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      by Batya Medad
      A Unique Perspective by Batya Medad of Shiloh
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      Batya Medad made aliya from New York to Israel in 1970 and has been living in Shiloh since 1981. Recently she began organizing women's visits to Tel Shiloh for Psalms and prayers. (For more information, please email her.)  Batya is a newspaper and magazine columnist, a veteran jblogger and recently stopped EFL teaching.  She's also a wife, mother, grandmother, photographer and HolyLand hitchhiker, always seeing things from her own very unique perspective. For more of Batya's writings and photos, check out:

      Shiloh Musings

      And:

      me-ander


      Tammuz 15, 5769, 7/7/2009

      History, Past Protests


      Recently I came across some old pictures...

      Not long ago, I traveled to a wedding with Yossi and Perchiya Apter, parents of Noam, HaYa"D. We reminisced about a series of demonstrations, vigils, they organized (and I participated in) many years ago. I promised to look for a couple of pictures I had scan and send them.

      The Apters recalled that the impetus for the demonstrations, which they said lasted only six weeks, was the murder of our neighbor Rachella Druk, HaYa"D.

      Arab terrorists had opened fire on a bus load of Shiloh residents, mostly women and children, who were on their way to a demonstration in Tel Aviv, to encourage then Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir to be strong in defending Israel's needs at the Madrid Conference, October, 1991.

      The driver, Yitzchak Rofeh, and Rachella were murdered. A few children were seriously injured, including Harel Bin-Nun, HaYa"D, who after recovering from that injury was later brutally murdered by Arab terrorists when doing guard duty in Yitzhar, north of Shiloh, near Shechem.

      That attack was one of the first, if not the first, shooting attack by Arab terrorists on innocent Israeli Jewish civilians. The location was a winding mountain road, just south of Tapuach, and it was obvious that the Arabs had been hoping that the bus would tumble down the mountain murdering many more Jews. As the shooting began, young Harel, not even Bar Mitzvah (13) age, quickly ran to the front of the bus to turn the steering wheel away from the cliff.

      Rachella's murder seriously affected all of us. May her memory be a blessing.







      Tammuz 13, 5769, 7/5/2009

      Bibi, Off The Tightrope, Two Feet In The Left


      No surprise. Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister has joined the Left by adopting their
      Bibi's not leading. He's chasing the Left-Led tail
      slogan, "two states for two people." I heard it from his very mouth on the news.
      "For the first time, we brought a national agreement for the concept of two states for two peoples," he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.

      I'm not really surprised. What disappointed me was to hear faux Right Benny Begin make some double-talk excuses for him on Israel's Chanel One.

      I am glad that I didn't vote Likud!

      A weaker Likud would have been stronger for Israel in the opposition. Last year I heard Bibi say that his aim was to be "center," and I've been blogging about it ever since.

      Here's some irony for you. The Israeli media/Left wants us to think that the statement Bibi just made is what the world wants. I've been searching all the big news sites, New York Times, BBC, Fox and now CNN, and zero, nada, nothing about Bibi's cave-in. Maybe there will be something somewhere tomorrow, but if this was considered important news, it would have been posted on the news sites hours ago.

      Why haven't Likudniks like Moshe Feiglin reacted? And what about Likud MK's Erdan, Rivlin and Tzippi Hotobilli?

      Bibi's not leading. He's chasing the Left-Led tail.







      Tammuz 11, 5769, 7/3/2009

      And All I Did Was Grimace and Mutter


      Shabbat Shalom to all of you.  This article is cross-posted on Shiloh Musings.  I write there more frequently than here, and you're invited to check it out.  Thanks

      Here's my husband's report.

      We were at the United States Jerusalem Consulate's "July 4th" celebration. We've been invited for quite a few years, at least fifteen, if I'm not mistaken. In the early years, we were among the very few blatantly (in the uniform of kippah for him and hair-covering for her) Orthodox Jewish attendees. Most years there was a "kosher table," but this year it seemed even more kosher than usual. This year there just wasn't some food with a sign, there were people "guarding" the food. That's a Halachik (Jewish Law) requirement. The food was dairy and parve, which meant that those who wanted the Ben & Jerry's ice cream could have the ice cream for dessert. In previous years, they had Hagen Daz.

      I didn't grimace because of my diet. It wasn't all the traif, Israeli loony Left and Arabs which bothered me.

      I didn't like the message of the outgoing U.S. Counsel General Jake Walles. He made it very clear that he and the American Government would do everything in their power to create a sic "Palestinian" State. He went on and on and yapped and yapped and said other nonsense like that the United States was founded for freedom. Historically that isn't true. Did you ever hear about the Boston Tea Party? "No taxation without representation." The American Revolution was all about money, not freedom. The liberty/freedom stuff came later.

      If a high-ranking American State Department official can't get American History straight, do you really think he (and they) know anything about the needs, history, security etc of another country? Another part of the world?

      I was politely silent when attending their event, but now I can open my mouth and send my words out to be read.







      Tammuz 7, 5769, 6/29/2009

      Jewish Construction In YESHA


      This post consists of two articles from Shiloh Musings, which is updated daily plus.

      Let the politicians and diplomats and media yap all they want about freezing us, strangling us ad nauseum. There's building going on in our Holy Hills!
       
      Jews have been in Shiloh longer than in New York and longer before Washington DC, London, New York, New Amsterdam and old world Amsterdam.
       
      And when they're all rubble, we'll still be around!
       

      Moetzet YESHA Doesn't Represent Its Residents

      Hat tip: IMRA

      It's hard to figure out what Moetzet YESHA really is. Or more accurately, it's not very pleasant to admit it to myself. But one thing for sure, its policies don't reflect the feeling on the ground.

       Pinchas Wallerstein, its present chairman, has finally retired from his role as head of my district, Mateh Binyamin, and seems to be trying to act "political." He has some convoluted proposal which will please nobody. He, who has no authority over the sic "outposts" is willing to transfer those built on "private Arab property" on the condition that the government unfreeze the building in YESHA. Interestingly or ironically, in his own yishuv the very veteran Ofra, many of the houses, possibly even his own, are built on "private Arab property."

      Now for "broken record" time:

      You can't be a little bit pregnant.

      If you think we Jews can't live in Hebron...

      You can't be just a little bit pregnant.

      And again...

      I've said it before and I guess I have to say it again:
      If you don't recognize Jewish rights to all of Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, then you're endangering the entire country. We have more historical and moral rights to Shiloh, Hebron, Shechem and Jerusalem than we have to Tel Aviv!






      Tammuz 4, 5769, 6/26/2009

      Orange Breakdown


      Pre-Disengagement, the opposition took on the color orange as its symbol. I joined the many
      The struggle was waged so poorly, it made me wonder how seriously Moetzet YESHA wanted to win.

      The struggle was waged so poorly, it made me wonder how seriously Moetzet YESHA wanted to win.
      thousands in wearing an orange bracelet. On the bracelet you can read a slogan:

      יהודי לא מגרש יהודי
      Yehudi lo migaraish Yehudi
      A Jew Doesn't Banish/Evict Another Jew
       
      During the tense and unpleasant times before Disengagement, especially after the Bayit Yehudi, Jewish Home, leaders were arrested and Moetzet YESHA Council took over, I became totally disenchanted with the "orange" leadership. At this point, it doesn't pay to go into detail, but certainly, if they had been competent Israel would still be sovereign and Jews would be living in Gush Katif.
       
      The struggle was waged so poorly, it made me wonder how seriously Moetzet YESHA wanted to win.
       
      Regardless, just like I believe that we must support the IDF, the Israeli Army, despite its faults and we must support the State of Israel and fly its flag despite all the wrong it does, I keep an orange ribbon on my door and kept orange bracelet on my wrist.
       
      Over the years, the orange became dull, dark and dirty, and this week it finally broke and fell off.
       
       
       
      Yes, my wrist no longer proclaims/advertises my opposition to one of the most evil government decrees ever.

      The "orange leadership" never provided good leadership. Its monument is the Arab terror base where Jews once lived and thrived in Gush Katif. The DP's, evictees, are trying, despite their poverty and the apathy of the Israeli Government and most of the Jewish People, to rebuild their lives.

      There was never a mass movement for Jewish civil rights in Gush Katif, unlike the support for Jews in the Golan. That's why we're still in the Golan instead of it being a Syrian base for anti-Israeli terrorism, the way it was prior to the 1967 Six Days War.