Bnei Akiva
Bnei AkivaYonatan Sindel/Flash90

About a decade ago, the Israel Security Agency (ISA) planted an undercover agent in the religious Bnei Akiva youth movement, intending to incite the movement's members to take action against illegal aliens. This was the claim made by Yoel Frankenburg, who served as the movement's Gush Dan regional coordinator.

Frankenburg describes the story in detail in a Facebook post: "At the time there were a lot of incidents involving the refugees in southern Tel Aviv. The country was in turmoil, the right saw the subject as their main issue, and we, as activists in the area, were worried," he recalls.

"At one point I noticed that with all of the initiatives in the area, there wasn't one consolidated effort. I decided to discuss this with all of the movement's activists who are relevant to the matter. We gathered a group of National Service members, representatives of the movement's families that live in the area, representatives of the National Service girls, and other activists, in my office. At one point before the meeting, one of the branch leaders turned to me and asked that some kid, whose name escapes me, join the meeting," he relates.

"This guy, we'll call him X, it was a name that I'd heard before," Frankenburg points out, "In recent months he had visited the different branches and gave motivational speeches about joining the fight for the residents of southern Tel Aviv and against the illegal aliens. I told the branch leader that he can join the meeting. If he's a member, connected to the branches, why not? We gathered in my office. The discussion was a classic Bnei Akiva discussion. Some said that they are organizing a communal Friday night prayer, and others said that they go from door to door giving out flowers. We debated what type of outreach work to do."

Once the ISA agent saw that the movement was only discussing positive work, he actively tried to incite the activists to take aggressive action against the aliens.

"During the positive discussion, X, who sat to my left, tried to convince us that we can't just do positive work and not to be so 'Bnei Akiva,'" writes Frankenbug. "I won't forget the moment when he raised his voice and said, 'What's wrong with you? Nothing will happen if you are this nice! More and more Shabbat (Sabbath) prayers won't solve our problems.' It was clear that he opposed all of the kindness in the room and was trying to get us to be much more aggressive in our work."

Frankenburg recalls: "At one point I did something rare, I silenced him and said, 'Listen up! I'm in charge here, and I decided that we are only doing positive work. If it's not ok with you, you're invited to leave.' He didn't go. But he was quiet. After the meeting, a youngster who I liked and who was doing National Service in the area at the time, asked to speak with me for a few minutes. I was already ready to go home, and while I was getting my stuff together to leave, he tells me that X made a bad impression on him. There was something about him that bothered him. I laughed. 'Nonsense,' I said, he's a bit weird, but he'll calm down.'"

"But when I got home I was disturbed. Something bothered me. I decided to look for him on Facebook. I found a profile with a profile picture and nothing else. What was more interesting was the fact that the profile was only opened three months ago, I searched the internet but there were no results. Very suspicious."

At this point, Frankenburg wanted to check the young man's background and contacted the movement's Secretary General Dani Hershberg, who checked with his friends in the ISA about the young man.

"I called my boss," he writes. "I told him the story. He listened. Was quiet for a moment and said, 'Let me look into it.' About an hour later he calls me back: 'I spoke to a friend in the agency, X won't come anymore,' he says without adding anything. A few days later, X's Facebook profile was gone and he disappeared from the movement's members' lives."

Frankenburg ends his post: "I felt a bit bad for the ISA's Jewish department, that it's so easy to expose their agents. I was happy for myself that it wasn't easy for him to incite me or the movement members. I learned, or at least I hope I did, to be careful."