We’re All Emissaries

Nachshoni, 69, was the founder of Yom Hashishi (originally called Erev Shabbos), the first independent commercial newspaper in the chareidi sector, and served as its editor for 18 years. More recently, he was publisher of the Merkaz Ha’inyanim newspaper chain and a regular commentator on chareidi radio stations. After learning in yeshivos Chevron and Itri, he did his IDF service at the Galei Tzahal army radio station, where he stayed for eight years as a news reporter and spokesman for the military rabbinate. His deep familiarity with both the religious and secular halls of power as well as their media made him an eloquent and respected representative of Israeli chareidi life to a wider, often hostile public.

He lived in the mixed city of Petach Tikvah, which he said helped him serve as a bridge between various sectors. “I walk to shul on Shabbos wearing a tallis, not because there’s no eiruv but because I think it’s important to impart a Jewish presence in the street on Shabbos. While there’s a price to living among not only fellow chareidim, I believe the kiddush Hashem that ensues makes it worthwhile,” he told Mishpacha in an interview during the Covid pandemic, when chareidim were being vilified as “virus spreaders.”

But although media was his business, he wasn’t one of those who would run to the papers to justify his sector or his lifestyle. “I know all the media figures in Israel,” he said, “and they make a living, among other things, from writing sensational headlines about the chareidim. You can take them ten times to see the Ponevezh beis medrash and eat cholent on Thursday night. But even if you succeed in convincing one journalist that what he’s witnessed is meaningful and good, that doesn’t mean he’s going to quit his job and start working for Mishpacha.

“I once told a journalist, ‘I get you, you need to earn a living by the sweat of your brow… But your job is even harder, because you have to create stories about me, so you really need to sweat a lot.”