They grew up in an ultra-Orthodox home and studied in a yeshiva. When they reached the age of 18, they were summoned to a recruitment office, where they were supposed to receive an exemption from service. However, Captain D and Lieutenant D chose differently and now serve in intelligence.
"We grew up in a home on an ethos of nation and contribution. Daniel Levine was a relative of ours. An officer in the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit and a high-tech entrepreneur who was murdered in the Twin Towers attack while trying to control the hijackers on the plane. This caused our father to engage in fighting terrorism," says Capt. D'.
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His younger brother, Lieutenant D., also finds quite a few parallels between military service and Torah study. "We're trying to understand how the enemy thinks, we have to take a series of findings and find an orderly logic. You try to understand what happened in reality. In the Talmud you try to understand the logic of halacha."
Their parents immigrated from the United States and Canada and grew up in a religious moshav in the Modi'in area. Their father helped them choose the intelligence unit in which they serve today. Although Capt. D. is responsible for the field of response, which examines how the enemy will respond to IDF operations, and his brother is in charge of the operational field, both focus on the northern sector and Hezbollah.
"Personally, I dreamed of Nasrallah more than once, not twice. In the end, this is my full responsibility in the section. I deal with it obsessively. My ambition is to give decision makers the best opportunity to make the right decisions. We know Nasrallah and the organization much better than he thinks."
His brother immediately interjects: "Some might say he lives Hezbollah excessively. He thinks that there is real value in this, and a closeness is created between the researcher and his object of research. I'm sure that if we had asked Nasrallah, he would have said that he would be happy to sit down for coffee with a senior Israeli official without anyone knowing."
In-depth acquaintance with Nasrallah, photo: AFP
Capt. D. adds: "The fact that we come from a religious background helps us because this organization (Hezbollah) is very religious. In some ways you understand the concepts he's talking about."
Talking to the ISA
During periods of tension with Hezbollah, Captain D. clarifies that they were able to point out in the column early on that Nasrallah was stretching the rope and walking on the brink: "This trend is coming true. He knows what war is and still doesn't want it. But when you stretch the rope, it can always tear."
At the Shabbat table, the two discuss security issues and debate between the sacred and the profane, in cases and responses of Israel's enemies. Lieutenant D tries to convince his brother what can be done, with Captain D explaining what the other side's reactions will be. "You could say that ideas and actions are born at the Shabbat table," they say.
In light of the operational necessity, the two carry phones during Shabbat. "I already got out in the middle of a prayer to go out and talk on the phone," says Capt. D'. "I'm sure anyone who calls me knows it's a mental health inspection, but it happened that neighbors see and it's not something you're used to seeing and hearing in the neighborhood on Shabbat."
As part of their activities, the two work with security organizations and the most elite units. "I speak with the Shin Bet, the Mossad, Sayeret Matkal and more," says Lieutenant D'.
Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon (archive), photo: AFP
"Understand that you don't bite"
The officers' course at Bahad 1 introduced them to cadets from all walks of life. Captain D. recounts an experience he had in Bahad 1: "One of the cadets told me that before he met me he hated ultra-Orthodox. Until you recognize and understand that you don't bite. But I didn't encounter any hostility.
"It also happened to me in Tel Aviv that someone threw my kippah and told me I didn't need it. There are crazy people on every side," he says.
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