Six decades later, Yossi Shuchmacher is still making peace with the players who made him the most famous name in the country

Photos: Elchanan Kotler, Mishpacha archives

The last time their paths crossed was 60 years ago and they hadn’t seen each other since. But sometimes after six decades, something softens, reconciliation doesn’t seem so threatening, and it’s time to forgive and move on.

In the Davidson home in Jerusalem’s Bayit Vegan neighborhood, Uriel Davidson and his wife Gittel are excited about finally re-meeting their expected guest. It’s actually more of a closure for the soul of Uriel’s deceased mother, Ruth Ben David (Blau), who passed away 22 years ago. She was the one who impacted their guest’s life so many years before.

And then, a hesitant knock on the door, a round of shaking hands and clicking cameras. In walks Yossi Shuchmacher — a.k.a. Yossele, the child whose name was on everyone’s lips back in the early 1960s, whose disappearance caused a national furor and sleepless nights for the prime minister and the head of the Mossad.

Today, Yossi Shuchmacher, 70, a longtime resident of the mixed religious-secular Samarian town of Shaarei Tikvah and retired corporate strategist, is ready to put it all behind him — being hidden by his grandfather in Meah Shearim and other chareidi enclaves, being whisked away to Europe and then to America by a daring and savvy giyores named Ruth Ben David, and finally being located by the Mossad and reunited with his parents.

“It’s a lesson we can learn from Lot’s wife,” says Shuchmacher. “Sometimes it’s better not to look back.”