The fledgling community of Mitzpeh Ilan, named for late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, will receive a new Torah scroll written in his memory at the end of the month.
Mitzpeh Ilan was originally founded as a Nachal army outpost in 2002, and later transformed into a civilian settlement in 2005. It lies in Wadi Ara just northwest of Samaria, in an area with a dense Arab population.
Although the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel protested the founding of the community and appealed against it to the Supreme Court last year, the court approved its establishment in February 2009.
The Torah scroll has a special significance because it is meant to replace the scroll that Ramon took with him into space. That scroll was the property of Israeli Professor Yehoyachim Yosef and had survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp with him. Ramon explained his decision to take the scroll by saying that it was “a symbol of the Jewish people which had left the lowest of lows and achieved the highest of highs – from the low of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to the high of outer space.”
One of the organizers of the initiative, Eliezer Shefer, explained that the event signified Jewish perseverance in other ways. “The new community is a symbol of a Jewish presence in the heart of the Arab population in Wadi Ara,” he said. “The donor of the scroll, Moshe Peretz who is the owner of a building company, lives in Sderot and never once left the city, even during the most difficult times [of rocket fire.]”
The celebration for the new scroll will take place on March 30th at Heichal Shlomo in Jerusalem in the presence of the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Ramon’s family, and several MKs. Afterwards, the Torah will be brought to its new home in the synagogue of Mitzpeh Ilan.