More than four years after the expulsion from Gush Katif and northern Shomron, a concrete step is being taken towards the completion of the first permanent synagogue for the expellees. Sponsored by the World Mizrachi Movement, the final letters will be inscribed in a Torah scroll dedicated to the synagogue being built in Bnei Netzarim, a new community for the former residents of Gush Katif's Netzarim - and others - in the Halutza region.
Halutza is a desert area south of Gaza, along the Israel-Egypt border. Former Gush Katif residents have built two towns there.
Israel Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger will be on hand for the completion of the Torah scroll at the Ramada Renaissance Hotel in Jerusalem. Also participating will be Science and Technology Minister Rabbi Dr. Daniel Herskovitz (Chairman of the Jewish Home party), MK Zevulun Orlev, Jewish National Fund Chairman Avraham Duvdevani, Rabbi Yechiel Wasserman (chairman of the World Zionist Organization's Diaspora Spiritual Services department), Emunah Women Chairperson Leora Minka, rabbis of Israel, community leaders from the Diaspora, and representatives of the renewed Gush Katif communities.
The World Mizrachi movement's Canadian branch located a donor who agreed to assist in the cause of the former Gush Katif residents' rehabilitation. After a tour of the evacuatees' temporary settlements, the anonymous donor decided to double his initial pledge, and gave no less than a quarter of a million dollars. In total, Mizrachi Canada raised $ 2.5 million for the rehabilitation and construction of new settlements, including establishing a Yeshiva and schools. Among the projects was the construction of the first permanent synagogue for the former Gush Katif citizens.
The event is sponsored by U.S. Mizrachi member Sam Halperin, in memory of his brother and in honor of the people of Gush Katif. The Torah scroll was written last year by a resident of Yevul, one of the two new Gush Katif communities, commissioned by the World Mizrachi Movement. "It was important to us that it was one of the evacuees who would write the Torah scroll," explained World Mizrachi director general Solly Sacks.