Motti Fogel is a most unusual man.  He is the older brother of Udi Fogel, the Jewish settler murdered with his wife and three children in Itamar on the night of a Jewish Sabbath in early March.  Itamar is a religious settlement in the northern West Bank near Nablus.  Motti doesn’t live there; he lives in Jerusalem.  He is religiously observant and retains deep affection and respect for his Orthodox family and community.  But politically, he has traveled a very long way from the views held by his family and most religious settlers.  He opposes the occupation and participates in weekly demonstrations in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, protesting the creation of a Jewish settlement there.  Putting political feasibility aside, he favors the creation of a binational state.

At the funeral for Udi and his family, Motti spoke movingly to his brother.  “If I could, I would get rid of everyone here and whisper to you, ‘Let’s go play soccer one last time’.  All the slogans about Torah and land settlement, the land of Israel and the Jewish people try to make us forget the simple fact that you are dead.  A person is born to himself, to his parents and his siblings, and he dies to himself, to his children, and in very bad cases to his parents and siblings.  You are not a symbol or a national event, your life bore a purpose unto itself and we must not let your terrible death become a tool, no matter what for.”

To read more about this unusual man, go to http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/the-private-side-of-a-public-tragedy-1.351740.