These spring days are days where kids are springing out of school to block roads, as part of an all-out effort to block the disengagement plan. Three of my kids, ages 16, 14, 13 (girl), have all sat close to a week in jail during this past month for blocking roads. No doubt, such delinquency will soon bring the government social worker to my door suggesting that I am an unworthy parent, and they may threaten to take my kids away. Of course, this too is part of their overall scare tactic, but that's another story...
Anyway, right now, my daughter Moriah, 13, is in jail since Sunday for blocking Highway 5. I had brought her and seven of her friends to Tapuach junction, and from there they tramped to their destination. My daughter said that they will not get arrested this time. But as I left them at the bus stop, with their orange shirts and hilltop garb, I knew that they were a roadblock waiting to happen.
I was not surprised when they were arrested, and on Monday I shlepped to court and was denied entrance, as were all the parents, because the courtroom was full of kids on trial. 35 boys and girls, all young kids. I saw my daughter through the door window, and the expression on her face said it all - she's enjoying this. The girls chant slogans, sing and incite at every opportunity in the courtroom, in the face of the judges and cops.
These kids are not like their parents, who have a built-in respect (fear?) of the judges, cops and soldiers. No. While their parents are used to giving soldiers coffee and cake, this generation was brought up scuffling with the authorities, engaging in hand to hand combat with police and IDF soldiers on the hilltops of Tapuach and Yizhar and Gilad Farm.
It is a defiance that their parents lack. In any case, it's not easy for the cops to handle these little girls between 13 and 15, at least in the closed quarters of the rowdy courtroom.
After seven hours of waiting outside the courtroom, the verdict is in: another 2 day jail term. The girls sing as if they are happy about the whole thing. Tons of girlfriends, not yet arrested, are boosters giving support outside the courtroom as well. All that is lacking is the pom-poms. They escort them on the way to the bus which will take them back to jail. Cheerleader-like chants, underground songs of the Irgun and Lechi and whistle-blowing.
I, too, escort them, so as to make contact with my daughter. As she boards the bus which will return her to jail, I try to give her a bag of clothes and snacks that her mother prepared. In her gray Rabbi Kahane shirt, she motions me to get away, because I'll blow her cover. You see, she and her friends refuse to identify themselves, and if I show I am her father, it gives her identity away, somehow.
Obviously, I am not a distraught parent over this. I'm pleased that she is occupied with this, and not with the trivial issues that concern most teenagers. I've educated them all their lives about the need for self-sacrifice for the Jewish People and the Land of Israel ? all, of course, in the comfort of our living room, or over a cholent on Shabbat. To behave as a worried Jewish mother/father now would be the most hypocritical thing of all. It would make a lie of all that I had preached. Besides, I feel guilty that I'm not doing it, so my kids might as well.
At this point, I just tell my children to check their motives, to be honest with themselves. Are they doing this for Am Yisrael, or are they doing it to be "cool", or to play hooky from school? Certainly, my boys, in the finest spirit of the hilltop culture, suffer little in jail, and couldn't care less about not showering for an entire week.
As the bus pulls out, and I hear her singing with friends, I realized that I needn't send her to summer camp this summer, she's already having one?
Anyway, right now, my daughter Moriah, 13, is in jail since Sunday for blocking Highway 5. I had brought her and seven of her friends to Tapuach junction, and from there they tramped to their destination. My daughter said that they will not get arrested this time. But as I left them at the bus stop, with their orange shirts and hilltop garb, I knew that they were a roadblock waiting to happen.
I was not surprised when they were arrested, and on Monday I shlepped to court and was denied entrance, as were all the parents, because the courtroom was full of kids on trial. 35 boys and girls, all young kids. I saw my daughter through the door window, and the expression on her face said it all - she's enjoying this. The girls chant slogans, sing and incite at every opportunity in the courtroom, in the face of the judges and cops.
These kids are not like their parents, who have a built-in respect (fear?) of the judges, cops and soldiers. No. While their parents are used to giving soldiers coffee and cake, this generation was brought up scuffling with the authorities, engaging in hand to hand combat with police and IDF soldiers on the hilltops of Tapuach and Yizhar and Gilad Farm.
It is a defiance that their parents lack. In any case, it's not easy for the cops to handle these little girls between 13 and 15, at least in the closed quarters of the rowdy courtroom.
After seven hours of waiting outside the courtroom, the verdict is in: another 2 day jail term. The girls sing as if they are happy about the whole thing. Tons of girlfriends, not yet arrested, are boosters giving support outside the courtroom as well. All that is lacking is the pom-poms. They escort them on the way to the bus which will take them back to jail. Cheerleader-like chants, underground songs of the Irgun and Lechi and whistle-blowing.
I, too, escort them, so as to make contact with my daughter. As she boards the bus which will return her to jail, I try to give her a bag of clothes and snacks that her mother prepared. In her gray Rabbi Kahane shirt, she motions me to get away, because I'll blow her cover. You see, she and her friends refuse to identify themselves, and if I show I am her father, it gives her identity away, somehow.
Obviously, I am not a distraught parent over this. I'm pleased that she is occupied with this, and not with the trivial issues that concern most teenagers. I've educated them all their lives about the need for self-sacrifice for the Jewish People and the Land of Israel ? all, of course, in the comfort of our living room, or over a cholent on Shabbat. To behave as a worried Jewish mother/father now would be the most hypocritical thing of all. It would make a lie of all that I had preached. Besides, I feel guilty that I'm not doing it, so my kids might as well.
At this point, I just tell my children to check their motives, to be honest with themselves. Are they doing this for Am Yisrael, or are they doing it to be "cool", or to play hooky from school? Certainly, my boys, in the finest spirit of the hilltop culture, suffer little in jail, and couldn't care less about not showering for an entire week.
As the bus pulls out, and I hear her singing with friends, I realized that I needn't send her to summer camp this summer, she's already having one?