Why can't Jews buy homes in Hebron?

A people with no past, or a people that refuses to recognize its past, has no future.
Many events, despite their joy and festivity, may also have bittersweet shadows lurking behind them.

It is customary at every Jewish wedding, that under the huppa, or wedding canopy, the groom recites the words from Psalms 137:5-6: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not; if I set not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy." In some traditions the groom also places ashes on his forehead, recalling the destruction of the second Temple, and breaks a glass as an expression of loss. Even on the happiest of occasions, we recall the depths of sorrow at the loss of our most significant national enterprises, Jerusalem and the Temple.

ON THURSDAY night I attended a wedding. The daughter of one of Hebron's leaders was married in Jerusalem. As is wont at such weddings, the groom rubbed two sets of ashes on his forehead: ashes discovered in the Old City of Jerusalem, from the fire 2,000 years ago which destroyed the city, and also dust from Gush Katif, razed and obliterated almost three years ago, this summer.

However, this past Thursday night had a particularly poignant significance. The groom was a graduate of Mercaz HaRav High School. He knew many of the young men killed there by an Arab terrorist just a few weeks ago. The night of his marriage was also the "shloshim" - the 30th day following the murders. That night there was also a large memorial service at the yeshiva in memory of the young victims.

So, when the groom recited the words, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem," all the people in attendance were remembering not only the Temple from two millennium ago, but the deaths of those eight students, only a short time ago.

This is, perhaps, the story of Judaism: a combination of sadness and happiness, mixed together, making for the Jewish people.

SOME EVENTS can be understood; others are difficult to fathom. We are currently celebrating the first anniversary of the conclusion of the purchase of Beit HaShalom in Hebron. Exactly a year ago attorneys gave us the green light, and in we went. This huge, 3,500 square meter structure, strategically located on the road between Hebron and Kiryat Arba, was the first property purchased outside of the borders of the original Jewish neighborhoods. The roof of the building serves as a lookout, with a view of Kiryat Arba to the east and the Hebron Hills to the south. It is an amazing sight; on the one hand, exceedingly beautiful, and on the other hand, a bona fide security asset.

Israel is on the verge of a 60th birthday. Since the birth of the state in 1948, despite all the problems encountered, Israel has made tremendous achievements. Who could have expected that a people being shoveled into ovens only a few years before, with over six million of their brethren exterminated, could overcome all odds and bring an ancient nation back to life, a feat unequaled by any other culture or nationality in the history of the world. It certainly does deserve to be celebrated.

However I cannot but sense that this celebration is somewhat bittersweet with the case in point an excellent example, a microcosm of issues continually encountered.

The Jews came back home to Israel; but to what kind of an Israel? Of course growth and development are measures of success. But do we remember where we've come from? Do we take into account the triumphs upon which modern Israel was born? Do we recall the bedrock which serves as the justification for the rebirth of our people in our homeland?

HEBRON WAS the first Jewish city in the land of Israel, home to our patriarchs and matriarchs. The Cave of Machpela is our people's second holiest site, after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It was off-limits to Jews for 700 years, until Hebron came under Israeli control in the 1967 Six-Day War. As we celebrate 60 years of independence, so too we observe 40 years since the return of Jewish residency in Hebron during Passover of 1968.

Yet when Jews legally purchase a building in Hebron, 60 years after the rebirth of our statehood, such a transaction is automatically shrouded in controversy. So much so that the families in the building were prevented from installing glass windows throughout a snowy and rainy winter. At present they still may not install plastic shades on the windows, nor may they hook up the building to the city's central electric services. This is not due to any question of the legality of the purchase, but rather to a fundamental question: Can Jews continue to live, grow and develop freely in Hebron?

How can we, as a people, justify our existence in Tel Aviv or Haifa, if we do not recognize the validity of our presence in Hebron? If we cannot accept and respect the very pillars upon which our statehood lies, a peek into a crystal ball of the days and years to come looks dismal and bleak. A people with no past, or a people that refuses to recognize its past, has no future.

A Jewish purchase of a building such as Beit HaShalom in Hebron should not be viewed as "problematic." Instead it should be cheered on as a positive step in the renewal of Israel's oldest city.

The time has come for Jews throughout Israel and around the world to declare their allegiance to Hebron.

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This Op-Ed piece was published this week in the Jerusalem Post.

THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 8, 2008
[http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1207649965547&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull]

The Gabbai

Yaamod, 57200148! ... Shloimele Shloimele! Is it really you?"
The gabbai's eyes moved rapidly across the familiar faces of the men packed
into shul on this sunny Shabbos morning.

Shloime Kaufman, the gabbai, had been going through this routine for the
past twenty years, looking out over the congregation and at his many friends
and neighbors a world of warm-hearted people with whom he shared his life.
Choosing a few each week for aliyos was a job that came with its
difficulties, but it also gave him the weekly opportunity to count these
blessings. This secure, contented world in which he found himself was all
the more precious because, by any law of logic or probability, it should
never have come into existence.

The world Mr. Kaufman had known as a child and young man in Poland had been
erased. It had collapsed all around him, snuffing out the lives of his loved
ones. At the time, he had thought that surely the few survivors who managed
to emerge from the rubble alive would be left with nothing no yeshivos, no
shuls, no gedolim to guide them. And yet, here he was, the grandfather of a
beautiful, Torah-observant family, the gabbai of a thriving shul, surrounded
by friends and family. Better to relish the miracle of the present than
think too much about the searing pain of the past.

Mr. Kaufman scanned the rows of men as the Torah was removed from the ark.
His eyes rested upon an unfamiliar face, a man about his own age with a
short grey beard. He hadn't seen him in shul before. He surmised that he
must be a guest. But there was something very familiar about this face.

Suddenly, the man's features and expression jarred loose a powerful flash of
recognition in Mr. Kaufman's mind. It was Menachem Reiner, his closest
childhood friend. It was Menachem, the boy with whom he had grown up in
their small Polish shtetl, with whom he had attended yeshivah in Bialystock.
It was Menachem, the young man to whom he had clung, and who had clung to
him, as they began their cattle-car journey into the fearsome blackness of
Auschwitz . They had promised each other to stick together, they had given
each other courage and hope. Bearing the numbers the Nazis had tattooed on
their arms, they had found in each other the strength to hold onto their
humanity and resist becoming only numbers. They had vowed to help each other
survive, both in body and soul.

And they did survive, Boruch Hashem. But when the war ended, each went his
own way, eager to begin anew. For sanity's sake, they each tucked the past
away into a deep, locked box that would be opened only on rare occasions.
Menachem had settled in Israel , and Shloime Kaufman had obtained a visa for
America .

Consumed with creating a future and healing the wounds of the past, they had
lost touch with each other. That was forty-two years ago. Now, with
unbelieving eyes and trembling hands, Mr. Kaufman beheld the unmistakable
face of his friend once again. Shlomie decided in his mind: Menachem Reiner
would get the sixth aliyah.

As the Torah reading began, the gabbai felt as if his heart could not be
contained in his chest. He wanted to leap across the rows of men and fall
upon his friend in a mighty embrace. "This must be how Yosef felt when he
finally saw his brother Binyamin," he thought to himself. "All these years!"
Nevertheless, he clamped a tight lid on his emotions and performed his duty,
calling up each aliyah with the traditional chant of "Ya'amod" followed by
the honoree's Hebrew name. By the fifth aliyah, however, beads of sweat were
sparkling on his forehead and tears were welling up in his eyes. He prayed
that when the time came to call up number six, his voice would be able to
break free of his tight throat.

There was no need to ask Menachem his name because he could never forget
Menachem ben Yehoshua. For the first time, he began to wonder how would
Menachem react when they came face to face? It was time to call him up, but
Mr. Kaufman could not open his mouth. There were no words fit for this
moment. All the suffering locked away in that figurative box was now out in
the open, laid out before his eyes, and it was too much to bear.

The congregation began murmuring and looking toward Mr. Kaufman, fearing
that the pale, trembling man was becoming ill. A deep cry rose up inside the
gabbai a cry to Hashem that contained in its broken sound all of His
children's cries of anguish. Mr. Kaufman turned in the direction of his
friend and at last found his voice. "Yaamod, 57200148!" he called.

The baffled men in the shul did not understand what had happened. What was
this number? What had become of Mr. Kaufman? But in the back of the room,
one man understood completely. The number was Menachem's number, tattooed on
his arm as a lifetime reminder of the darkest period of Jewish history, the
epic tragedy of his people which he had witnessed with his own eyes.

The entire shul sat in stony silence as Menachem moved slowly toward the
bimah. Finally, as they saw him approaching his long-lost brother, they
understood the scene that was unfolding in front of them. Menachem needed no
introduction. With tears coursing down his face, he cried out, "Shloimele!
Shloimele! Is it really you?" "Yes, Menachem, it's really me!" Mr. Kaufman
answered, embracing his friend. They wept into each other's shoulders,
rocking gently. "Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay," Mr. Kaufman breathed. Words were
powerless to carry his chaotic emotions.

The entire shul sat spellbound, witnessing a moment that could have melted a
heart made of iron. As these two men stood together, living witnesses to the
Jewish people's miraculous survival, it seemed that the Heavens had opened
up to declare, through them, that Hashem would never forsake His people. Am
Yisrael Chai! The Jewish nation is alive, and Torah has been rebuilt in
America .

The Holocaust survivors who came to America planted the seeds, and it is up
to us to reap the fruits of their labor and continue their legacy. (From,
Stories for the Jewish Heart - Book 2 R. Binyomin Pruzansky)
(Thanks to Jack L. for emailing me this)

Little terrorists-in-training

You can imagine what went through the father's head: Yes, or No - Clobber him, or, Don't do it.
You may have seen the report from Hebron, a couple of days ago about an Arab youth who stole a woman's hat, across from Ma'arat HaMachpela. A you may, or may not know, many religiously observant Jewish women keep their heads covered, as regulated by Jewish law. An Arab on a bicycle flew by her, grabbed the hat on her head, and kept going.

A small group of Hebron residents arrived at the scene and demanded that the police and soldiers close Arab stores across from the Ma'ara, where the crime had occurred. "If you close their stores because of this, they (the shop owners) will bring you the culprit themselves!"

To no avail. Border police lined up in front of the stores to protect the Arabs.

Later that day the Arab was discovered, apprehended, taken to the police station and then released.

So much for him.

At about seven in the evening a scuffle broke out between some Arab youth outside Beit HaShalom, and some of the Jewish kids living there. One of the Arabs punched a little boy in the face and stole his bicycle. When the police arrived they asked for a description of the attacker. "Sounds familiar," they commented. They made their way to the home of the same youth who had stolen the woman's hat in the morning, and there they discovered the bicycle. The attacker was the one and the same Arab who had taken the hat hours earlier.

A little while later, the Hebron boy who'd had his bicycle stolen, and his father, were at the police station. As they were leaving they saw the Arab who'd attacked the boy sitting alone in the waiting room. You can imagine what went through the father's head: Yes, or No - Clobber him, or, Don't do it.

In the end, he didn't. His son went over and stuck his tongue out. And they left.

As they exited the police station, they heard gasps and screams coming from inside. Quickly police ran out and grabbed the Hebron boy's father.

"What did you do to him," they screamed.

"What are you talking about?"

"Can't you hear him? He's rolling on the floor in pain. What did you do?!?:"

The police pulled him inside and began interrogating him. Again and again, 'what did you do."

Finally he answered: 'my son went over and stuck his tongue out at him. Maybe he kicked him. That's all. Nothing else."

The police officer looked at him and said: "OK - if that's your story, let's check it out. There are cameras in the waiting room. Let's see what we have on film."

So, they all sat down together to view the Hebron night out at the movies, in the police station. And to their great surprise, and also chagrin, they discovered that it was as he'd said. He hadn't done anything to the Arab who'd punched his son.

It seems that the little terrorist-in-training has good teachers.

Purim in Hebron

If one picture is worth a thousand words.....

Enjoy!

A Week After

Yesterday I spent some time with a close friend of mine, whose brother is also my son-in-law. He is a Rabbi at the Yeshivat Mercaz High School. He knew all the kids who were killed last week, a week ago tonight. When I received the news on my beeper last week I immediately called him, knowing that he was in the middle of giving a class in Kiryat Arba. It took him a couple of hours to locate all the students in his class. He didn’t want to know that they were ok. He wanted to hear their voices.

He told me an amazing story that makes your hair stand on end. One of the young men killed had been sitting in the library, studying with a friend. Suddenly he said, “let’s learn something else.” They closed their books and started a new subject: They began investigating and studying the afterlife – ‘olam haba’ – the world to come, Gan Eden – the Garden of Eden, and the other side – Gehennom – Hell.

An hour and a half later he was dead, one of eight, shot in cold blood.

One of the boys was shot in the shoulder and lying on the floor, played dead. But the terrorist, wanting to be sure that all were killed, went back and shot them all again, and again, and again. This boy, pretending he was dead, was shot numerous times in the stomach. When found, he still had a faint heartbeat. In the ambulance, on the way to Hadassah hospital, the paramedic told the driver, ‘it’s too far away – get to a closer hospital, Sharei Tzeddek. Otherwise he won’t make it.’ By the time they arrived he had no heartbeat. The doctors in the trauma room started pouring blood into him, and he came back from the other side, he lived. His injuries were considered ‘anush’ – almost no chance to survive. But he did. It will take a lot of time until he -recovers, but he lived.
Thank G-d.
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Earlier this week I wrote an article called “Three Cheers for Mercaz HaRav.” As you read it, pay special attention to the last paragraph, an abbreviated translation of the words of Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook, whose thoughts are as fitting today as they were over 60 years ago.
Tonight, as thousands and thousands around the world are marking the ‘shiva’ – the end of the week since the murders, I’m posting it here for you to read. I have no doubt that the eight neshamot – the eight souls of those holy Torah students, are praying - no not only praying, but beseeching the L-rd, from their place on high, to put an end to all suffering and to bring a full and complete redemption bimheira b’yamenu, Amen.
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Three Cheers for Mercaz HaRav

This morning I must admit: I did something I'm not wont to do. I read an article called 'Heads to the right,' penned by Gideon Levy in Haaretz newspaper. Even stranger, I actually agreed with some of what he wrote. Not everything, of course, but bits and pieces.

For example, the 2nd paragraph: Mercaz Harav is the flagship of the last group in Israeli society still operating in the realm of ideas. Religious Zionists are the only group, aside from the ultra-Orthodox population, whose members are willing to lay down their lives for the collective and its worldview. Right on!

And he goes on to say: …without the Gush Emunim movement, supported by successive Israeli governments, there would be no settlements; and without the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, there would be no Gush Emunim. This institution, then, was the cradle of the settlement enterprise and its driving force. Right again!

But of course, it can't all be good. These last lines are prefaced with: Nor can anyone ignore the damage it has caused the country. Without the settlement enterprise, peace might have reigned here already… Oops.

And then, some of the lines are mixed: From Mercaz Harav emerged the rabbis that led the vilest move in Zionist history. Most of the delusional right-wing perpetrators and the mongers of hate for Arabs came from this flagship. Religious leaders such as Rabbis Moshe Levinger, Haim Druckman, Avraham Shapira, Yaakov Ariel, Zefania Drori, Shlomo Aviner and Dov Lior, all idolized by their students, raised generations of nationalist youths within those walls.

All of these lines can be analyzed, but the first words are really what interest me: Mercaz Harav is the flagship of the last group in Israeli society still operating in the realm of ideas.

Ah, those lofty ideals, which are today so blasphemed. So old-fashioned. Like these quotes:
It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical… In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll be able to realize them! The Diary of a Young Girl, eds. Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler, p. 332

One needs something to believe in, something for which one can have whole-hearted enthusiasm. One needs to feel that one's life has meaning, that one is needed in this world. Hannah Senesh [http://www.wisdomquotes.com/001779.html]

I also seem to remember, even though I cannot presently find the source, that either the poetess Rachel or Hannah Senesh asked, 'what will happen to us, here in Israel, after we've achieved our present goals. What will happen to our ideals then?'

But for many, such ideals have lost their taste. Today their lives are based upon secular materialism, hedonism and money. And let's not forget peace. Even at the cost of survival.
The Rabbinic leadership and student body of Mercaz HaRav must be lauded and applauded. For at least three different things:

As we say – Sur me'ra v'aseh tov – first veer from evil and then, do good!

Sur me'ra – Veer from Evil:
Yesterday the so-called education minister, Yuli Tamir visited the yeshiva. When leaving she was verbally attacked by people there. Bravo. She deserved everything said to her, including 'murderer.' As 'education minister' Tamir has allowed 'nakba' (the Arab word for catastrophe, which they use to describe the 1948 War of Independence), to be taught in Israeli schools as a legitimate part of the curriculum. This is nothing less than incitement, inciting Arabs against Jews and the state of Israel. Such incitement can only lead to bloodshed. Jewish blood being shed.

Yuli Tamir, one of the founders of Shalom Achshav, (Peace Now), is the antithesis of everything Mercaz HaRav has ever stood for. Thank G-d she was chased away.

Sur me'ra number two: The yeshiva refused to allow Olmert to visit and pay his respects or condolences. This too is an act to be praised.

Olmert was one of the initiators of the expulsion from Gush Katif. He has publicly declared his willingness to expel tens and hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes in Judea and Samaria, while abandoning our land to our enemies, allowing them to continue attacking our civilian population.

Despite continuing attacks on Israelis, Olmert stubbornly insists on continuing negotiations with the enemy, in an attempt to rid ourselves of our land. He plans on holding negotiations even during the week of the 'shiva' – the seven days of mourning for the yeshiva's murdered eight young students. He is ready to abandon Hebron and divide Jerusalem, leaving the holiest sites in the world in the hands of our enemy.

How could Mercaz HaRav allow such a defiled person to walk in its holy midst, who, while offering 'condolences' is preparing the ground for more Israelis to be killed?

And now, Aseh tov – Do Good: This morning, when speaking on Israel radio, Rabbi Haim Steiner, when asked why the Yeshiva was politicizing the death and mourning of its students, (referring to the decision to refuse Olmert's visit), he answered, 'this is not politics. We are people of Torah and 'yirat-shamayim' (G-d fearing.) In other words, there are issues which transcend such mundane subjects as politics. There is G-d. There is Torah. Those who study Torah, the word of G-d, those who fear and revere G-d, those who make ideas and ideals a way of life, have the ability to discern who and what surround them. Eretz Yisrael is transformed from earth to a spiritual value, far exceeding the obscure standards of life significant to the Levys, Tamirs, and Olmerts of this world. Refusing to shake hands with Olmert is not politics – it is Torah!!!

This is why it was so important to make these points clear, from the very center of religious Zionism, Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav, during one of its most difficult moments.

Da'at Torah – the way of Torah, is not weak and lackadaisical. Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook zt'l, son of Israel's first Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, and leader of Mercaz HaRav and the return to Yehuda, Shomron and Gaza following the Six Day War in 1967 wrote about his trip to Yaffo in the winter of 1941, visiting the home and Torah study hall where his father had lived and where he had grown up:

…It was an awesome moment. I was filled and spiritually uplifted by the energy binding me during my stay at the Talmud Torah…and afterwards (I went) again to the study hall "Ohr Zoreach" which had been shelled and destroyed and ruined by the British, may their names be blotted out…and I forced myself to walk back and forth, with the many sacred memories of my childhood and later years…filled with the anger of G-d and I felt empty there, at this terrible time at this terrible place, with the deepest of thoughts and sharpest expressions and speech, from myself and from holy verses, of the abundance of curses and vengeance which should occur soon on the heads of the wicked, on the rulers of malice and its perpetrators, which G-d the redeemer will bring about and judge them as they've done to us, as they have destroyed and ruined here, so too swiftly will it be to their palaces and halls…" (Ohr l'Netivoti, 315-316)
Amen, may it be His Will, speedily in our days.