Tzafrir Ronen, 53, a fighter for the Land of Israel and the Jewish People originating from deep within the secular left, suffered a fatal heart attack before the Sabbath. Survived by his wife and three daughters, aged 13 to 20, his funeral was held 29 December in his hometown Moshav Moledet near Afula.
A founder of the secular nationalist Nahalal Forum and a frequent contributor to Arutz-7’s Hebrew and English opinion pages, Ronen was raised on the ideals of the Labor party and the secular Kibbutz movement. He served as senior campaign advisor for Yitzchak Rabin in the 1992 elections, and was a founding member of Kibbutz Gilgal in the Jordan Valley. His change in thinking came in the wake of the Oslo Accords, signed by Rabin in 1993.
Video courtesy: Israel National News
At last year’s Jerusalem Conference, Ronen delivered an impassioned speech in which he said, “Show me a British person who would be willing to negotiate away parts of London for peace with Al-Qaeda, or an American who would be willing to give away Washington, D.C… Only we are willing to give away our heritage. How can we act this way? We need a psychologist! . . .
I was in a synagogue in the U.S., which has appeals for Dharfur, Bosnia, etc. – but when I wanted to talk about the Land of Israel, they refused to let me, saying it was a political matter. I told them that if the Land of Israel is a political matter, you can close up the Bible, and you can close up your synagogue… Look what happened here: We came back to our Land, we established a State – and we lost our identity!”
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