drove me downhill to Beit Hadassah, a former medical clinic now inhabited by several Israeli families who, like Haetzni, were pioneers of the return to Hebron.

Elyakim Haetzni, identified as “a man who lived and breathed Zionism,” has been eulogized as “a founding father” of the settlement movement, a man of “leadership and kindness” who “stayed dedicated to the people of Israel and the State of Israel until his last day.”

Although we spent little more than an hour together, he was a vital source for my understanding of the determination of Jews, few as they may have been, to restore life to Hebron and reclaim the city’s place in Jewish history. He was a passionate, if soft-spoken, leader; anything but the caricature of the “fanatic” that has invited attacks on settlers for the “crime” of returning to biblical Judea and Samaria. I will always cherish our time together.