Sivan 5766

Elon Moreh is one of the first Jewish re-settlements in the mountains of the Shomron (“Samaria�). Astride the peaks and high ridges of Mt. Gvir (it’s usually written ‘Kabir’ on maps today), it overlooks the Tirtzah valley and plains of Moreh in which sprawls Nablus, built over the ancient Jewish city of Shechem and now a site of nightly terrorism and counter-terrorist preemption. Across the valley and its branches loom the slopes and summits of Mounts Gerizim and Ebal where the Children of Israel stood after they built an altar on Mt. Ebal and their massive host joined Joshua in reciting the blessings and prohibitions as Moshe had instructed (Deuteronomy 27; Joshua 8:30-5). To the south is Mt. Bracha where vineyards and groves of olives and almonds shelter the paratroops that bolster the self-defense capabilities of the Jewish towns.

I visited the town and outposts of Elon Moreh during the last week of May and ten days later, for the festival and following Sabbath of Shavuot. It was unforgettably vivid to share life with these brave and gracious people living on the frontlines amid mountain – valley vistas of great beauty and historical resonance. The excavated site of the altar of Joshua on a lower plateau toward the northern end of Mt. Ebal is clearly visible from many homes. Above the altar, on the top of the three-humped ridge of Ebal are the electronic detection towers of the IDF, reminders of the constant vigilance by which the Jews sustain themselves in their embattled land.

To fully appreciate the qualities, lovely features, and faithful people of Elon Moreh it is useful to review an anecdote and some insightful voices speaking a year ago, July 2005 from Nvei Dekalim, formerly of the Jewish area (Gush Katif) in the ‘Gaza Strip.’ They illuminate the challenges and opportunities that face the Jews who stand on the frontlines of faith and history, opposing not only the rage of global jihad but all those powers conspiring to drag us into the Age of Aquarius / Dagon, into an era of forgetting filled with rootless human resources roaming across erased boundaries, desperate to retain their jobs and knowing nothing of their souls, traditions or history beyond the latest headlines and interoffice memo. Forestalling and rejecting that nightmare, already greatly in place is a struggle writ large in the re-born state of Israel, especially in Jewish settlements in its ancient heartland and holy places. It is vital to us all that we see and hear and visit these people and places which major forces in the world want to expunge.

So, back to summer 2005…

Benny Cohen from Nvei Dekalim had a story to tell that ran on Israel National News (July 10, by Hillel Fendel). He had received a call from Member of Knesset Amram Mitzna who had run for PM in January 2003 on the single issue of deporting the Jews from Gush Katif, removing the IDF and all aspects of Israeli and Jewish presence. But by summer 2005 Mitzna had a more sober and caring mission: to arrange a visit to Kfar Darom and other GK towns by a prestigious physician associated with the unilateral withdrawal parties of the Israeli political spectrum. After his visit with farmers and other residents the doctor said, “I see I was wrong. I always thought we had to get rid of Gaza [sic] but now I see there are people here and the whole matter must be thought out more carefully.�

He and others, so quick to prejudge on the basis of official media ‘truths’ can be and have been transformed by visits and actual human contact, just as many Israelis in the peace-at-any-price camp have changed their minds on the basis of how badly the refugees from Gush Katif have been treated.

One other voice from those times provides an example of what one encounters in Elon Moreh and throughout the hills, farms, flock pens and towns of Judea and Samaria: a pure faith that acknowledges the providence of G-d and also the primacy of human effort and choices in activating this providence for the good, for good sooner and before rather than later and after errors and suffering.

Yossi who lived in Shirat HaYam (“song of the sea�) matter-of-factly acknowledged to A-7 the impact that various group efforts could have. He said, “a few more families [moving to GK] will not make all the difference – although if dozens of families come to every single community it could have some influence. It’s all up to G-d; but we as Jews have to do what we can, and if people begin coming down here then, in the merit of all the kindness and friendship and helping, and all the bonding that will happen, this hopefully will arouse G-d’s mercies.�

These activities and commitment “hopefully will arouse G-d’s mercies.� There, in the blend of simple trust [bitachon], acknowledgement of G-d and His response to human effort, in the sense of responsibility and the importance of individual and national initiatives is essential Judaism. Just as it was needed then, so it is needed now throughout the Promised Land to realize the goal of an integral and whole Israel, Yisrael Shleimah. Like Yossi, the people of Elon Moreh and all the Jews in Judea and Samaria “truly invite all of Israel to come and join us.�

I heard this invitation repeatedly, and now I share it with you. I heard it on the highest peak of Mt. Gvir, at Yitzhak Skali’s farm where three very simple wood-sided homes, one of them being faced with stone (after repeated attacks by jihadists), and a couple of trailers house five families and a goodly number of young men who assist with the farm. There is a tin-roofed shed for chickens and goats, an almond grove, and a beautiful one-room stone synagogue built by the men, as were all the hand-crafted wooden necessaries within: chairs, tables for prayer and study, the Aron Kodesh for the Torah Scroll… This small synagogue, a testament to faith, national memory, and self-reliance is as beautiful a labor of love and devotion as one can find anywhere, and the vistas are beyond beautiful, they are inspiriting as the pure breezes and the air freshened with sage and thyme.

Yitzhak Skali established his farm in 1999 with the agreement of the National Land Preserves so he should be exempt from the Bush – Sharon agreements that no Jewish settlement in Judea or Samaria would be permitted after 2001. But Skali is not free from the harassment of the Euro-funded International Solidarity Movement, of the American – Israeli government and the courts. The Jews must fight their battles on many fronts and usually without vigorous self-defense for which, in any case, they will be blamed and sometimes prosecuted, — such is the terrible consistency of the western and Islamic worlds’ hatred for Jews, and such is their hold on the client regime in Jerusalem. But after all, what is the so-called world community or any group of politicians or judges, Israeli or other to proscribe Jews from settling anywhere in Israel? This is why we must visit, learn about, strengthen and be strengthened by these people of wonderful courage and faith…

They live as it was in America two or three hundred years ago: every night one is on guard, but here a Jew is also fulfilling the ancient promise that gives coherence and balance to the world and to all peoples. Eliezer Gelbard, an immigrant from Uruguay and resident of Elon Moreh, an ambulance drive, teacher at the Spanish – Hebrew school and father of nine guided me across the slopes on an unforgettable day. Past the farm of Itzhik Skali and that of Zecharia Hezi, the slanted tin roof of its animal sheds held in place by concrete blocks I heard stories of Arab marauders and the periodic theft of sheep. Taken into Area ‘A,’ given to the PLO at Oslo, the farmers or IDF could track the stolen property but not take them back. But there is no breaking the commitment or good nature of these people. They know they are fulfilling the most long-standing promise in the world and activating a flourishing of land and spirit all people urgently need…

In the amazingly varied and lovely garden around their small patch of lawn, rose bushes line the path to the door of Zev and Rochelle Saffer, pioneering founders of Kedumim, Itamar and Elon Moreh. The Saffer’s grow plums, apricots, pistachios, almonds and the four kinds of species holy to the festival of Sukkot: a border hedge of myrtle bushes, willows, and citron and date palm trees. There is shade and breeze on the hottest of days and in the mornings especially, the bird song is rich and melodious. Although the hills stretch quite a ways above their home, so steep is the slope that from their lawn there is an alpine view across the Tirtzah valley to Mts. Gerizim and Ebal. From the second floor terrace, one sees all the way south down Israel’s north central valley and surrounding hills to Shiloh. Zev points out the site of Joshua’s altar and mentions the excavations of archaeologist Adam Zartal (http://ebal.haifa.ac.il ) who found there the ramps for the priests to ascend, exactly as described, the bones and ashes of more than one hundred kosher animals, and, among other finds, a coin of Rameses II (c. 1250 BCE) whose successor Mernepta boasted had defeated Israel (see the Mernepta – stele). A former Israeli slave had carried the coin from Egypt, given it to his son or daughter, and the coin had been offered as tribute to the Priests at the altar when the land was claimed.

My host, Zev noted some of the threatening and bitter ironies of Israel’s situation especially that of the people in the beautiful hills of Judea and Samaria. “My wife’s great uncle was born a hundred years ago and listed on his birth record as a “Palestinian: why can’t we stay there? My wife’s father’s parents were born in Jerusalem before the British arrived…â€? Jews had ancestors living west of the Jordan in the 18th – 19th centuries or earlier when many travelers, like Mark Twain (Innocents Abroad) of Count Volney (The Ruins of Empires, c. 1795) wrote about the desolated and de-populated condition of the land.

“When we came here [first to Itamar and then to the present site of Elon Moreh],â€? Zev continued, “there was nothing. I didn’t throw anyone off their land. I used to spend my money in the market in Shechem and even now they [the Arabs] get their water and electricity from us. I used to walk into Shechem with my wife and kids. There are a lot of historical sites there, not only Kever Yosef [the Tomb of Joseph]. The media slant makes us feel like we’re not human.â€? Indeed, the mainstream Israeli, international and Arab presses all vilify the Jewish settlers of Israel’s heartland as if they were a problem, no, — the problem in the world and as if expunging Jews from Judea and Samaria would bring it peace.

Amid such malicious madness, simple people live lives of creativity, courage, faith and grace. I remember a happy festival dinner with Rabbi Menachem Felix and his wife, spirited, witty, and intelligent people also among the original founders of Elon Moreh. They lost a teenaged daughter to a terrorist ambush. Her picture, with a beautiful smile, is on the wall.

In Elon Moreh every holy day, at the Yizkor (memorial) service, a long list of names is read of people who have been murdered or killed doing national duty. Every Saturday evening, men gather to bid farewell to the Sabbath outside the home of the Gavish family, four of whom were murdered by terrorists in an infiltration a few years ago. The house is empty to this day, like the Shabo home in nearby Itamar where a similar attack occurred.

Zev and Rochelle were among the earliest Jewish re-settlers of the Shomron, beginning in the army base at Camp Kadum (now the town of Kedumim) over the mountains about fifteen miles west southwest of Elon Moreh. They lived in tents, the weather and conditions were daunting. Many politicians wanted them, as they did the pioneers in Hebron to give up and leave. There is a headline from those days quoting Yitzhak Rabin as threatening, “Elon Moreh or me� [get rid of them or I quit the government]. There also is a full page newspaper story from Maariv in the late fall of that year in which the reporter interviewed Zev’s young boys. “Won’t you be too cold in the winter,� they were asked. Aren’t you worried about staying here with no heat or house? Don’t you want to leave the reporter probed the kids to undermine the parents.

“No, we’re not scared,� the boys replied. “We have army jackets and boots: yihyeh b’seder! [“It will be okay�].� That is the spirit that has been re-settling the heartland of Israel, the good cheer, persistence, and faith that for some strange reason the powers of the world can’t abide.

And I remember young Elishai ben Yosef who animatedly showed and described to me his collection of Lego’s. His father Chanan, my host for the afternoon, gave me a pocket-sized book of psalms which I prize, its tiny cover adorned with a photo of Joseph’s tomb.

There is an enchanting story from thirty years ago, of a June 1976 visit to camp Kadum by a concert pianist (also a distinguished journalist), David bar Ilan. The artist’s wife Beverly wrote a lyrical, wonderfully descriptive and touching essay about the event that took fourteen months to get printed in the New York Times (September 3, 1977). She recounts it in moving and evocative terms:

“… It was a shock to realize that this area, hardly thirty-five minutes from Tel Aviv is so close to the heart of Israel.

“The piano arrived just before we did. It stood on a wooden stage covered by a slanted roof. There were colored lights and huge tins filled with flowers and slender young trees. At the front of the stage was a white banner with a verse from Jeremiah…

“I had noticed that many of the settlers were already gardening and attempting to beautify their surroundings. A sense of home, hospitality, and digging-in permeated the air… Though living year round in tiny trailers behind the gates and barbed-wire fences of an army base, nothing seemed to faze them. Settling in, they faced the future with absolutely no guarantees of anything.

“Hundreds of people gathered from the concert. They had come from all over the country. It must have meant a great deal to those settlers, so isolated and removed to realize that their struggle to make Judea and Samaria again a place where Jews can live was a dream so many shared.�

Here one sees the courage and faith of the people in Judea and Samaria today, and one understands afresh the Jews in Gush Katif who always were so glad and hospitable when anyone came to their embattled position to share and affirm their dream, the right of Jews to live rather than be expelled from their ancient land. One sees also the love for life, the joy of working to make any place productive and lovely, to make a long-barren hilltop a place of bread and roses…

And so the article continued: “For the thousand who traveled to Kadum and back it was more than a musical experience, sitting high up in the hills of Samaria with the moon and stars overhead, the sound of music filling the night.�

As Zev Saffer recalls it, “there we were, sitting as if in a dream, in a pool of light on a hill in Samaria and this great concert pianist playing for us, for all of Israel…�

Mrs. Bar-Ilan described how she and her husband received many simple gifts from the audience after he played. “One young lady, her eyes brimming, handed me a bouquet of wild wheat and I wondered as I held it how ancient were its seeds… A man approached me and said, ‘it’s been nearly three thousand years since Jews heard music in these hills.’ Three thousand years; an eternity: Such an agonizingly long time for anyone to wait.�

The gratitude and generosity of spirit, the scarcely imaginable endurance, hope and efforts to realize the dream and sanctify G-d’s Name by giving one’s life to His promise, all these definitive features of the Jewish people are present in this remembered moment and in the daily reality of Elon Moreh, a besieged and beautiful Jewish town restored on the hills above the site where Abraham raised the first altar to G-d the Creator of the universe (Genesis 12:7). Perhaps this is why the birdsong is so abundant and melodious: the restoration of this site brings very close promises that lead to elation that articulates the beauty and freshness of a dream coming true.

To end where we began, with signs of active faith that people are struggling to realize the dream, as this is written there is a march by hundreds of young people from Elon Moreh and Itamar across the hills and fields to Shiloh, Eli, and Kol Tzion [“voice of Zion�] settlements, asserting Jewish rights to the land just as Abraham and Jacob did: “arise and walk the land. For to you and to your descendants after you I will give it.�

EN

People concerned with Jewish Israel know they must continue to consider perspectives, questions and new paths raised by listening to the voices of Jews expelled in August 2005 from their homes in Gush Katif. Their stories reveal the degree to which a government can act against its own people, and about the extent to which the powers of the world intend to see Israel constricted with section after section emptied of Jews.

The voices and stories of these people are poignant, illuminating and inspiring because, as will be clear upon reading, they have not been broken which they recognize to be the overall goal of the client regime that struck them on behalf of the powers.

The poignancy, perseverance, courage and faith expressed in the accounts below do not imply that all the answers are here: there probably is not any one right answer. But communing with the humanity of these battered but still vital people and hearing their experiences and insights is part of the healing and discovery of the way that will lead the Jewish people to settlement and victory in their land.

Anita, a farmer formerly from Netzer Hazzani, first Jewish town re-established in Gush Katif (1973) commented, “at first you can’t believe that it’s G-d’s world because G-d cares and look at what’s happened… [During the time since our farms were destroyed] we’ve lost our markets but we will learn about new soils and produce, to grow and to market our produce. We will work to create and then reach the light at the end of the tunnel.�

This is a central and soul-saving Jewish insight into life and the nature of miracles. Through your own work, particularly in a community you create the light that enables you to reach the Promise. As the sages say, “man must begin and G-d will complete.� This faith was emphasized by the Jewish people Mt. Sinai when in response to the giving of the Torah the entire nation said and reiterated “we will do,� and “we will do and we will understand� (Exodus 19:7, 24:3, 7). Understanding, hearing truly, follows from doing what’s right regardless of the percentages. Without this core approach to the challenges of life, the Jewish people would not be here today, producing, creating, and giving to the world whose mighty ones want to efface their example of active faith…

“Active faith� is a term denoting an approach to living that one hears about often from the Jews expelled from Gush Katif. It was the way they built their towns and made the sand dunes bring forth fruits, and it is the way they are rebuilding their lives and communities today, spreading their spirit throughout Israel.

The Gush Katif refugees speak often of fraternal national spirit: “Am Yisrael (“the people of Israel�) will be there for each other…this [expulsion of Jews] must never happen again in the Land of Israel.� Their conviction, constructive purpose and the goodness in their own hearts leads them to say that the terrible experience of the expulsion “has brought the people closer together.�

Seven to ten miles to the southeast, near the ancient fortress city of Lakish and in the village of Amatzia, refugees from Katif and other towns face the miseries of life in a construction site, of leaking pipes and sinks without running water, of the constant noise of earth movers, in trailers jammed within ten feet of each other. I heard many stories about the petty cruelties and broken promises of bureaucrats (“we have to beg and struggle for everything they promised us�). I saw the beauty of the surrounding land and heard the determination of people used to a long road.

“Life is crazy here but we are happy because soon we will rebuild. We want to be a community that gives as much as it gets.�

In Shomriya, about five miles further south are families from Atzmona and Tel Katifa, the latter a beachfront community built at the northern edge of the main bloc of Jewish towns specifically to protect them all from Arab attacks from the Gaza area. Now they wish to continue their lives and mission, lives of informal but essential national service “to help protect the Jews of the Hebron area [a few miles to the northwest] and together to build a new community,� commented Keren.

Struggling with sadness and disappointment, Hadassah from Kfar Darom, an isolated Jewish town in the center of the “Gaza strip,� tells how it would be “raining mortars all night. We became accustomed to mortar attacks and miracles. Soldiers who were totally non-religious would say ‘it is because of Hashem’ that there are not more casualties.� And she adds sentiments shared by many in and outside of Israel: “I was disappointed that some religious soldiers were confused about whether or not to follow orders.� A former Chief Rabbi of Israel, Avraham Shapira issued a ruling forbidding anyone to cooperate directly or indirectly with the expulsion but this was not widely disseminated in the media. Moreover, the army brought other Rabbis who gave various contradictory directives to the young soldiers.

Some say that this failure of the religious ban on uprooting Jews from the Promised Land stems also from contradictory messages inherent in the teachings of Rav Avraham Yitzhak haKohen Kook, Chief Rabbi of pre-state Israel. “The teachings of Rav Kook were very much part of Gush Katif� one former resident stated, summing up the feelings of most. Rav Kook taught that the State of Israel was an important aspect of the promised redemption and re-settlement of the Jewish people and their sovereignty in the Land and that the state, if not any particular government, therefore had an element of holiness to it. Many politicians and religious leaders, especially those close to the government, used this perspective to ostracize and even criminalize those who asserted the impermissibility of such deportations. One of the painful results is that the teachings of Rav Kook, and the lives and example of the people formerly of Gush Katif have become sources of sustained criticism among some faithful and patriotic Jews. Working through this misunderstanding and clarifying the message of Rav Kook (who would have condemned the expulsion) are being worked out everyday in soul-searching, words and deeds.

A characteristic perspective and application of the teachings of Rav Kook were presented by Sara, formerly of Atzmona and a mother of nine who spoke at length about what had happened and about the way to re-build for an enduring Jewish future. She presented goals, principles and means in a strikingly articulate fashion, incorporating an impressive range of views and moods as she spoke.

“We have told our children that we will return to Gush Katif� she asserts, sounding the leitmotif for nearly every settler. “We plan to increase the size of Gush Katif communities to 30,000 within five years.� It was somewhat unsettling that she noted that “the government and Histadrut [State Labor Union] had planned this ten – fifteen years ago� without any sense, at least expressed publicly, that the expulsion may have fit an outcome-based design encoded in the Oslo Accords…

“It’s very difficult to start your life all over again,� she mused and then reflected on a bitter and dangerous aspect of life in Israel since “post-Zionism� gained power in the media, universities and courts. “Many people have been taught to hate ideals of being observant and of living on the land… When Rabbi Kook heard an early Zionist Congress [dominated by secularists and socialists] asserting that the State would not be built on Torah he warned that subsequent generations would hate the land, would hate the [Jewish] people and would do ugly and monstrous things.�

Sarah sought perspective on this accurate prediction and the resulting situation, the immediate example being the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif and the planned expulsions from Judea and Samaria by presenting a striking analogy.

“Being in the galut [exile] is like being in a coma. When a man wakes up from a coma he makes many mistakes and can hurt himself.� Her analogy is that the State and the people are still recovering, still in a healing process that requires time and gentle care. Therefore, she insisted repeatedly, “we must build with education and not in anger. We would do again [face the expulsion, police and troops] the same way: no violence among brothers. The nation is very weak now, like a sick person that has hurt himself.�

The metaphor is compelling but perhaps dual-edged; does not a sick and disoriented person who may hurt himself need to be cared for by others, a task that American administrations perennially volunteer to serve, — to the lasting detriment and perhaps the destruction of Israel? Nevertheless, Sarah and others are committed to the way of absolute non-violence between brothers, however badly particular governments treat them.

“We believe that people will come back [to the true Zionist path of redeeming the land] more and more by example and energy and without anger, — by faith, not with anger. We want a long-lasting success not like the Maccabees; they didn’t last two hundred years.â€? That’s a fact, and so is the comparison with the mighty empires then and now promising “peace,â€? security and alliance, increasingly meddling in Israel’s internal affairs and accelerating the corruption of its rulers.

She reiterates her point: “our re-building [of the land] is education, and so is our non-violence. We are living in a very violent society. TV is a terrible thing, with hitting all the time. And of course there are the terrorists.� Yet, she concludes, “You can’t divide the land. I hope it won’t happen…Next generation, maybe this generation will go back. Every generation has its task. Our Rabbi Tvi Tau taught us that no energy is wasted. This is a law in the physical and also the spiritual world. None of our work is wasted.�

Perhaps the example, faith and hopes of such people will inspire enough deeds so that no Israeli government will do or consider expelling Jews again. Perhaps they even will lend their sustained support to re-settling the land. But many long time residents have great concerns about the self-perpetuating, dictatorial and anti-Jewish aspects and policies of the ruling classes.

Another woman, formerly from Netzarim and now in Yevul, in the southwestern Negev near the Egyptian Border echoes the sentiments and hopeful perspective associated with Rav Kook. “Hard feelings are not good for Gush Katif or for Am Yisrael. All the time we must try to be positive. Despite the hard situation we have to live up to the ideal of being strong for Israel and for ourselves.

“We thought up to the last minute that the expulsion would not happen… We were still planting and building when the police came. We were doing the right thing, practicing active faith. We believe that this will carry us over.� The self-sacrifice, hope, work and fraternal love of these sentiments, and these people is very remarkable.

“Meanwhile we are here in the Negev on our way to Holot Chalutza [an area of dunes further southeast]. Tradition says this area has never been settled since the beginning of the world. It is a great blessing to turn a place of desolation into a place of life. We have a long road but the main reality is that the Jewish people have returned to the land of Israel and the main promise of Scripture is being fulfilled…�

These words epitomize the active faith and goals of the Children of Israel since ancient times. Coming from people whose lives have been smashed they are deeply impressive and clearly a source of great strength. Although complete non-violence and renunciation of anger about expulsion, past and planned is not a unanimous position among the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria and their supporters it forms the basis for ongoing debate on means and tactics about re-settling the land which proceeds in many ways throughout the areas, from Jerusalem to the Negev, the ridges of Binyamin and mountains of Samaria. That is the essence of the entire Jewish approach to life and redemption: building, creating, and giving by every individual as if it all depended on him or her alone, honoring the practical and ethical fact of individual responsibility as stated in the Mishna: “it is not for you to complete the work, neither may you refrain from doing it.�

The world powers and their major media have been pre-occupied, some would say obsessed with Israel since its war for independence from Britain and Britain’s Arab-created client states in 1948. Those who follow events are numbed by the endless recycling of the “Jewish land for Arab promises of peace” process from Camp David to Madrid, Oslo, Wye, Camp David II to the Road Map which demands a freeze on Jewish settlement in the central parts of the Promised Land and the expulsion of Jews from ever greater portions of it. We also are familiar with the results of such processing: more and more terror, ethnic cleansing of Jews and now, Hamas terror states in the Gaza area and in the hills of northern Samaria (the Shomron), de facto terror states on land carved from Israel by Oslo.

There are, however, many aspects of Israel, often the most beautiful facets of the entire nation, land and people, that few people ever get to see. Perhaps the world powers and their official organs of “truth” prefer it that way.

The following paragraphs reveal the beautiful and inspiring face of the Israel that exists behind the headlines and diplomatic slogans, the Israel that the world is in such a hurry to blot out, destroying its homes, farms, flocks, livelihoods and burying Jewish lives in that special oblivion intended for those who buck the modern world’s dominant tendencies and decline its dubious inducements to forgetting and “pleasure.” This is a bad road and it does not need to be. If the Jews of Judea and Samaria are uprooted, Americans, and not only American will be endangered and impoverished.

Americans take note and beware: Israel and the Jews are the canary in the mine. If a league of governments can justify expelling Jews from their ancient homeland, any government can “justify” expelling any person from their home.

Travels
For eighteen days beginning May 22, I traveled Israel from Yevul at the Egyptian border to Hispin in the Golan Heights. These travels included large swaths of the hilltop communities in the Shomron and Binyamin regions, the latter being the beautiful ridges and hills northeast of Jerusalem. The first eight days I was with an AFSI (Americans for a Safe Israel) tour; AFSI is one of the very few groups that regularly visits those places where the cutting edge of the globalists “grand game” intersects with the lives of the people who are its target. The journey’s purpose was largely educational, a fact-finding mission that included visits to many new communities some of them refugee camps for those Jews expelled in August 2005 from the towns and farms they had built on the dunes in Gush Katif southwest of Gaza, deported in the name of “peace.”

I saw the wall in many places, heard rockets being fired over it and saw one that had recently landed right next to a greenhouse in Netiv Ha Assara which, thanks to the expulsion of the Jews from GK (the ancient Biblical territory of Gerar, Genesis 25) is now on the frontline with global jihad. Far from the lights, press conferences and suave diplomats we also saw the people in these camps. Despite what they have been through, and despite the poverty and terror that the deals of politicians subject them and their children to every day, they are not discouraged but have their eyes set on creating and flourishing future of dignified joy, one day at a time.

“Every place we settle we will create a Gush Katif,” said Sara, mother of nine children and formerly from Atzmona. “We will return to Gush Katif; and if not us, our children will return.” Such people cannot be defeated.

The Beauty of the Land and People
The land is astonishingly beautiful, with a uniquely stark, colorful, eye-arresting mix of rugged and round hills, ridges, winding valleys and stream beds. And the “green line” is not a cartographic abstraction: wherever Jews have settled and worked the land it is green, from the tomato, mango, date palm and orange plantings in the sun-baked Dead Sea valley, to the wheat fields, vineyards, herbs and flowers of the Negev, to the olive, fig and almond orchards of the Golan and Samaria. Perhaps this is what the powers of the world don’t want people to see: that the promises of the Creator are real; that His covenant is real and everlasting.

Notwithstanding this marvelous flourishing the people are the most beautiful and instructive feature of the Israel no one sees: gracious, cheerful, “grounded” we would say, living attuned to nature and to nature’s Creator with simple unshakeable faith, honor for history and Scripture, and with inspiring persistence to meet and overcome any obstacle.

We began our travels in the hills of Ephraim, in the University town of Ariel at the southern edge of the Shomron. The lovely Eshel haShomron hotel has a large flower-surrounded pool, dry clear air and sits near the tip of a salient enclosed by the “security fence” at the very eastern edge of what world leaders intend to permit for Jewish settlement. Ascending thence into the hills one is astonished at the spaciousness and emptiness of nearly all the Jewish heartland. Fifty-six years after Israeli independence, most of the land is still waiting for its people. There is room for millions, for innumerable flocks and plantings, for a paradise on earth.

Exploring a new neighborhood of trailers (the Israelis euphemistically call them “caravans”) housing refugees from the Gush Katif expulsion, I was invited for coffee by Ziv and Adi, a young couple with seven children, formerly from Netzarim. Having been uprooted several times before their temporary place at Ariel, their courtesy and good nature were remarkable. “We want to make a permanent community, to build with teaching and spirit and love. The most terrible pain was not to us but to Israel. We worry about what will come from this kind of break in caring about people.”

Nine people were living in a space barely suitable for four. Once employed now jobless, yet their hospitality and good nature shone out.

From Ariel we drove east to Kfar Tapuach (“Apple village”) and then, turning north on highway 60 sped through the chop shops and stalls of the Arab town of Hawara, noting the Jewish hilltop communities of Lehava and Hill 725 (meters) far above us to the west. Traveling this stretch, and many others like it, one grasps the need for those Israeli checkpoints the diplomats are always pressing Israel to close. It would be like pulling in your scouts and pickets at a battlefront for thanks to Camp David, Oslo and the Road Map, Jews live under siege in their own nation from the rockets raining out of Gaza to the terrorists operating in the heartland. A detailed map of Oslo’s partitioning of central Israel shows the mischief of that “peace accord,” Balkanizing the land into a myriad of terrorist enclaves, with narrow corridors for Jews to inhabit and pass through, — at their own risk. A long-suffering and gritty patience enables the Jews to persist and flourish but this self-restraint also postpones the inevitable reckoning with an enemy that will not be appeased. Still, the planting and re-settlement of the land continues.

Vivid Moments

In the highlands, we ranged from Yizhar and Shalhavet in the west to Itamar, Gidonim, Givat Olam (“eternal hills,” see Jacob’s blessing to his sons, Genesis 49:26), and the outpost hills 830 and 777 to the east toward the foothills falling to the Jordan Valley. Around the vineyards and orchards the earth was covered with thyme, purple phlox, rosemary, and pale green grasses. In the breeze, with the vista of rugged hills angling together in innumerable lines, the fragrance, stillness and beauty were startling. Gazelles paused and then bounded across the far edges of the fields.

High in Itamar, despite its Alpine views and sweet people, the reality of being at the frontline of global jihad and great power games was brought home by Mike who trains dogs for community self-defense. “A dog shifts the element of surprise from the terrorist to the community patrol” he explained, then added words Americans should take to heart: “we’re in an impossible situation. You can’t win a war by defense.”

On a nearby hilltop we saw a young man in an orange tee shirt building with his bare hands a stone house that he and his fiance’ would dwell in after their marriage. Looking up from yellow wild flowers one sees, miles to the southeast amazing clumps of red, plum-colored, chalky limestone and black basalt crags overlooking the Jordan Valley and beyond that the densely packed red and gray mountains of Moab. In Yizhar we talked with Ariel who’s adding two thousand more vines to his existing 4000, grafting chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon shoots onto the hardy stock that flourish in the local soils. His wife, tall, with a long black skirt, checked shirt and two small children frisking around her smiled and invited us into their wine cellar featuring dozens of barrels of the local best. Amid the stillness of the scenic beauty and fresh air there was an easy going and serene friendliness that recalled the promise if not the reality of the late 1960s. Here in the Jewish towns, vineyards, farms and orchards of Samaria are the true beautiful people so much sought since those times: balanced, simple, quietly glad. They know who they are; they know what they are doing and that what they’re doing is right. They live free, simply and with faith. They have a lot to offer the world though they would never say so and probably don’t think about it…

In Bracha, 890 meters above sea level (more than 4000 feet above the Jordan Valley) I spoke with Eretz, a cheerful young vintner who studied his craft in the coastal city of Netanya. Admiring his skill and energy I asked, Why don’t you move to France or California where you could live easily and make lots of money? Why deal with the threat of terror attacks, expulsion and loss of your livelihood?

I stay here because of the holiness of the land. I don’t need to go to Italy or America to make a lot of money. Asked again about the uncertainties he just smiled and said, We will stay.

Bracha also overlooks the city of Shechem (mainstream media bury its real name and history by using the Arab Nablus, a corrupt pronunciation of the Greco-Roman town, Neapolis built over the ruins of the original Hebrew settlement where Joseph and Joshua are buried). Since the Oslo deal, Jews have not been able to live, visit, or even pray there except with occasional army escorts. On one of the peaks of Bracha, a 15′ x 20′ concrete shelter covered loosely with camouflage is home for a squad of paratroops, one of several that keep the city, a major center of terrorist activity under constant surveillance. The destroyed tomb of Joseph and the ruins of the yeshiva there are among many testaments to the fate of holy places when Islam takes authority.

North of Shechem is Mt. Ebal, where the Israelites built the first altar when they entered the land (Joshua 8:30-5; 24). I had a constant view of the site when I stayed in Elon Moreh (see Genesis 12:7) for the holy day of Shavuot (Pentecost). The altar has been excavated, identified and dated by archaeologist Adam Zartal of Haifa University. His book, The Birth of a Nation discussing the finds is in Hebrew but a web site in English (http://ebal.haifa.ac.il/) gives abundant and intriguing details that highlights one of the great ironies of our time: as evidence of the historicity of the Hebrew Scriptures accumulates the nations increase their efforts to blot out the history and Jewish identity of Israel. It recalls those lines from Orwell’s 1984: The past was erased. The erasure was forgotten. The lie became truth.

One of the main tools by which the powers pursue this dirty job is through ISM (the International Solidarity Movement) and other Euro-funded leftists who infest the hills and incite local Arabs to harass, rob, and physically attack Jews, their farms and flocks. Every Jewish settlement we visited, from Elon Moreh to Esh Kodesh and Hebron had stories to tell of invasions and incitement by leftists, — and of the close ties of the provocateurs with the anti-Jewish Israeli judicial system. The apparent alignment of hostile aliens and the judicial establishment is not unique to America but part of the fissionable aspects of our times.

Esh Kodesh a community of about 20 Jews on a verdant hilltop overlooking green valleys and ridges about three miles east of Shiloh (where the tabernacle was set up in the days of the Judges) is a supremely beautiful place of work and dedication. The Jews living there in trailers with a one-room post and beam synagogue are holding the land by shepherding. They, too, are targeted by Peace Now and the ISM whose main donors are Britain, Norway and Finland. If one wants to see the frontline of the war against religion and the past, go to Israel.

Voices of the Refugees

One of the major stories of recent years is how thoroughly the official media and silk hats obscured and misrepresented the facts of the Israeli Disengagement from Gaza: the deportation of nearly 10,000 Jews, the total destruction of their homes and communities, and their dispersal throughout Israel. There is of course no disengagement, neither from the Arabs who continue to live, work, attempt and commit terror attacks in Israel, nor from their rockets shot from the site of ruined Jewish towns into Israel’s pre-1967 borders. The story here is the unheard voices of these uprooted people and their consistent message: we’re going to stay together as a community. With this affirmation comes commitment to bonds between the generations, to a national identity, memory and mission, qualities with which modern culture is at odds.

I hope my nation will return to Gush Katif, not for my home but for Hebron, Shechem, and all our land. Every generation has its task and we are going to build more, said one of them. I will not give up the task. This generation or the next will come back.

We believe that people will come back by example, by our energy and without anger, by faith. We don’t think in terms of the per cent of our chances of success but about making a lasting impression through good deeds and active faith. The main reality is that the Jewish people have returned to the land of Israel. We have a long road but the promise of Scripture is being fulfilled, says Sarah who was from Atzmona and now lives in a camp in Yevul. The goal is to build a holy nation and to live in it. We want a long-term and lasting success…

In America we hear a lot about community usually from people of a certain political persuasion. But in Israel one finds people who give their heart, soul, and lives to building and maintaining communities under the most materially and morally difficult circumstances. The camps are like construction sites with exposed and leaky pipes, packed dumpsters, and everywhere, wheeled plastic bins packed with belongings. In the fields of kibbutz Yad Mordechai near what used to be the Jewish town of Alei Sinai, people have remained in a tent city by a highway rat