The Famous Rabbi: The Gaon of Vilna and Who Could Be Related To Him?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

                            Rabbi Elijah Ben Solomon Zalman (1720-1797)

The Gaon of Vilna, Elijah Zalman, was born and raised in Vilna, Lithuania. He's known for his views on the teachings of the Torah.  He also had views on the future.  He considered the period in which he lived as the end of the Diaspora and the beginning of the Messianic era.  He then believed there was a period of Redemption that had to be actively initiated by human actions, of which the observance of the commandment to settle in Eretz Yisrael was of central importance.  That's the beginning of our return to Palestine, and for that to become today's Israel.  

 

Does my family have any chance of being related to him?

In my family tree, I have been able to go back to Iones "Jonas" Goldfus b 1730 in Telsiai (Telz) , Lithuania. 

Vilnius, the Jewish center,  and Telz are  150 miles apart;  (240 km.) Northwest of Vilnius (Vilna) Telz.  Jews lived in Vilna at the end of the 15th century but were banished in 1527.  A number returned only to be victims of another riot in 1592.  Then the next year they were formally allowed to settle, acquire houses, lend money (their vocation).  In 1633 they could even trade in precious stones, meat and livestock and be craftsmen.  Another riot in 1635, and by 1655 those remaining Jews were massacred by the Cossack army.  4,000 Jews were among the victims of famine in Vilna in 1709-1710.  

Until 1795, Telz was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom, when the 3rd division of Poland by the 3 superpowers of those times--Russia, Prussia and Austria---caused Lithuania to become partly Russian and partly Prussian.   Telz was in the Russian part.  

Finally, from the 18th century (1700s), I guess after the famine,  Vilna became a center of rabbinical study, the Jerusalem of Lithuania, mostly due to Rabbi Zalman, the Gaon of Vilna.

Chaim (Keith) Freedman has done the most work on Rabbi Elijah Ben Solomon Zalman (1720-1797), otherwise known to all as the Gaon of Vilna. He wrote a book about him called "Eliyahu's Branches-The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family."  Freedman  is a direct descendant of the Gaon of Vilna and is genealogist Chaim Freedman of Petah Tikva, who made aliyah from Australia in 1977. Freedman has been interested in Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman (revered as the Vilna Gaon – the Genius of Vilna) since he was a boy in his native Melbourne.  Chaim Freedman’s family originated in the Raseiniai district of Lithuania; of which Kaunas (Kovno) is a town there.

Chaim (Keith) Freedman was born in 1947 in Melbourne, Australia to parents of eastern European origins. He was educated at Mount Scopus College in Melbourne. In 1977, he immigrated with his wife to Israel, 3 years before me.   Chaim is a noted genealogist having lectured at numerous genealogical and historical conferences including The International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, Jerusalem 1984,1994 and 2004. He has published his research in Avotaynu, Sharsheret Hadorot, Search, RootsKey, the Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Society and Yated Ne'eman. Freedman edited "Jewish Personal Names: Their Origin, Derivation and Diminutive Forms" by the late Rabbi Shmuel Gorr, published in 1992 by Avotaynu. Freedman wrote several books about his immediate family, "Our Fathers' Harvest", a history of the Komisaruk and other families involved in Jewish agricultural colonization in the Ukraine, and "The Pen and the Blade", a history of the Super family. Chaim Freedmans major work is "Eliyahu's Branches.  

Freedman, an eighth-generation direct descendant of the Vilna Gaon, has spent decades researching genealogy and says that the number of known descendants of the Vilna Gaon and his siblings is in the range of 30,000. To coincide with the 200th anniversary of the death of the Vilna Gaon in 1997, Freedman published his laborious research in his 704-page book Eliyahu’s Branches: The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and his Family. The book was published by New Haven headquartered Avotaynu, a leading publisher of books, journals and newsletters geared to people researching Jewish genealogy, Jewish family trees and Jewish roots. There are some 20,000 names and numerous concise biographies in the book. Since publication, Freedman has compiled around 10,000 additional names.

Vilna, Lithuania has had its highlights.  From this date, of the 18th century, the city of Vilna, Lithuania became a center of rabbinical study, being dubbed the "Lithuanian Jerusalem".  Elijah Zalman was universally known as the Gaon of Vilna.  Many Haskalah leaders also lived there plus the Hebrew press belonging to the Romm family produced the Talmud that became standard.  Vilna was the birthplace of the Bund, a Socialist Polish, Lithuanian and Russian party, as well.  One thing to know; Rabbi Zalman led the opposition to the Hasidim in Lithuania.  He was adamant about it; ordering their excommunication and the destruction of their literature !  That wouldn't fly today, I'm sure as there are many Hasidim !  His obdurate attitude checked the spread of Hasidism in Lithuania, though.                                        

Rabbi Zalman wanted to go to Palestine.  The best path is to go from Lithuania to Rome and then get to Palestine by ship on the Mediterranean Sea.  

The Gaon of Vilna could have tried to stay on land and go to Turkey and from there to Palestine.  Turkey's borders on the European continent consist of a 212-kilometre frontier with Greece and a 269-kilometre border with Bulgaria. Turkey is generally divided into seven regions: the Black Sea region, the Marmara region, the Aegean, the Mediterranean, Central Anatolia, the East and Southeast Anatolia regions.  Turkey’s frontiers with Greece—206 kilometers—and Bulgaria—240 kilometers— were settled by the Treaty of Constantinople (1913) and later confirmed by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.We don't know how far the Gaon of Vilna had gotten.  The borders in 1780 were most likely very dangerous for a lone traveler.  

         ship Neptune in 1780 .  He may not have needed a ship.  

When he was 60 years old, Zalman  set out alone for Palestine, but returned before reaching there.  I could have told him so.  It would have been impossible then with more dangers than ever along the way.  

His followers were the Mitnaggedim (opponents of Hasidim)  who regarded him as their spiritual leader.  When the Russians entered Vilna in 1944, they found 600 Jews hiding in the sewers.  Jews from other areas began converging on Vilnus after the war.  By 1988 the Jewish population was 13,000.  

Chaim Freedman tells us that the Torah includes 477 genealogical records.  The Prophets and other books of the Bible include 2,756  genealogical records.  Chronicles is almost entirely concerned with genealogy.  He mentions Rabbi Meir Wunder at the Hebrew University National Library in Jerusalem who referred Freedman to people who had arrived at the library looking for information on the Gaon's family.                       

      from Roots web  Gaon's tree

He said, "Because the Gaon of Vilna was such a prominent figure in Jewish scholarship, descent from him was considered to be particularly worthy of honour....  Descent from the Gaon also carried with it a responsibility to live up to his standards of behaviour, particularly in religious matters.  

All the people with Lithuanian descent have probably claimed descent from the Gaon of Vilna, but DNA could clear up a lot of the questions.  My hope is that more and more do test, and that Freedman can keep that record as well.  As for me, I checked with FTDNA and find that I have DNA matches with 15 males and 10 females.  My brother also matches 13 men and 11 women with the name of Freedman.  Since Chaim Freedman is quite sure he's a descendant, he's a good marker to use.  One never knows if a woman is using her maiden name or married name.  Out of the men, I found one Freedman with the same haplogroup as my brother.  If ours is not the line, then we are related through other in-common surnames.  

Resource:

https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/telz/telz.html

Book: Eliyahui's Branches by Chaim Freedman

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2019/01/descendants-of-jewish-lithuanians-up-to.html

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/a-time-honored-tradition-419226

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ultra-orthodox-anti-zionist/

http://chfreedman.blogspot.com/search/label/Chaim%20Freedman%20great-great-great-grandparents

https://www.litvaksig.org/information-and-tools/online-journal/18th-century-links-to-the-family-of-the-vilna-gaon-and-the-komisaruk-family-of-raseiniai

The Center of Hasidism: Galicia, Sometimes in Ukraine, Sometimes Poland.

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

                                                1886: Jews and peasants of Galicia

                       Religiously, Galicia was: predominantly Christian. Catholicism was practiced in two rites. Poles were Roman Catholic, while Ukrainians belonged to the Greek Catholic Church. Judaism represented the third largest religious group, and notably, Galicia was the center of Hasidism. It brought happiness and joy into the Sabbath services.  It was uplifting and fun, yet was made up of the ultra orthodox people.  

Hasidism was started by the Rabbi, the Israel Baal Shem Tov (1699-1761) in places we haven't heard of, Yothynia and Podolia.  It was the outgrowth of the depressed state of Eastern European Jewry of the 18th century following the Chmielnicki massacres and Church

persecutions.  Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov or as the Besht, was a Jewish mystic and healer from Poland who is regarded as the founder of Hasidic Judaism. "Besht" is the acronym for Baal Shem Tov, which means "One with the Good Name" or "one with a good reputation".

Their antagonists, my Lithuanian ancestors, perhaps, were the Mitnaggedim, led by the Gaon of Vilna who regarded their teachings as heretical and reminding them of the reasoning by which Shabbetai Tzevi justified his apostacy.                             

This opposition was intensified after Shneour Zalman of Lyady who died in 1813, became leader of the hasidim.  

He founded the Chabad, a current, philosophical and rationalizing movement within Hasidism, which attracted the scholars of White Russia and Lithuania.  

In 1772, Galicia, which had 225,000 Jews (9.6% of the population), was annexed to Austria.  

In 1773, Galicia had about 2.6 million inhabitants in 280 cities and market towns and approximately 5,500 villages. There were nearly 19,000 noble families, with 95,000 members (about 3% of the population). The serfs accounted for 1.86 million, more than 70% of the population. A small number were full-time farmers, but by far the overwhelming number (84%) had only smallholdings or no possessions.

Galicia had arguably the most ethnically diverse population of all the countries in the Austrian monarchy, consisting mainly of Poles and "Ruthenians"; the peoples known later as Ukrainians and Rusyns, as well as ethnic Jews, Germans, Armenians, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Roma and others. 

In Galicia as a whole, the population in 1910 was estimated to be 45.4% Polish, 42.9% Ruthenian, 10.9% Jewish, and 0.8% German. This population was not evenly distributed. The Poles lived mainly in the west, with the Ruthenians predominant in the eastern region ("Ruthenia"). At the turn of the twentieth century, Poles constituted 88% of the whole population of Western Galicia and Jews 7.5%. The respective data for Eastern Galicia show the following numbers: Ruthenians 64.5%, Poles 22.0%, Jews 12%. Of the 44 administrative divisions of Austrian eastern Galicia, Lviv (Polish: Lwów, German: Lemberg) was the only one in which Poles made up a majority of the population. Anthropologist Marianna Dushar has argued that this diversity led to a development of a distinctive food culture in the region.                         

Linguistically, the Polish language was almost equally used with Ruthenian in Galicia. According to the 1910 census 58.6% of the combined population of both western and eastern Galicia spoke Polish as its mother tongue compared to 40.2% who spoke a Ruthenian language. The number of Polish-speakers may have been inflated because Jews were not given the option of listing Yiddish as their language.

The Jews of Galicia had immigrated in the Middle Ages from Germany. German-speaking people were more commonly referred to by the region of Germany where they originated (such as Saxony or Swabia).

For inhabitants who spoke different native languages, e.g. Poles and Ruthenians, identification was less problematic, but widespread multilingualism blurred the ethnic divisions again.

In 1772 with the partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the south-eastern part of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was awarded to the Habsburg Empress Maria-Theresa, whose bureaucrats named it the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, after one of the titles of the princes of Hungary, although its borders coincided but roughly with those of the former medieval principality. Known informally as Galicia, it became the largest, most populous, and northernmost province of the Austrian Empire, while after 1867 part of the Austrian half of Austria-Hungary, until the dissolution of the monarchy at the end of World War I in 1918, when it ceased to exist as a geographic entity.

In 1782 to 1789, Joseph II introduced legislation aimed at the forced assimilation of the Jews S(sabolition of communal autonomy and the validity of rabbinical courts, liability to military servie, compulsory education in government schools, tax on kosher meats, etc.  )  

In suceeding years, the Austrian government tried to integrate the Jews by turning them to agriculture and ending their isolation.  The policy failed owing to the Jewish masses' loyalty to tradition.  This period was marked aby a flourishing of rabbinic scholarship and by a severe struggle between the Hasidim and the Mitnaggedim ending with the victory of the former and the consolidation of Galicia as a Hasidic citadel.

In the mid 1800's, a conflict developed between Hasidism and Haskalah.  from 1849, the Jews of Galicia began to receive equality of political rights and these were embodied in the Austrian constitution of 1867.  Galicia was an important center of non-Hebrew literature during the 19th and 20th centuries.  Many scholars worked there and many Hebrew periodicals were published in Galicia. The problem was Maskilim displayed which pronounced tendencies to assimilation, first in German, later to Polish and the culture.  The Jewish national movement in the late 19th century appealed to the Jews of Galicia, which was the birthplace of Hibbat Zion.  A Jewish workers movement started in Galicia.  At the same time, the Poles and Ukrainians began to push the Jews out of the economic sphere and their general plight always depressed, and deteriorated.  this led to extensive emigration, especially to the USA.  

In WWI, many Jews fled from Galicia to Hungary, Austria and Bohemia.  Galicia was again part of Poland from 1918 on.

Siege of Przemyśl in 1915

During the First World War, Galicia saw heavy fighting between the forces of Russia and the Central Powers. The Russian forces overran most of the region in 1914 after defeating the Austro-Hungarian army in a chaotic frontier battle in the opening months of the war. They were in turn pushed out in the spring and summer of 1915 by a combined German and Austro-Hungarian offensive.

In 1918, Western Galicia became a part of the restored Republic of Poland, which absorbed the Lemko-Rusyn Republic. The local Ukrainian population briefly declared the independence of Eastern Galicia as the "West Ukrainian People's Republic". During the Polish-Soviet War the Soviets tried to establish the puppet-state of the Galician SSR in East Galicia, the government of which after a couple of months was liquidated.

The fate of Galicia was settled by the Peace of Riga on 18 March 1921, attributing Galicia to the Second Polish Republic. Although never accepted as legitimate by some Ukrainians, it was internationally recognized on 15 May 1923.

The Ukrainians of the former eastern Galicia and the neighbouring province of Volhynia made up about 12% of the Second Polish Republic population, and were its largest minority. As Polish government policies were unfriendly towards minorities, tensions between the Polish government and the Ukrainian population grew, eventually giving rise to the militant underground Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

             Hasid and IDF taking a break to smell the roses.both speaking Hebrew and Hasid also speaking Yiddish.in Israel.....

As for Hasidism, it is still widespread.  Its teachings have become widely known in the occidental world, mainly through the works of Martin Buber, both through his retelling of Hasidic anecdotes and through his philosophy which has been termed "neo-Hasidic."

Martin Buber, Martin Buber (Hebrew: מרטין בובר;  February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism centered on the distinction between the I–Thou relationship and the I–It relationship. Born in Vienna, Buber came from a family of observant Jews, but broke with Jewish custom to pursue secular studies in philosophy.  

Martin (Hebrew name: מָרְדֳּכַי, Mordechai) Buber was born in Vienna to an Orthodox Jewish family. Buber was a direct descendant of the 16th-century rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen, known as the Maharam (מהר"ם), the Hebrew acronym for “Our Teacher, the Rabbi, Rabbi Meir”, of Padua. Karl Marx is another notable relative. After the divorce of his parents when he was three years old, he was raised by his grandfather in Lvov. His grandfather, Solomon Buber, was a scholar of Midrash and Rabbinic Literature. At home, Buber spoke Yiddish and German. In 1892, Buber returned to his father's house in Lemberg, today's Lviv, Ukraine.

This same area was fought over just as it is today with Russia attacking Ukraine.  Lviv, Ukraine keeps popping up. Russia hasn't given up wanting this land.  You'd think they'd get the message.  It's for the Ukrainians, the old land of Galicia. it's right in Central Europe and north of the Carpathian Mountains.    

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galicia_(Eastern_Europe)

Possible Messiahs To Appear 2021

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                        

Aaron, brother of Moses
b:abt 1400 BCE

Our Messiah has to have the resume that fits all the requirements for one.  The first thing is to be a Cohen; descendant of Aaron, brother of Moses who was the priest.  From Aaron come men with J1 (Y haplotype), and most possibly a J-M267.  A J1 also includes many Muslims as well, not surprisingly, for Abram himself was the father of Ishmael who is traditionally father of the Arab people.  Our Messiah may or may not carry the surname of Cohen, however.  One needs a special DNA test.  For example, one of my family members has a different surname, but knew from his father that they were Cohens.  They served in the synagogue as Cohens, and late in life after taking a DNA test, found out that he was indeed a Cohen as the test proved.  
                                                      

Benjamin Netanyahu in 1967, at age 18

Benjamin Netanyahu was born in Tel Aviv 21st of October 1949-raised in Jerusalem and Philadelphia area

His mother was  Tzila (Cilia) Segal (1912–2000) who had been born in Petah Tikva in the Ottoman Empire's Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, and a Warsaw-born father, Prof. Benzion Netanyahu (1910–2012).  He discovered via a DNA test that he is, in part, of Sephardi Jewish ancestry. "We are from a Lithuanian family who were descendants of the Vilna Gaon, and have Spanish roots." He was initially raised and educated in Jerusalem. He had changed his surname from Mileikowsky. His father was a rabbi. So Netanyahu is the

grandson of a rabbi and has both Sephardi and Ashkenazi genes, plus is

related to the very famous Gaon of Vilna.  It was his brother, Ido, who took

the test.  They've known their heritage since about 2016. 

Rabbi Nathan Milikovsky Netanyahu

Update: Rabbi Nathan Milikovsky (1879-1935) a noted activist in Khovevei Tzion, the pre-political Zionist movement, was the paternal grandfather of Benyamin Netanyahu.  Nathan was born in the small Lithuanian village of Krevo to Tzvi Milikovsky, who claimed descent from the Gaon of Vilna, as in recorded by Tidhar: 186.  Benyamin's father has discussed this with author Chaim Freedman recalling  hearing his father state this and was a descendant.  Tzvi and his wife settled in Eretz Yisrael, but their tombstone inscriptions in Jerusalem did not assist in proving this with the Hebrew inscription.  

                                                                     

PM Benyamin Netanyahu in 2018, at 69

Another requirement is to be a leader who has done many things for his people.  Netanyahu comes to my mind first.  Benjamin Netanyahu is an Israeli politician serving as Prime Minister of Israel since 2009, and previously from 1996 to 1999. Netanyahu is also the Chairman of the Likud – National Liberal Movement.  He is the best speaker I have ever heard with the right tone, beat, quality of voice, vocabulary, timing, and has the most pertinent things to say on a subject.  He speaks English with a vocabulary better than most Americans as well as Hebrew fluently. 
                                                        

 He's been Prime Minister of Israel since 31st March, 2009 and is the first Sabra to become a Prime Minister.   Since December 2016, Netanyahu has been under investigation for corruption by Israeli police and prosecutors. On 21 November 2019, he was indicted on charges of breach of trust, bribery and fraud. Due to the indictment, Netanyahu is legally required to relinquish all of his ministry posts other than the prime minister position. He must spend time in the courtroom as well as at the Knesset while fighting COVID 19 which has hit so hard in Israel.  Rioters are outside his home demonstrating about all this.  "The Black Flags, one of the three main groups demonstrating against Netanyahu, signed a permit which would allow protesters to march through the city center at 10:00 p.m." This is not an easy time for him, nor has he ever been in an easy position.  
                                             

Netanyahu and Obama

 Netanyahu saw in Obama's 1st term as president in 2009 problems as the US president called for "daylight" between the USA and Israel and he pledged to isolate Israel diplomatically. This continues with the Democrats and Biden, as Biden has said he will undo everything that Trump has done for Israel.  Fact check shows Obama replying in 2009: " "Look at the past eight years," Obama said, according to the Post. "During those eight years, there was no space between us and Israel, and what did we get from that? When there is no daylight, Israel just sits on the sidelines, and that erodes our credibility with the Arab states."  Obama seemingly didn't change.  On his last day in office he would not aid Israel by voting for her in the UN.

Netanyahu realized Israel could not depend on the USA only so set about to strengthen relationships all over the world which he did with China, India, Japan, and Russia who is so important being they are in Syria and are supporting Iranians who want to destroy Israel.  He has been working with the anti-Semitic eastern European countries, South America, Africa and Asia, along with the Arab world.                                                         

Gaon of Vilna

Netanyahu is possibly on my genealogy tree, which is his mother's maiden name.   I have a Segal from Minnesota where she lived.  This is not surprising as we are an endogamous people, and I find I am related to many who also share my interest in our family history and have tested.  
                                                      

Bibi's Philadelphia, Pennsylvania high school picture.
After graduating from high school in 1967, Netanyahu returned to Israel to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces. He trained as a combat soldier and served for five years in an elite special forces unit of the IDF, Sayeret Matkal. He took part in numerous cross-border assault raids during the 1967–70 War of Attrition, rising to become a team-leader in the unit. He was wounded in combat on multiple occasions. He was involved in many other missions, including the 1968 Israeli raid on Lebanon and the rescue of the hijacked Sabena Flight 571 in May 1972, in which he was shot in the shoulder.

I'm connected through Segal who married a Goldfus, my grandfather's surname in Lithuania.  Benyamin Netanyahu is related from his father's side to the Gaon of Vilna (Elijah ben Solomon Zalman 1720-1797), a very famous Lithuanian rabbi, leader of the Mitnaggedim which were not followers of the new Hasidim Movement.  Such families usually marry into other rabbinical families, and many of them happen to be Cohens.  

Netanyahu has done so much for Israel, but now is facing political factions that are younger and not as captured by his aura as I am, so he is being sued for having accepted favors, etc, a terrible position to be in when thought of as a Messiah.  However, I think the scale of justice would find him quite acceptable.  
                                                                           

Aaron Cohen b: February 28, 1976

Even Special Forces take time for evening prayers
if so inclined

Cohen is a common Jewish surname as there are many descendants of Aaron, first Cohen.  There is an Aaron Cohen who was born  to a Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec. His parents divorced when he was young and the family moved to Miami, where his mother believed she could advance her career as a screenwriter and producer.    She remarried to film producer Abby Mann, moving with Aaron and his sister to Beverly Hills.  Although raised in a non-religious household, he decided to study for his Bar Mitzvah and obtaining his mother's permission, moved to live with his father in Montreal for a year. He then spent the next several years shuttling between California, Canada, and Florida.  For secondary school he attended the Robert Land Academy, a military academy in Canada, and graduated Beverly Hills High School in 1995.


After high school, Cohen left Los Angeles for Israel, working on a kibbutz before enlisting in the Israel Defense Forces. After passing the consolidation, a demanding screening process for elite unit candidates, Cohen was one of the few non-Sabra volunteers accepted. (A Sabra is a person born in Israel)  In the mid-1990s, he became a member of the undercover Duvdevan Unit (Hebrew: דובדבן‎; lit. cherry) of the IDF Commando Brigade, performing counter-terror operations targeting suspects among the Palestinian Arab population in the West Bank.  Aaron Cohen also worked for the Mossad in their covert black operations during his time serving in the Israeli Special Forces.  He has stated his belief in Zionism and has said his family has a strong Jewish identity.

Today he is an Israeli-American writer, director, actor, author and former Duvdevan Special Forces soldier specializing in counter-terrorism and best known for his international bestselling memoir Brotherhood of Warriors.

This is an example of who I think could be considered as Moshiah. There are 14 
million Jews and many are Cohens, one of the prerequisites, the other, the Temple
being built that has not happened.    

Resource:
Elihahu's Branches, The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and his family 
by Chaim Freedman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Cohen_(counterterrorist)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Netanyahu
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.jns.org/opinion/netanyahus-accomplishments-will-stand-for-decades/