Joshua (Shuki) Tartakovsky, a former ultra-Orthodox resident of Jerusalem, was deported from Lebanon to the United States following American intervention. Tartakovsky, who graduated from Brown University and the London School of Economics, was reportedly arrested in Beirut on Tuesday after entering Lebanon recently saying he is an investigative journalist. His behavior aroused suspicion among the Lebanese authorities, and when he was caught, they discovered he had an Israeli passport. This was not his first visit to Beirut, according to his social media accounts.
Using a British passport to enter Lebanon, Tartakovsky also had his Israeli passport with him. The Al-Akhbar newspaper, associated with Hezbollah, reported that security forces arrested him in the Dahieh district, two weeks after his arrival in the Lebanese capital. He entered the country with other journalists, but his suspicious behavior led to his arrest. Al-Akhbar described Tartakovsky as a 42-year-old Israeli born in the United States who works for a weekly publication.
Friends describe him as "peculiar character." One noted his frequent shifts in political stance, characterizing him as someone who could be far-right one day and far-left the next, often leaving others confused. His arrest in Lebanon didn't surprise those who knew him. Previously, he posted content supporting Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit or Jewish Power party, yet his friends label him as a leftist "opposed to wars."
His friend Aharon Rose remarked, "He earned his degree from a top American university, but he was always a bit strange. He had these confusing traits. The strangest thing was his Facebook. For six months, he was anti-Zionist, then for another six months, he was a Kahanist. He kept changing his Facebook profiles. He's too eccentric to be a spy." Another friend noted, "He wrote articles against drafting ultra-Orthodox into the army and against settlements, and suddenly he wrote in favor of drafting ultra-Orthodox." One of the websites where he published articles even deleted them.
Another acquaintance described him as "an unstable person. He's certainly not a Mossad agent or an Israeli agent of any kind. He's an unstable but very intelligent guy. He's against the West and doesn't live in Israel; he travels the world. Each month he's in a different place—Greece, Brazil, Lebanon, Spain, Turkey, Pakistan. He's an adventurer. He studied international relations and went to experience the world. I'd be surprised if he has a journalist's credentials; he was writing blogs and giving interviews on TV in various countries. He's a polyglot."
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