Yehoshua (Shuki) Tartakovsky, a former Chareidi from Jerusalem, entered Lebanon as an “investigative journalist” and was arrested on Tuesday by Lebanese security officials.

Tartakovsky, who as an adult associated with extreme leftist organizations and attended US universities, reportedly traveled to Lebanon two weeks ago. His behavior aroused suspicion and he was arrested by Lebanese security officials in Dahieh, the neighborhood in Beirut which houses the Hezbollah headquarters and has been attacked by the IDF multiple times in recent weeks, including the powerful strikes that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The Lebanese officials found an Israeli passport in his possession.

The officials searched for his name on Google and found two articles in his name on the Israeli extreme left-communist website: “זו הדרך.”

According to Lebanese reports, Tartakovsky, who holds Israeli, American and British citizenship, entered Lebanon with a British passport. One of his blurbs says that he is an American-Israeli journalist, a graduate of Brown University and the London School of Economics.

According to past friends and acquaintances, Tartakovsky suffers from mental health problems and no one was surprised by the report that he had entered Lebanon.

Despite his work as an independent journalist for magazines and news organizations linked to the extreme left in Israel and the world, he presented a collection of contradictory and unclear opinions on social media. In 2022, he proudly tweeted on X: “Kahana Chai”, and on the same day he tweeted in support of Kanye West and his antisemitic rhetoric.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)