In the Footsteps of a Giant: Eli Cohen zt”l

I first read 'Our Man in Damascus' when I was sixteen, in the mid-1970s. Eli Cohen had been executed only a few years earlier. The book left a deep mark. Even at that age I recognised that I was reading about someone rare: a man whose courage and clarity of purpose reminded me of the heroes of the T'nach, the Jewish Bible .

Without doubt, Eli Cohen stands among the giants of modern Israel. In many respects his story is reminiscent of the figures in the Book of Judges — Samson, Yiftach, and others who carried the fate of the people on their shoulders when the times demanded it. His widow, Nadia, belongs in that same company. Her steadfastness and dignity after his death connect her to the realm of the great women of Jewish history: Deborah, Ruth, and many others.

In truth, our generation cannot be realistically compared to those spiritual giants of ancient times. However, Rabbi Avigdor Miller zt”l once spoke of a new T'nach, a T'nach that would one day be written about the heroes of more recent times. Just as Reuven could never have imagined that his attempt to save Josef from the pit would be recorded for all time in the Book of Genesis, so the quiet, dangerous, and often unseen Mitzvot performed in our generation will one day be set down. The story of Eli Cohen could be one of its central chapters.

When my wife and I made Aliyah a few years ago, we understood that we were coming not just to the State of Israel, but to the Land of Israel, to walk in the paths of our Jewish ancestry, the spiritual giants of the past — the Kings, the Prophets, the Judges, the Talmudic Sages. We expected to feel their presence in Jerusalem, in the hills of Judea and Samaria, in the places where the T'nach itself was lived. In the Galilee where the Oral Law, the Mishna and the Jerusalem Talmud were sealed for all time. What we did not fully anticipate then was how powerfully that same sense of continuity would meet us even in the Golan, the Land of Og, King of Bashan.

On 25 August we will spend a day walking those heights. The heart of the tour will be the Eli Cohen Trail. Around it we will place at least one further stop that sets Jewish life and heritage in the Golan into clearer perspective. We captured the Heights in 1967 for urgent strategic reasons. From a Jewish point of view, however, it was also a return. The day will try to hold both of those truths together — the military necessity and the deeper historical and spiritual claim.

This is not a battlefield tour in the narrow sense, nor a simple memorial visit. It is an attempt to stand for a few hours in the presence of a man whose life still speaks, and to see the land he helped secure through both the lens of strategy and the longer lens of Jewish History.

If you would like to join us, details and the booking link are here. The itinerary is still being refined on the ground this week, but the direction is clear: to walk, for one day, in the footsteps of a modern giant.

Am Yisrael Chai,

Yoni Lemel

wowisraeltours.com