In the summer of 2005, thousands of religious Zionist youth took to the streets of Israel to protest against the disengagement—the evacuation of more than 9,000 Israeli residents from the Gaza Strip. The media often called them “orange youth.” One of Israel’s most up-and-coming actors today, Yadin Gellman, counts himself among them.
While he did not protest inside Gaza, he and his friends, all around bar-mitzvah age, donned orange rubber bracelets—the color of the Gush Katif municipal flag—representing the movement against the pullout from the 17 communities in the Gush Katif bloc in southern Gaza, four additional towns in the Strip’s north and two villages in northern Samaria.
Gellman did go back into Gaza years later—as an IDF soldier during “Operation Protective Edge” in 2014.
“When you suddenly see the beach and you see the nicest, what could be the most beautiful part of Israel, and you see what it turned into with all the tunnels and the ammunition warehouses in Gaza, that’s when you think: They missed the point,” Gellman told JNS in an interview at a trendy café in Tel Aviv on Dec. 17.
Eighteen years later, many Israelis believe that those “orange youth” have been vindicated.
Gellman’s path is unusual for a celebrated Israeli actor. Born and raised in a religious-Zionist family, to an American father and Canadian mother, in the modern Orthodox hub of Baka in Jerusalem, he attended an IDF-preparatory high school in Efrat in Gush Etzion that produces a high proportion of elite army fighters.
He’d get to school hitchhiking to and from Efrat, sometimes waiting at the stop where Hamas terrorists later kidnapped teenagers Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaer and Naftali Fraenkel in June 2014. One of his first missions as a freshly trained 20-year-old recruit was to search for the boys throughout Judea and Samaria.
“I grew up as a religious boy believing that this is our country and this is our land, and I still believe it today,” Gellman said.
During his army service, he started to question his Orthodox faith and developed the ambition to become an actor. Today, he considers himself secular but remains an avid Zionist who observes the mainstays of traditional observance, such as Shabbat kiddush and donning tefillin.
On the weekend of Oct. 7, 2023, Gellman took to the Negev Desert with friends to celebrate his 30th birthday and other happy milestones. He had just gotten engaged to Israeli broadcast journalist Adva Dadon, and his acting career was taking off.
In 2021, he landed his first role right out of acting school in Tel Aviv, playing a soldier defending southern kibbutzim during Israel’s War of Independence in “Image of Victory.”
Kibbutz Be’eri
On the morning of Oct. 7, fiction became reality. Following the Hamas terrorist onslaught, Gellman was called up as a reserve officer of the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (Sayeret Matkal) to fight in the kibbutzim facing the Gaza Strip.
As he geared up at the doorstep of a home in Kibbutz Be’eri to rescue residents trapped inside, a terrorist shot him at point-blank range three times, in the arm, shoulder and chest, while his right-hand man, David Meir, was mortally wounded.
Following protocol, Gellman took cover. He and Meir were trapped for hours in a crevice under the house. The future he might not have with his fiancée flashed through his mind.
“I needed a reason not to die. And thinking of her and having that in my head gave me always something bigger than myself to fight for, to stay alive.”
Until that point, Gellman wasn’t sure he wanted to have children of his own. Dadon has a daughter from a previous marriage. Thinking that his 30th birthday could be his last, he realized: “If we didn’t have kids, there would be nothing left of us.”
Towards nightfall, the IDF evacuated the two wounded men. Meir didn’t make it, leaving behind a wife and baby. Gellman credits his survival to Dadon being right there by his side, tenaciously making sure he got the best care.
Once his condition stabilized, Gellman watched her on TV from his bed, reporting from the sites of his battles. Their love story, as told through traditional and social media, captured the nation.
Once on the path to recovery, Gellman said to himself: “If I don’t fix the mistake that I thought I made, then what am I doing?”
About 10 months later, on Tu B’Av—Judaism’s holiday of love—Dadon gave birth to their son.
Gellman said that fulfilling his “dying wish” of becoming a father and becoming an independent spokesperson for Israel has prevented the onset of PTSD, a condition that’s emerging as a stark challenge for the State of Israel post-Oct. 7.
“When I go to schools and speak about it, I tell them if you’re in a situation that could become PTSD, the best thing to do is find the people around you with whom you can share your story and just start talking about it,” he said.
Already in the hospital, he gave interviews to major media outlets. Once able to travel, he embarked on speaking tours in the United States as a guest of Chabad.
On campuses, including at New York University, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard, pro-Hamas agitators trailed him. He believes he made a difference among students sincerely interested in learning the truth.
His message for the Jewish people is unity.
“People are divided,” Gellman said. “I need everybody to get back together and realize that we’re all one nation. And if we forget that, somebody else is going to remind us of that, as we saw on Oct. 7. Doesn’t matter if you’re left-wing, right-wing, Ashkenazi, Moroccan, whatever.”
His son’s name, Yonatan Lavi, embodies what he hopes will be a legacy: “Yonatan,” after Lt. Col. Yoni Netanyahu, the hero of the 1976 Entebbe rescue mission of hijacked plane hostages; and Lavi, Hebrew for “lion,” inspired by the biblical description of a rampant lion.
“We need our people to rise up, and that was the right name for this time,” Gellman said.
Gellman’s latest film, “Arugam Bay,” will be screened at the Miami Jewish Film Festival on Jan. 15.