Israeli politician and left-wing activist Yair ("Yaya") Fink opened an online crowdfunding campaign on Monday morning to raise money for the residents of Huwara whose property was damaged in settler riots following the killing of Yagel Ya'acov and Hillel Menachem Yaniv the day before.
The two Israeli brothers were murdered in a shooting attack in the Palestinian town of Huwara on Sunday. Overnight, settlers burned dozens of buildings and vehicles in the town and in additional locations around the West Bank.
Settlers torched Palestinian houses and cars in Huwara in the northern West Bank and attacked Palestinians throughout the West Bank on Sunday after the attack.
"As a religious person, a Zionist, a major [in the military] and as a person, I cannot be silent while my peers are burning villages," Fink wrote on in a Tweet on Monday. "I just opened a crowdfunding campaign [to benefit] residents whose property has been damaged."
כדתי, כציוני, כרס"ן, כבנאדם לא יכול לשתוק כאשר בני עמי בתמיכת נבחרי ציבור שורפים כפרים.פתחתי עכשיו מימון המונים לתושבים שרכושם נפגע.אשמח שתתרמו:https://t.co/NODgHW2W1iמעט מהאור דוחה הרבה מהחושך.ולמקללים, לכו תשאלו את יעקב אבינו על תגי מחיר ואז תגלו מי שכח מה זה להיות יהודי
— yayafink (יאיא פינק) (@yayafink) February 27, 2023
"A little light repels a lot of darkness," he continued after adding a link where people can donate money.
He received mostly negative responses on Twitter, but has managed to raise more than NIS 400,000 in less than one day.
Who is Yaya Fink?
Fink is active in the Labor Party, and was placed 12th on the Labor list in the April 2019 elections. The son of Jewish-American olim (immigrants), Fink was born in Jerusalem to a father from Scranton, Pennsylvania and a mother from Brooklyn, New York and is the youngest of his five siblings.
He is the founder of Lobby 99, the Israel public lobby group, and a member of the Public Council for Reconciliation. Formerly, he served as Executive Director of the Good Neighbor Association and as Chief of Staff for the Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset.
Tzvi Joffre and Hagay Hacohen contributed to this report.