When the late Colonel Yehonatan Steinberg left his house on the morning of Simchat Torah last year, his wife felt that she had no reason to worry. She was already used to sudden calls to base; on Saturdays, holidays, at odd hours.
"'There is an infiltration of terrorists from the Gaza Strip and I am going to my soldiers in Kerem Shalom.' I walked him to the door, gave him some cookies and sent him on his way. Nothing unusual," recalled Yiska Steinberg.
However, she had another reason to be calm. During Operation Guardian of the Walls, Yehonatan's force was under fire in the West Bank while he was the Binyamin Division commander. His communications officer was slightly injured, as well as an officer who was with them, but he came out unscathed.
"Yehonatan managed the event calmly and rescued his men under fire," continued Yiska. "This is the moment when I said to myself: My husband is protected. There is no one who can beat him."
It was an illusion. In the morning hours of October 7, 2023, the commander of the Nahal Brigade, Colonel Yehonatan Steinberg, was killed in battle against a squad of 12 terrorists near the Ma'on junction near Nir Oz. He was the first IDF soldier whose name was allowed to be published. Col. Steinberg, 42, left behind six children and a wife. Two more brigade commanders died in battle that morning: Colonel Asaf Hamami and Colonel Roy Joseph Levy.
More than a year has passed since then, but Yehonatan's spirit, legacy, and dedication continue to accompany the Nahal Brigade. The brigade lost 53 officers and soldiers in the war, 22 of them on the cursed October 7 Massacre.
"He wasn't the commander of the sector but he summoned the brigade and went ahead, knowing he was there alone under fire," said the current brigade commander, Col. Yair Zuckerman, who replaced Steinberg after his death. "When Yehonatan detected the Nukhba forces, he got out of the vehicle and fought. His act of heroism was later reflected in all the brigade's fighting in Gaza: the initiative, the desire to be in front, to complete every task. When the commander behaves like this, it affects us all."
The wedding and an operation in Jenin
We met last week at the spot where Steinberg fell: his widow Yiska, Col. Zuckerman and two of Yoni's subordinates: the commander of the 932nd Battalion, Lt. Col. Dotan Malul, and the brigade's logistics officer, Major Shahaf Cohen. Somewhere between Ma'on Junction and Eshkol Park, the late Lieutenant Colonel Yehonatan (Barnash) Tzor, commander of the Nahal patrol, who also came from home into the line of fire, was also killed in battle on October 7.
At the place of Yehonatan Steinberg's fall, there are two olive trees. One was planted not long ago. The other, ancient and embroidered, was specially brought here. On Memorial Day, more tender saplings were added to them. "When I planted the first tree, I said: In the place where Yoni's life was cut short, we are planting life and deepening roots," said Yiska.
She grew up in Gush Katif in the former Gaza settlements. She met Yehonatan, from Givat Ze'ev, when he was a deputy platoon commander in the 931st battalion. "A week after the wedding, Yoni went on an operation in Jenin for 18 days. Immediately after that, he spent another 21 days away from home," she recalled. "Today it sounds like nothing, but back then there was no war. This was our routine."
According to her, despite his intensive service Yoni was a devoted husband and father. "He would do everything in the house: clean, wash. Everything you need. He would arrive very tired from the army, but that didn't stop him from having a full family Shabbat meal. "Officers usually fall asleep after the Kiddush," she added.
He instilled the value of family in his subordinates as well. "My wife told me that she wanted to go abroad with her family and that I should stay with the girl," said Major Shahaf, the brigade logistics officer. "I told her: 'I'm in the army, how will I be with the girl at home for five days?' I didn't know how to tell Yehonatan the brigade commander that I had to take time off. When I told him he said 'Of course you should let her travel. She needs it and she will appreciate you for it.'"
On the morning of Simchat Torah, when Yehonatan was on his way south, the residents of Shomriya, where the family lived, were asked to stay in their homes due to the terrorist infiltration. "I said, well, if this is my Simchat Torah, we'll make it happy," Yiska pointed out. "The little children danced with the Torah books and the older ones threw candy at them. I look at them and said, 'How sweet, I can't wait to tell Yoni what a Simchat Torah we had.' When the soldiers knocked on the door, around six p.m., we were in the middle of a Stratego game. Unitl then I was disconnected from what was happening in the country. I keep Shabbat, but this time Shabbat kept me from all the chaos and anxiety of that day."
The division commander stopped the vehicle and told me 'Take command of the Nahal Brigade.'
Col. Zuckerman was at home in Moshav Nov in the Golan Heights on October 7. A month and a half earlier, he concluded his tenure as deputy commander of the 162nd Division (to which the Nahal Brigade belongs) and was about to be appointed commander of the Northern District of the Home Front Command. "I was debating whether to go to the district or go down south," he said.
"I decided to go south, to the brigade's headquarters in Nahal Sorek, and when I got there I joined the 162nd Division Commander Brigadier General Itzik Cohen. We both already knew that Yehonatan was not answering since the morning. When we arrived at the Kibbutz Beit Kama area, we spoke with Lt. Col. Yoni Dahan, who informed us that he had found Steinberg's body. The division commander stopped the vehicle and told me 'Take command of the Nahal Brigade.'"
Dahan, who had finished his position as 932nd Battalion's commander two months earlier, was at the time a squad commander in the company commander course. "I was at home, in Kfar Haroeh, and I went down south with a relative who is also a combat officer," he recalled in a telephone interview.
"On the way, I called Malul, who replaced me as the battalion commander in Hebron, and he sent me reinforcements. We passed through the Nova music festival, fought with terrorists in Urim, and then we were asked to come to Ein HaShlosha to back up Golani.
"We drove through the fields and until we spotted terrorists on road 241. We unloaded the vehicles and opened fire on them. Then I see a kippah on the side of the road that looked familiar. I look and see Yehonatan Steinberg lying lifeless. I also saw Barnash's car there, but I didn't make the connection. Then an officer I knew called me and told me that he found Barnash dead and evacuated him. At Around 11 a.m. the division commander asked me to take command of the patrol force. I asked one of the officers to evacuate Yehonatan and drove to Kerem Shalom to join the patrol. Only when I got there did Zuckerman call me and inform me that he was now the brigade commander."
'The earth was shaking'
After several months of commanding the patrol, Dahan passed the reins to Lt. Col. Naor Bublil, who was appointed to be the patrol unit's commander before the war, and returned to his previous position. "Yehonatan was my battalion commander and then my brigade commander. I experienced difficult things that day, but when I saw him lying there I felt like the earth was shaking. If they took Steinberg away from us, it's already a drastic event. Steinberg was always a compass for us, in his life and certainly after his death. Every time you are in a dilemma, you ask yourself what Steinberg would have done," said Dahan.
And this compass also guides the soldiers and junior officers. "When I commanded the patrol unit, there were quite a few soldiers and commanders who were wounded and returned to combat," he added. "They told me - 'If our brigade commander gave his life, who are we to say anything?'"
Col. Zuckerman knew Steinberg even before he was drafted into the IDF. "Yehonatan was an instructor at the Bnei Akiva branch in Givat Ze'ev with my friends. In the army, he was always a position ahead of me. We studied together for our bachelor's degree in education with a teaching certificate. Yoni was tall and a splendid leader," he said.
Yiska finds solace in the beautiful years they had. "The greater the pain, the greater the gratitude that we were blessed with such a meaningful life together and such wonderful and sweet children," she said. "I cry that it's over, and in the same breath, I feel the power of gratitude. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Yoni."
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