(IsraelNN.com) Wedding and Town Meeting
The Shomron Regional Council, headed by Mayor Gershon Mesika, held a largely-symbolic town meeting on the site of the former Jewish town of Homesh on Tuesday - just before a wedding ceremony was celebrated there.

Bride Shunamit Kirschenbaum of Hashmonaim and her groom Assaf Wohlberg of Bnei Brak first met each other just over three summers ago when Homesh was still a flowering community in the Samarian hills.  They were both there to take part in the protests against the government's plans to destroy the town in the framework of the unilateral expulsion/withdrawal known as the Disengagement. Three other nearby communities - Ganim, Kadim and Sa-Nur - and 21 Jewish towns in Gush Katif, Gaza, were also targeted by the plan.

Shunamit's and Assaf's protests did not ultimately succeed, as the towns were destroyed and the residents expelled - but their meeting was blessed in other respects.  The two became engaged, and held their wedding on the very hilltop whose Jewish growth they wished to encourage. 
Shunamit's and Assaf's protests did not ultimately succeed, but their meeting was blessed in other respects.

Special permission was received from the army for the celebrants and their 400 guests to arrive.  Though much equipment was required and brought to the site, the actual wedding feast was held in the nearby Shomron city of Ariel.

Shomron Regional Council spokesman David HaIvri explained, "Unlike Gush Katif, the area here remains under Israeli control - but the government still forbids Jews to come here.  This does not mean very much in practice, as members of the Homesh First organization detour the roadblocks every day and come to study Torah here, and to perform guard duty at night.  But holding a wedding here required official permission, which Mayor Mesika asked for and received.  Eight busloads of guests, as well as 20 other cars, arrived, and it was truly a joyous occasion."

The wedding was preceded by the council meeting, headed by Mayor Mesika.  The highlight, HaIvri said, was "the participation of former Shomron Council member Benny Shalom, a veteran resident of Homesh and its representative for many years on the Council. Mayor Mesika proposed that he be reinstated on the council, even though Homesh has not yet been rebuilt, and the other members unanimously agreed."

"The council members spoke of the total illogic in the destruction of Homesh three years ago," HaIvri said, "and expressed their belief and confidence that we will soon return."