Yossi Cohen is smart, charismatic, and fearless — and the Mossad’s first shomer-Shabbos chief. But in this family, heroism comes in all colors.
“It was an unforgettable Shabbos, an example of true Jewish heroism — the gevurah of a child who grew up in a home where ‘Jewish hero’ was part of his DNA,” says Aryeh Cohen, remembering the bar mitzvah Shabbos of his brave, inspiring grandson Yonatan. Reb Aryeh is the father of newly appointed Mossad head Yossi Cohen — the first shomer Shabbos Mossad chief since the secret-service institution was founded — and Yonatan is Yossi Cohen’s special son.
Since infancy, Yonatan has suffered from cerebral palsy, as a result of a premature birth with insufficient oxygen, but from his wheelchair, he’s done his father proud. He can’t walk, can’t read as he’s legally blind, and can’t write, but he finished school as a multilingual honors student and even served in the IDF intelligence corps for several years.
We were sitting with Aryeh and Mina Cohen in their Jerusalem living room to hear about their son Yossi — the number-one man in Israel’s wide-ranging international security apparatus and former handler of an international ring of secret agents — but Yossi and Yonatan are really part of the same story.
“Yonatan is the real hero,” Yossi Cohen told the press at the time of his recent appointment as Mossad chief.
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