Yair Ansbacher

Yair Ansbacher (Hebrew: יאיר אנסבכר) is an Israeli national security expert, educator, a graduate of the IDF Special Forces.[1] He is a consultant and researcher in several bodies in the Israeli defense establishment and leading research institutes in Israel.[2] He was part of the IDF team that responded to the October 7 attacks in 2023 in Kibbutz Nir Yitzchak.[3]

Early life

Yair Ansbacher was born in 1983 and raised in Jerusalem to a family of four children. His grandfather on his father's side was Mordechai Ansbacher,[4] a German-born Holocaust survivor who served as the first director of the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem[5] and was also a key witness in the trail of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.[6][7] Yair Ansbacher later published a book about his grandfather entitled I have hoped in your salvation, O Lord: The Life Story of Mordechai Ansbacher.

Ansbacher's great-grandfather was Mordechai Buchsbaum, an activist with the Agudath Israel movement and a deputy mayor of Jerusalem.[8]

Ansbacher attended Nativ Meir high school in Jerusalem[9] and studied at the Bnei David pre-military preparatory school in Eli . He enlisted in the IDF in 2002 and served as a soldier in the commando and special forces Maglan unit.[10]

Education

Ansbacher is a graduate of Lifshitz College of Education in Jerusalem. He holds a master's degree in diplomacy and security from Tel Aviv University and received a doctorate from Ariel University.[11][12]

His research was supervised by Ron Schleifer and focused on the study of military special forces in the modern age and their impact on contemporary wars.[13][14][15] He earned the Bar-Ilan University President's Award for Doctoral Students for his academic articles.[16]

He became closer to religion during a trip to New Zealand in which he visited a Chabad center.[9]

Academic career

Ansbacher served as an educator at the AMIT school in Ma'ale Adumim, and also initiated and led informal educational projects in the city, such as a youth club for children of the Jewish-Ethiopian community and work in a youth activity center.

Under the guidance of Rabbi Eliyahu Kaplan, he established the Eitan pre-military preparatory school in the Mishor Adumim in 2011.

In 2016 he published Do a Good Deed for Humanity, a guide to improving human relations.[17]

Ansbacher is a fellow at the Misgav Institute,[18] which is affiliated with the Kohelet Forum, and was also previously a senior research fellow at the Kohelet Forum.[19]

He has written about the Ukraine-Russia War.[20][21] In 2022 he was the first researcher in the West to identify in real time the strategic ambush that the Ukrainians had set for the Russians at Hostmel Airport near Kiev.[22] He published an article in the IDF Journal on the subject, in which he claimed that this was a strategic Russian failure that actually thwarted Vladimir Putin's original war plan from the very beginning to eliminate the top Ukrainian leadership in the first hours of the war.[23]

He was a presenter on a podcast special on Great Operations of the Special Forces on Galei Tzahal radio with Dr. Amir Gilat.[24]

Military career

In 2006, Ansbacher served in the Second Lebanon War.[25] His experiences were used for his book Like a Bird's Shadow published in 2009.[26]

Ansbacher had a role in the 2020 Israeli film "April 7, 1980", which was released in Israel as Halaila HaZeh (This Night). He also served as a weapons instructor and battle coordinator for the film.[27] He also was a weapons consultant and warfare instructor for the KAN 11 docu-drama The Longest Night.[28] Both films dealt with the Misgav Am hostage crisis.

As a reservist, Ansbacher was among the first to be called up in response to the October 7 attacks.[29][30] He was in the first-response team sent to Kibbutz Nir Yitzchak near the border of Gaza to combat Hamas terrorists.[31][32] He called it the "longest 12 hours of my life".[33] He wrote a book about his experiences in 2023 entitled And the Lion Will Be Exalted – On Correcting Israel's New Way of War.[34] In 2025 he wrote a follow-up called Like a Lion, He Shall Rise: The War We Failed to Foresee, the Devastating Price We Paid, and the Miracles That Saved Us in which he uses his personal military experiences and historical research.[35]

He served as an advisor to several bodies in the defense establishment,[36] including the Northern Command, Israel Police and the National Information Headquarters in the Prime Minister's Office.[37][38][39]

In 2024 and again in 2025 Ansbacher embarked on a speaking tour in the United States where he discussed his personal experiences on October 7 and how it relates to his studies in military history and his grandparents survival in the Holocaust.[40][41] One speaking event at Florida State University drew anti-Israel protests.[42]

Personal life

Ansbacher lives in Ma'ale Adumim. He is married and has five children.

Publications

  • Like a Bird's Shadow, Yair Ansbacher, 2009, (a book about daily life in an elite IDF unit during the Second Lebanon War)[26][43]
  • How Special Operations Forces Can Contribute Strategically to Modern Wars, Yair Ansbacher & Ron Schleifer, The RUSI Journal, Volume 166, 2021 - Issue 4[15]
  • The three ages of modern Western special operations forces, Yair Ansbacher & Ron Schleifer, Comparative Strategy Volume 41, 2022 - Issue 1[44]
  • The Utility Knife Effect in Special Operations, Yair Ansbacher & Ron Schleifer, The RUSI Journal , Volume 168, 2023 - Issue 6[13]
  • Like a Lion, He Shall Rise: The War We Failed to Foresee, the Devastating Price We Paid, and the Miracles That Saved Us by Yair Ansbacher, 2023, Dani Books.[45]
  • עם כלביא יקום - מלחמת חרבות ברזל במבט אסטרטגי- אמוני, 2025, Dani Books.[46]

References

  1. ^ "'We are fighting for a right to exist,' Israeli military expert says". The Jerusalem Post. 2024-02-05. ISSN 0792-822X. Retrieved 2025-10-09.
  2. ^ "Experts discuss when the right time is for Israel to attack Iran". The Jerusalem Post. 2024-09-21. ISSN 0792-822X. Retrieved 2025-10-09.
  3. ^ "White Rose Magazine: October 7, 2023". White Rose Magazine. Retrieved 2025-10-09.
  4. ^ Ansbacher, Dr Yair (2024-05-16). "Where Are the Jewish People Heading From Here?". The Jewish Link. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  5. ^ "Mordechai Ansbacher, last witness of Eichmann trial, dies in Jerusalem". The Jerusalem Post. 2021-03-02. ISSN 0792-822X. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  6. ^ "The Story Behind the Man with the Big Smile". Where What When. 2014-01-06. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  7. ^ "Collections Search - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum". collections.ushmm.org. Archived from the original on 2024-02-25. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  8. ^ אנסבכר, יאיר (2022). לישועתך קיוויתי השם [I have hoped in your salvation, O Lord: The Life Story of Mordechai Ansbacher] (in Hebrew). המשפחה.
  9. ^ a b Ziegelbaum, Menachem (October 27, 2023). "interview with Yair Ansbacher" (PDF). Beis Moshiach (1382): 12–20.
  10. ^ "אימונים מסוכנים ובלתי שגרתיים": בוגר מגלן על השירות ביחידה (in Hebrew). Channel 10. Archived from the original on 2018-08-08. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  11. ^ לאחר הביקורת והתחקיר: יאיר אנסבכר מקבל תואר ד"ר (in Hebrew). Arutz Sheva. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  12. ^ Ziegelbaum, Menachem (October 27, 2023). ""Rebel, What's Going On Here?"" (PDF). Beis Moshiach. Retrieved 30 December 2025.
  13. ^ a b Ansbacher, Yair; Schleifer, Ron (2023-09-19). "The Utility Knife Effect in Special Operations: The Missing Link". The RUSI Journal. 168 (6): 54–63. doi:10.1080/03071847.2023.2293747. ISSN 0307-1847.
  14. ^ Ansbacher, Yair; Schleifer, Ron (2022-01-02). "The three ages of modern Western special operations forces". Comparative Strategy. 41: 32–45. doi:10.1080/01495933.2021.2017741. ISSN 0149-5933.
  15. ^ a b Ansbacher, Yair; Schleifer, Ron (2021-06-07). "How Special Operations Forces Can Contribute Strategically to Modern Wars: An Israel–US Case Study Comparison". The RUSI Journal. 166 (4): 30–39. doi:10.1080/03071847.2021.1957707. ISSN 0307-1847.
  16. ^ טקס הענקת פרס נשיא האוניברסיטה ודיקנית בית הספר ללימודים מתקדמים. biu.ac.il (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  17. ^ "עשו טובה לאנושות- ספר חדש ומעניין". www.shoresh.org.il. Retrieved 2025-10-09.
  18. ^ Sherman, Shimon (2025-02-28). "Did Netanyahu fail the Trump test?". JNS.org. Retrieved 2025-10-09.
  19. ^ Ynet (2022-05-09). "Israeli forces arrest Palestinians on suspicion of aiding Elad terrorists". Ynetglobal. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  20. ^ "day 500 in the Ukraine Russia War" (PDF). Misgav: The Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy: 24–31. 2023.
  21. ^ פוקס, נינה (2022-02-28). "בין טנקים לפייק ניוז: הלוחמה הפסיכולוגית בין רוסיה לאוקראינה". Ynet (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2025-10-12. Yair Ansbacher, a researcher on new wars and a research fellow at Kohelet's security forum, presented some examples: "At the beginning of the war, the Russians tried to create a provocation, to show that the Ukrainians were the ones who initiated the fighting first, which would give them legitimacy for their military action. American intelligence exposed this again and again and shamed them greatly, to the point that Putin despaired and finally gave up on the legitimacy clause for his actions, and he is now paying a heavy price for it. In the picture above, you can see, among other things, how the Russians brought a Russian-made plane to the scene to show that the Ukrainians had shot it down, thus creating a strategic deception with which it would be possible to begin the military action.
  22. ^ ברגמן, רונן; קורן, זיו (2022-04-26). "תקלה בהמראה, מסלול התרסקות". Ynet (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2025-10-19. Less than a week after the fighting began, the journal "Systems" published a short article titled "An Operational Miss That Became a Strategic Failure" by Yair Ansbacher, who is researching the modern battlefield, including the Russian army, in his doctoral thesis. The Russian idea was to carry out a "strategic coup," in the professional term for Moscow's plan, Ansbacher explains. "The surprising and elegant move that the Russians sought to achieve in the first hours of the war failed miserably, and instead Putin's army was condemned to continue wallowing in the Ukrainian mud for an unknown period of time in an attempt to achieve a victory in points. The Ukrainian defenders recorded a kinetic-strategic victory, which was even greater later when the Ukrainians claimed that they had managed to destroy several huge Ilyushin Il-76 transport planes, with the paratroopers in their midst.
  23. ^ Ansbacher, Yair (2022). "הקרב על אנטונוב – החמצה אופרטיבית שהפכה לכישלון אסטרטגי" [The Battle of Antonov – An Operational Miss That Became a Strategic Failure]. אתר מערכות (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2025-10-19.
  24. ^ "המבצעים הגדולים". glz.co.il. Retrieved 2025-10-09.
  25. ^ Ansbacher, Yair; Schleifer, Ron (2021). "How Special Operations Forces Can Contribute Strategically to Modern Wars: An Israel–US Case Study Comparison". RUSI Journal. 166 (4): 30–39. doi:10.1080/03071847.2021.1957707. ISSN 0307-1847.
  26. ^ a b אנסבכר, יאיר. "כצל ציפור" כצל ציפור -יאיר אנסבכר [Like a Bird's Shadow]. ידיעות ספרים שאוהבים (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  27. ^ פרחומובסקי, מרט (2020-09-07). יאיר אנסבכר. ספר הקולנוע הישראלי (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  28. ^ הלילה הארוך ביותר - פרקים מלאים לצפייה ישירה. kan.org.il (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  29. ^ ברגמן, רונן (2023-10-12). "ממה שאנחנו מבינים, התוכנית הייתה גדולה עוד יותר, וכללה משלוח חוליות מחבלים למרכז". Ynet (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  30. ^ Scarr, Cindy (2023-10-31). "We Were Blind - Mishpacha Magazine". Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  31. ^ Sugár, Sáron (2024-07-26). "'Four painful miracles occurred on 7 October' — IDF Counter-Terrorism Officer Dr Yair Ansbacher's Lecture in Budapest". Hungarian Conservative. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  32. ^ Kempinski, Yoni. "Counter-terrorism expert: 'Three miracles occurred [sic] on October 7th'". Israel National News. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  33. ^ ohtadmin (2024-03-18). "IDF responder to attack to tell of 'longest 12 hours of my life' - Jewish Press - Florida's Gulf Coast Edition". Jewish Press - Florida's Gulf Coast Edition -. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  34. ^ secblock.yit.co.il http://secblock.yit.co.il/ErrorPage.aspx?_event_transid=59371989. Retrieved 2025-10-09. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  35. ^ Ansbacher, Yair (2025). עם כלביא יקום - מלחמת חרבות ברזל במבט אסטרטגי-אמוני - יאיר אנסברכר (in Hebrew). Israel: Dani Books.
  36. ^ "Dr. Yair Ansbacher". KesherDay 2025 (in French). Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  37. ^ תכנית צ'רצ'יל - מכון ארגמן. מכון ארגמן ללימודים מתקדמים (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  38. ^ ד"ר דוד וורמסר ויאיר אנסבכר: ישראל זקוקה עכשיו ל"מבצע דוליטל". zman.co.il (in Hebrew). 2023-11-30. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  39. ^ "צה"ל מחסל את היצירתיות, לא מסוגל להכיל אנשים שחושבים אחרת". מקור ראשון (in Hebrew). 2024-01-27. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  40. ^ "Oct 7th Two Years On with Dr. Yair Ansbacher - ChabadSudbury.com". chabadsudbury.com. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  41. ^ "Guest Speaker: Oct. 7 Survivor & Hero - JewishBrevard.com". jewishbrevard.com. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  42. ^ Ulrich, Justice. "IDF reservist Yair Ansbacher hosts speech in wake of Oct. 7 anniversary". FSView. Retrieved 2025-10-08.
  43. ^ ציפור בארץ הארזים.
  44. ^ Ansbacher, Yair; Schleifer, Ron (2022-01-02). "The three ages of modern Western special operations forces". Comparative Strategy. 41 (1): 32–45. doi:10.1080/01495933.2021.2017741. ISSN 0149-5933.
  45. ^ "He Shall Rise Like A Lion: The War We Failed to Foresee, The Devastating Price We Paid And The Miracles That Saved Us by Dr. Yair Ansbacher". Amkalaviyakum. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
  46. ^ עם כלביא יקום - מלחמת חרבות ברזל במבט אסטרטגי-אמוני - יאיר אנסברכר. 2025 – via simania.co.il.
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