Ben Shapiro to be honored at Independence Day event alongside ex-hostage, IDF officers
Choice of right-wing American pundit met with backlash from LGBT rights group; also tapped are freed hostage Emily Damari and Olympic medalist and bereaved father Oren Smadga
Israel on Sunday announced the selection of five of the 36 torchbearers for the official state Independence Day ceremony, which will take place next Thursday at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem.
Among those selected were a former hostage, bereaved family members, military officers, and the controversial American Jewish right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro.
They were selected by a committee with the approval of Transportation Minister Miri Regev, who was tapped to lead the planning of the ceremony for the second year in a row. There will be a total of 36 torch lighters at the ceremony, with more names to be revealed in the coming days.
While the selection of the former hostages, family of fallen soldiers, and military officers to participate in the ceremony was expected, the selection of Shapiro was not, and was met with some backlash within Israel.
Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew, founder of The Daily Wire and host of the popular radio show and podcast, “The Ben Shapiro Show,” has been an outspoken supporter of Israel for years, but his deeply conservative political views — especially his position on abortion rights and his views on homosexuality — have made him a controversial figure.
He has repeatedly referred to homosexuality and transgender identity as mental illness and a sin, opposes same-sex couples raising children, and has said he is “very much anti gay-marriage in the social sense.”
Shapiro is also ardently anti-abortion, supporting a ban on the practice even in cases of rape or incest, with the only exception being if a “competent medical authority” deems the mother’s life at risk due to the pregnancy.
He has also repeatedly called women who receive abortions “baby killers.”
Shapiro’s selection to participate in the ceremony was immediately met with protest from the Israel Gay Youth Organization, known in English by the acronym IGY, which said it was “illogical” that “a person who called us mentally ill will receive a national honor.”
“Every gay boy and girl will again be given the message that this is exactly what their government thinks of them,” IGY stated.
The group called on Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, who is gay, as well as Regev “to reverse this shameful decision.”
Also among those tapped to bear torches in the Independence Day ceremony were freed hostage Emily Damari and Olympic medalist and bereaved father Oren Smadga.
Damari was kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7, 2023, during the Hamas-led attack, and returned as part of a ceasefire deal earlier this year.
She lost two fingers from a gunshot wound she sustained that day, and, after she was freed, the image of her holding up her wounded hand quickly became a symbol of Israeli defiance and resilience.
Smadga won a bronze medal in judo at the 1992 Summer Olympics for Israel and currently serves as head coach of the men’s national judo team. His son Omer was killed in fighting in Gaza last year.
Sgt. First Class (res.) Omer Smadga, 25, was killed in June 2024 in a Hamas mortar attack in the central Gaza Strip. A month later, his father coached judoka Peter Paltchik to a bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Paris.
The final two torchbearers named on Sunday were two IDF officers — Lt. Col. Fayez Fares and Lt. Col. (res.) Hagit Alon Elharar.
They were selected by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, after the recommendation of the selection panel and following the approval of Transportation Minister Regev.
Fares, from the Druze town of Hurfeish, most recently served as the commander of the Kfir Brigade’s training base. He is soon set to take over as the commander of the Ephraim Regional Brigade.
On the morning of October 7, 2023, Fares arrived with his troops independently at Kibbutz Re’im, where they fought against dozens of terrorists and rescued civilians.
Alon Elharar, a mother of three from Ramot Naftali, is a senior logistics officer in the Northern Command. She was evacuated from her home in the north during Hezbollah’s attacks at the start of the war, and has been serving in the reserves since October 7, 2023.
Her son Sgt. Amitay Alon, 19, was killed in a Hezbollah drone attack on the Golani Brigade’s training base on October 13, 2024.
Despite the death of her son and still being displaced from her home, Alon Elharar has continued to serve in the reserves, the army said.
Last year’s Independence Day ceremony was a subdued affair, given that it was the first since the October 7 attack, during which Hamas terrorists breached the high-security border to invade southern Israel, where they killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, starting the Gaza war.
The somber ceremony was prerecorded and aired on television, a stark contrast to normal years, when crowds of hundreds of flag-waving Israelis would attend the celebration on Mount Herzl, with exuberant dancing, presentations and fireworks.
The ceremony was held amid significant protest from those who felt the government should not be putting on a show at all, seven months after the largest single-day slaughter of Israelis in the country’s history unfolded on its watch.
Among the most vocal voices against holding the traditional ceremony were some of the relatives of the hostages and the families who lost loved ones or were uprooted from their homes as a result of the fighting in Gaza and on the Lebanon border.
While this year’s ceremony will be more like previous years, as it will be held in front of an audience and broadcast live, the Israeli Air Force announced it will not hold its annual Independence Day flyover for the second consecutive year, due to the military’s focus on the war in the Gaza Strip.
The Times of Israel Community.