Follow me jonathan netanyahu biography

Danny Litani Self. Avi Weiss Livne Self. Chani Maayan Self. Gamal Abdel Nasser Self archive footage. Benjamin Netanyahu Self. Daphne Netanyahu Self. Iddo Netanyahu Self. Yonathan Netanyahu Self archive footage. Jonathan Gruber Ari Daniel Pinchot. More like this. Storyline Edit. Did you know Edit. Trivia Yonathan Netanyahu 's younger brother, Benjamin Netanyahuhas been Prime Minister of Israel sinceand also served in that office between and Both Benjamin and their younger brother, Iddo Netanyahuserved in the same special forces unit as did Yoni; Sayeret Matkal.

Quotes Yonathan Netanyahu : I must feel certain that not only at the moment of my death shall I be able to account for the time I have lived, I ought to be ready at every moment of my life to confront myself and say this is what I've done. Tutti and Yoni 's wedding, August Photo courtesy of Tirza Goodman. Yoni with girlfriend Bruria, Photo courtesy Bruria Shaked-Okon.

Tutti, Yoni and their dog, Lara. Company Commander, Yoni Netanyahu, at a march in Jerusalem. Q: Yoni was constantly challenging himself and others, but according to an intimate friend of his, he also had a tendency to panic. Were you aware of this, and if so, what prompted you to omit it from the film? ADP: We never heard that. The fact that he was given command of the riskiest mission says something.

I don't think they would have given it to someone who had a tendancy to panic. From our research and conversations, we got the opposite. He actually had a tendency in great stress and danger to be quite calm and soothing to his men and to himself. Q: To what extent did Yoni's status as a sacred martyr discourage you from digging into his shadows?

ADP: In the past he really has been a myth and an icon and less a human being.

Follow me jonathan netanyahu biography

It's understandable. But we were trying to push the envelope beyond the one or two dimensions that people have known about Yoni before. Yoni didn't have a perfect relationship with everybody. He was a tough commander. He was a husband who had a very complicated relationship with his wife. If you can still make tough choices knowing that there are downsides and ramifications, that makes it even more heroic -- real heroism, not Hollywood 's version.

Q: What impact did Yoni's father have on his decisions and worldview? How did Yoni feel about Professor Netanyahu's Revisionist Zionist politics, which were a big factor in his leaving then Labor-dominated Israel in search of an academic career in the US? JG: We didn't want it to be a political film, too closely associated to the politics of the country.

Benzion was when we interviewed him, so we didn't get as much as we would've liked in terms of the relationship between the two of them. But to share a few observations, the father's patriotism on a deep emotional level was passed along to the son. Another fascinating characteristic that translated to Yoni was the father's ability of concentration and hard work.

His father's book on the Marrano Jews was a humongous undertaking, and he was able with three rambunctious boys to focus on his work at an incredible level and for a long time. Q: Professor Netanyahu clearly had divided academic, ideological and familial commitments. Did Yoni, as the eldest brother, assume the brunt of this? Netanyahu was a charismatic soldier who kept putting off the higher education which he began at Harvard to re-enlist in the army.

Netanyahu left behind a record of his intellectual precocity in the letters he wrote to friends and family which, read aloud, narrate much of the film. The co-writers and directors, Ari Pinchot and Jonathan Gruber, answered some of my questions via email. Are the letters compiled somewhere or did you hunt them down? After Yoni died, people throughout every part of his life spontaneously brought the letters they had received from him to his family during the Shiva the Jewish mourning periodand the Netanyahus decided to publish the collection of letters in a book to preserve his character and memory.