Nadene Goldfoot
Our Cousin, Brigadier General Dan Goldfuss
Sharing with our family and friends about how brave Dan Goldfus was to speak his mind to his peers about October 7, 2023. I'm so proud of him, and feel he is my icon to follow. Thank you, my cousin. Hope the writers of this article that I found will understand. He's a part of our family !
Maj.-Gen. Dan Goldfus: The IDF's hero of Khan Yunis and destroyer of Hamas's tunnels
IDF Maj.-Gen. Dan Goldfus considers that his breakthrough in overcoming Hamas’s tunnel warfare is not about a single moment in which he had an epiphany but the result of hard, exhaustive work.
Dan Goldfuss (Hebrew: דן גולדפוס; born December 28, 1976) 50 yrs old, is an Israeli major general serving as the commander of the IDF Northern Corps and the Multi-Domain Joint Maneuver Array.
He previously served as Commander of Gadsar Nahal, Shayetet 13, 931st Onyx Battalion, Nahal Brigade, and The Fire Formation.
Biography
Goldfuss was born and raised in Jerusalem. His parents were South African Jewish immigrants to Israel. He grew up religious but became more secular later in life. He enlisted in the IDF in March 1995, and volunteered for Shayetet 13. He completed the warrior course training in the Shayetet, and took part in the fighting in southern Lebanon, among other things he was part of the rescue force in the Ansariya ambush.
He is on our family tree, being a Goldfus/fuss. I found his position. We started off to my knowledge as Goldfus. Then his line used Goldfuss-probably depending on where they were living. Our line anglicized our surname into Goldfoot when in England.
Based on the context provided in Daniel Gordis’s Israel from the Inside substack from March 15, 2024, the "Goldfus issue" refers to Brigadier General Dan Goldfus, who broke IDF protocol by criticizing the political leadership during a live statement, demanding they be "worthy" of the soldiers fighting in Gaza
FRIDAY (3/15): We had planned to post about Anita Shapira’s take on Ben-Gurion in times of crisis, but the Goldfus issue is more urgent. We’ll get back to Professor Shapira.
We bow our heads over our resounding failure on October 7(2023), but at the same time we push forward, carry out operations at the highest level of quality, protect our values, and attain many achievements on the battlefield.
Even that opening to Goldfus’ comments, which were apparently not approved in advance by the IDF, was controversial. For in taking full responsibility for the abysmal failures of October 7, he intentionally and wordlessly moved the spotlight to Netanyahu, who has refused to do so.
But if the opening was subtle, what followed was not. Speaking to the government, Goldfus said:
But you, you need need to be worthy of us. You need to be worthy of the soldiers who lost their lives. You need to be worthy of the reservists who don’t care what [political] side they are on, and fought and fight alongside each other.
In a clear smack at the extremists, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, to whom Bibi is now beholden because he let them into the chicken coop as he constructed his coalition in December 2022, Goldfus said:
From my heart, I ask of you to be together, united, push away the extreme, and adopt the togetherness. Find what unites. We on the battlefield found it, and we will not give up on it.
“Make it worth [it],” Goldfus added in English, noted the Times of Israel.
That’s what we hear every week, every time we bury yet another soldier. Another young soul, often a husband or a father, and certainly a son, likely a sibling. We hear, “We need to be worthy of these sacrifices.”
We say it week in, week out. Even as we know we’re doing nothing of the sort.
Writing on his website, The Madad, Shmuel Rosner captured the mixed feelings of many thoughtful Israelis. In ordinary times, what Goldfus did might well have gotten him fired. But these are not ordinary times, and if there was ever a moment when Israelis need people who will speak truth to power, it is now.
So Goldfus may well get a pass.
Here’s part of what Rosner had to say.
Brigadier General Dan Goldfus should be fired, but not in our world
When a Brigadier General in the IDF turns to the political leadership and says the sentence “You must be worthy of us,” we need to read between the lines. When he calls on them to be worthy, he’s intimating that he thinks they are not worthy.
And of course, he is right: the Israeli political system, with very few exceptions, has not been able to meet a simple task. Get together, get serious, to show calm, show maturity. The warriors bravely stood up, the commanders stood at the head, the generals took responsibility and moved to live on the battlefields. The politicians—at least many of them—continued with politics as normal. … Ben-Gvir makes a play, Dichter flexes a muscle, Sa’ar calls a dramatic press conference. Well, really, that’s what the soldiers were waiting for on the battlefield: for Sa’ar to split from Gantz. Another political show …
The Brigadier General is right. And so is the Chief of Staff who intends to call him in for “clarification”. Because a lieutenant colonel should not tell the political leadership that it is not worthy. And if he said that, he shouldn’t continue to wear a uniform. But Dan Goldfus will probably continue to wear a uniform. The political system cowered at his feet yesterday … Interior Minister Moshe Arbel: “I embrace and embrace every word.” Every word? He just told you that you are not worthy.
Finance Minister Smotrich: “This is not the time for clarifications” [DG - of the sort Halevi was going to call Goldfus in to hear]. Nir Barkat: “His words are accurate.” Is that so, Mr. Barkat? Did you do anything at all to make his words even a bit less accurate?
There is an irony here that one cannot help but note: Israel has no options but to fix failure with other failures. … In a reformed world, the politicians would behave differently. In a reformed world, Goldfus would not have dared to express himself like that. In a reformed world, if he had expressed himself like that, he would have been asked to take off his uniform the next day. But we live in a broken world. It is impossible to punish the outstanding officer, when the failure of his conduct is dwarfed by the failure of which he warned. …
Listen to what he said: “I ask you to be united together, to push the extremism and embrace togetherness.” Now think: who does he mean when he says “extremism”, who is he talking about? Let’s try a guessing game: do you think he means Eisenkot? Moshe Arbel? Yoav Gallant? … Or maybe other politicians, whose names we will not name, because we all know who they are.
And what did Goldfus mean when he said, ”make sure everyone takes part”. Here, this is a question for Finance Minister Smotrich, who is doing everything [DG - by continuing to finance the Haredim] so that not everyone takes part. And this is a question for Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is busy these days concocting a political stew, the goal of which is to save the coalition and reject any move that the ultra-orthodox leadership opposes—that is, to torpedo any move that could trigger a process in the end of which “everyone will have a share” [DG - having the Haredim serve in the army].…
It seems that nothing worked properly in the IDF on October 7th (2023), yet the public trusts the IDF. Why? Because of the patience, modesty, and determination evident on the faces of the commanders. Because they are not busy with PR antics, saving themselves from impeachment or criticism, with assessments by cynics for the investigative committees, or assessments by arch-cynics to prevent the investigative committees.
That’s precisely the problem. And to return to the image we have already used: in a reformed world Goldfus the citizen would be appointed leader, and Goldfus the officer would be asked to resign. In our world one can only dream of Goldfus the leader, and all that remains is to keep Goldfus the officer.
Let them continue to flatter him, the hypocrites and the schemers.
Resource:
https://goldfoot_genealogy.blogspot.com/2026/01/our-cousin-brigadier-general-dan.html
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7896552/6804044900558192509
