Several months after the Six Day War, the sons of the settlers of Kfar Etzion, occupied and destroyed by the Arabs in 1948, returned to the desolated site to rebuild the village of their fathers.
The newspapermen who covered the event included Yaakov Edelstein, correspondent and feature writer of “Hatsofe,” the daily organ of the National Religious Party.
The site was not new to Edelstein. He knew every stone, every piece of ground. He had been a member of Kfar Etzion, had participated in the heroic stand of the settlement during the War of Independence and was one of the few survivors of the battle.
On the day Kfar Etzion fell– May 13. 1948, the eve of Israel’s proclamation of independence — one hundred and fifty of the village settlers and defenders died in battle or were slaughtered by the Arabs. Only four survived. Edelstein was one of them.
e succeeded in breaking through the ranks of the Arabs who had surrounded the last of the defenders and escaped to a nearby forest. There he was discovered by an elderly Arab. The Arab who was wrapped in a Tallith and carried in his hand Tefillin, which he had looted from Kfar Etzion, took Edelstein under his protection and prevented other Arabs from harming him.
Edelstein spent one year in Jordanian captivity.
The resettlement of Kfar Etzion, following the Six Day War was a great day in Israel. The orphans of the settlers who were still infants in 1948 when their father died, returned to till their parents’ soil. Edelstein who accompanied them in this historic mission had also been privileged to take part in the liberation of the site during the Six Day war. He served as officer for cultural affairs in the Jerusalem Brigade which occupied the region.
Edelstein was born in Warsaw and grew up in Kamenitz, in the shade of its great Yeshiva of of its famous head, Rabbi Barukh Ber Leibotwitz. Edelstein’s father Yitzhak was secretary of the Yeshiva and an intimate of Barukh Ber whose biography he wrote.
After the Russian occupation of Eastern Poland, the students of the Kamenitz Yeshiva, like those of many other Polish Yeshivas moved to Lithuania.
In 1941 the Edelsteins with a larger group of Rabbis and Yeshiva students made their way to Palestine via Russia, Turkey and Syria. On the road in a railway compartment, Young Yaakov celebrated his Bar Mitzvah.
After his arrival in Palestine, Yaakov studied in Yeshivas. In 1945 he joined the settlement of Kfar Etzion.
Edelstein, who writes under the pen name of Even Hen, is not just a journalist but also a talented poet.
He made his debut in the 1940s in the religious literary journal “BaMishor.” Over the years he contributed poetry and stories to a variety of publications. A collection of his poems, Me’ever Leharim” appeared in 1959. Last year a collection of his stories, “Arafel be”emek Habrakha” was published.
Many of Edelstein’s literary pieces deal with the life and struggle of Kfar Etzion and with the problems and challengers of religious youth in modern Israel
Edelstein is one of the few young religious belles letters writes, and the lack of suitable reading material for religious youth is of great concern to him.
“Our youths are voracious readers. Unfortunately, not much belles-lettres by religious authors is available, and religious youths turn to the writings of non-religious authors.”
In order to stimulate the growth of religious belles-lettres, Edelstein has established the miscellany “Mabua” which serves as “Platform” for the religious writers and poets.
Edelstein, who is also the author of a history of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, is married to the former Nehama Hagassi. They have four children. Two sons, Azriela nd Yisrael who study in Yeshiva Netivat Meir in Jerusalem and two daughters, Yonat and Ayelet.
The Jewish Press, Friday, August 29, 1969