Dear Neighbors,
I look at your faces and see that you are down-hearted. It is not easy nowadays to be a Jew in Eretz Israel, the lives of the settlers are even harder and it is hardest of all for the ?Anglo-Saxons?.
You came here from America and Britain and your greatest enemy was the bureaucracy that you encountered. This was followed by difficulties with the language, finding work, building contractors who went bankrupt? No one thought that it would be necessary to drive to work wearing a flack jacket. No one thought about funerals of children. It is heart breaking. What makes it even more difficult is that this was not something we chose ? it was forced on us. Not that we do not believe that our cause is justified ? there was a great deal of pioneering spirit and faith in the very fact that you came here. After all, for every family that came to live in Neve Aliza, there are a thousand families that thought of doing so, but decided to remain close to the fleshpots of the Diaspora. In fact, you are a very rare species, but you did not take into account the sacrifice that you are now being called upon to make. You checked off a few other items: a lower standard of living, difficulties with the language, a search for work. For all of that you were prepared, but that your lives should be in danger every day? This wasn't on your checklist. This was imposed on us and coercion produces despondency.
You are also very responsible and well-organized people. Israelis by their nature are less responsible. In Israel people are accustomed to ?Big Brother?, to the Histadrut or the Party taking care of their problems. There in America everything lies in your own hands and life is very well planned. This sense of order ? internal discipline ? is an advantage in normal times, but in the current situation it makes things even more difficult. You are not used to living from hand to mouth. This isn't your style to go to bed without knowing what will happen tomorrow, to arrive home happy that no one fired at you on the way. You are not used to this lack of advanced planning ? to this lack of ability to plan. This also apparently contributes to the feeling of despondency.
There's another problem. You weren't here when we won wars. Since you arrived we've only lost them. This is not just your problem, but that of everyone who was born here after the Six Day War. This is a problem that currently faces Israeli youth, who have never experienced a victory. In other words, there is a lack of a kind of mountain peak that we once climbed and this makes it hard to believe that we will return to it. This also contributes to the feeling of despondency.
When you arrived you wanted to become Israelis. Well, perhaps not too Israeli, but at least to absorb the Israeli self-confidence, to be a free nation in its own country. Now you find yourselves in a hopeless situation. You have discovered that the Israelis have a big problem ? they are less certain of what they are doing here than you. This item wasn't on your checklist either when you planned ?to make aliyah.? No one told you that instead of being supported by Israeli society, you yourselves would have to support it.
So how can I console you now ? with enthusiastic Zionist speeches? This doesn't mean much to you, nor to me. Yet everything that could have been included in such speeches, if they had been made, would have been the real truth. You didn't plan this, but the Almighty rolled this hot potato straight into your hands. I have no idea why you, why I, why our children, were chosen for this task. It even seems strange that it rolled to us, with our large houses and comfortable lives. We aren't exactly ?standard? pioneers, we didn't participate in the first attempts to establish a settlement in Sebastia in 1975 and we don't have long beards. Yet this is the way it is. This hot potato rolled towards us and apparently not by chance. It seems that the Almighty knows that we are capable of picking it up. We didn't choose this, but all of Jewish history, all the continuation of the Jewish people, falls today on a handful of settlers in Hebron, Beit-El, Har Bracha and Neve Aliza. The torch is in your hands and not in the hands of those who remained in New York and Chicago. Jewish history is now being written in Eretz Israel.
I pray that it will cease to be written in blood.
I look at you, who have suddenly found yourselves in the front line. I look at you biting your lips and continuing, and I feel a sense of pride and love at being one of you.
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Moshe Feiglin, founder and head of Manhigut Yehudit, The Jewish Leadership Movement, led the campaign of mass civil disobedience against the Oslo accords. For other articles by Moshe Feiglin, visit manhigut.org .
I look at your faces and see that you are down-hearted. It is not easy nowadays to be a Jew in Eretz Israel, the lives of the settlers are even harder and it is hardest of all for the ?Anglo-Saxons?.
You came here from America and Britain and your greatest enemy was the bureaucracy that you encountered. This was followed by difficulties with the language, finding work, building contractors who went bankrupt? No one thought that it would be necessary to drive to work wearing a flack jacket. No one thought about funerals of children. It is heart breaking. What makes it even more difficult is that this was not something we chose ? it was forced on us. Not that we do not believe that our cause is justified ? there was a great deal of pioneering spirit and faith in the very fact that you came here. After all, for every family that came to live in Neve Aliza, there are a thousand families that thought of doing so, but decided to remain close to the fleshpots of the Diaspora. In fact, you are a very rare species, but you did not take into account the sacrifice that you are now being called upon to make. You checked off a few other items: a lower standard of living, difficulties with the language, a search for work. For all of that you were prepared, but that your lives should be in danger every day? This wasn't on your checklist. This was imposed on us and coercion produces despondency.
You are also very responsible and well-organized people. Israelis by their nature are less responsible. In Israel people are accustomed to ?Big Brother?, to the Histadrut or the Party taking care of their problems. There in America everything lies in your own hands and life is very well planned. This sense of order ? internal discipline ? is an advantage in normal times, but in the current situation it makes things even more difficult. You are not used to living from hand to mouth. This isn't your style to go to bed without knowing what will happen tomorrow, to arrive home happy that no one fired at you on the way. You are not used to this lack of advanced planning ? to this lack of ability to plan. This also apparently contributes to the feeling of despondency.
There's another problem. You weren't here when we won wars. Since you arrived we've only lost them. This is not just your problem, but that of everyone who was born here after the Six Day War. This is a problem that currently faces Israeli youth, who have never experienced a victory. In other words, there is a lack of a kind of mountain peak that we once climbed and this makes it hard to believe that we will return to it. This also contributes to the feeling of despondency.
When you arrived you wanted to become Israelis. Well, perhaps not too Israeli, but at least to absorb the Israeli self-confidence, to be a free nation in its own country. Now you find yourselves in a hopeless situation. You have discovered that the Israelis have a big problem ? they are less certain of what they are doing here than you. This item wasn't on your checklist either when you planned ?to make aliyah.? No one told you that instead of being supported by Israeli society, you yourselves would have to support it.
So how can I console you now ? with enthusiastic Zionist speeches? This doesn't mean much to you, nor to me. Yet everything that could have been included in such speeches, if they had been made, would have been the real truth. You didn't plan this, but the Almighty rolled this hot potato straight into your hands. I have no idea why you, why I, why our children, were chosen for this task. It even seems strange that it rolled to us, with our large houses and comfortable lives. We aren't exactly ?standard? pioneers, we didn't participate in the first attempts to establish a settlement in Sebastia in 1975 and we don't have long beards. Yet this is the way it is. This hot potato rolled towards us and apparently not by chance. It seems that the Almighty knows that we are capable of picking it up. We didn't choose this, but all of Jewish history, all the continuation of the Jewish people, falls today on a handful of settlers in Hebron, Beit-El, Har Bracha and Neve Aliza. The torch is in your hands and not in the hands of those who remained in New York and Chicago. Jewish history is now being written in Eretz Israel.
I pray that it will cease to be written in blood.
I look at you, who have suddenly found yourselves in the front line. I look at you biting your lips and continuing, and I feel a sense of pride and love at being one of you.
----------------------------------
Moshe Feiglin, founder and head of Manhigut Yehudit, The Jewish Leadership Movement, led the campaign of mass civil disobedience against the Oslo accords. For other articles by Moshe Feiglin, visit manhigut.org .