Residents living there say the neglect from the Israeli government has gotten so bad that they've had to take matters into their own hands to prevent Arab's from continuing construction and poaching of their city's property and placing their persons and homes in grave risk of mortal attack as the Arab homes literally spread out to the property lines of Efrat's residents.
Incidentally, one home was even shot by a sniper with M-16 bullets (military grade) more than 10 times at 11pm while the family was getting ready to sleep. I'm new here, but it's worth noting that most people who I speak with haven't heard anything about this, which is a whole other discussion about a broken media in Israel, perhaps we'll save that for another time.
This ongoing real estate war has understandably and dramatically changed the temperature of the residents in the Gush Etzion Bloc. I recently spoke to a young man who said his great uncle was the one who purchased the land from the Arabs before the founding of the Jewish state and he gave the land to the government. Ironically, I met him while I was filming the new community, Derech Emunah, practicing civil disobedience recently in trying to build on a hilltop sandwiched by two other Jewish communities. Like many other donors of my grandfather's generation I can't imagine what this man's uncle would say today if they saw the real estate situation throughout Israel today. My friends in real estate say that some 85% of Israeli land is still held "unreleased" by the government and they always seem to release this land too slowly.
It's worth noting that during a real estate crisis in an inflationary era, developers are forced to build upwards and not outwards in order to cover land costs. This drives the price of a dunam through the roof and makes owning a house on a plot of land literally an impossibility for the overwhelming majority of Israelis who have not seen anything close to a pay increase to meet the increased taxes and currency challenges.
And what about the offspring of the family who purchased Gush Etzion? Can you imagine being the great (great?) nephew of the couple who donated Gush Etzion and finding yourself trying to live in a shack on that same land.... only to be removed by the government of the one Jewish state?
Which philanthropists most greatly represent the future of a Jewish state? What message is today's government sending to such philanthropists? Will they find more success helping the Jewish people by investing in for profit or NGO entities? Has the trust between the generations, dor lador, and its government been irreparably broken?
This mismanagement has created the perfect storm where too many residents are quickly coming to their breaking point, pun not intended. As skyrocket rents everywhere are forcing families to relocate to less expensive cities, it is their uprooted children who will suffer the most. Yes, children are being uprooted to less expensive cities and even to the U.S. (I'm not sure why they think it will be any easier in the U.S. but we can't ignore the desperation).
Again, at first glance I would assume the motivating factors of civil disobedience to start a new community without governmental permission includes security threats, aggressive Arab construction towards established Jewish communities with an explicit intent to poach land, a declaration of intent to declare a Palestinian Arab State, a spiking cost of living and decreasing utility of currency, a terrible shortage of housing options on either side of the "green" line, and a government whose courts have upheld anti-Jewish laws from the Ottoman era enabling Arabs to poach land from the government but not affording Jews the same exceptions.
Here, I have documented a group of haredim ascending a hilltop to found a new community, Derech Emunah, between Metzad, Pnei Kedem and Malei Amos which is actually a very logical place to build new housing during a real estate crisis and Arab real estate aggression. The evening was an extraordinary act of civil disobedience in a very peaceful way with a stated desire to build a Torah observant community to serve Hashem and not politically motivated. I was surprised to hear from participants over and over and over again that this had nothing, I repeat, nothing to do with politics and was only an effort to live on the Holy ground in the Land of Israel, bring more Hashem into the world, and build another holy community of bnei Torah raising children, doing mitzvot and learning Torah.
Forty-eight hours after a most beautiful sunrise minyan the army came and destroyed. Although the army was mostly peaceful, there was footage of one soldier choking a peaceful protester. Perhaps something happened to the choke hold soldier off camera? There were videos of dozens of Arab workers being brought in to destroy their new "homes" on the hill. The footage was from a cell phone whose owner kept repeating, "They send out the Jews and bring in the Arabs." Of course, the Arabs were there to demolish the homes under the guidance of the IDF and most of the soldiers there were not aggressive, were sweet and felt bad about what both sides knew would need to happen and was expected. Nonetheless, I'm sure that it was emotionally painful to watch their efforts dismantled in such a way on Gush Etzion land.
I chose not to include the images in the end of the video because I wanted to encapsulate that night time ascent, building and breathtaking sunrise minyan in the midbar of the Judean Hills without the images of the self humiliating Jewish soldiers facilitating the attempted destruction of a community seeking to live peacefully in the land of their forefathers and foremothers and all those who struggled there, even today. Somehow, the video preserves that moment in time without such indignities.
The group of families and friends had ascended a new hilltop in the Judean Hills to live a life of holiness and serve Hashem. They have resolved to return and rebuild what the army seems to be set on destroying time and time again. The Efrat residents claim the Arab's illegally building houses right up against their properties on both Area C and Efrat municipality land and the Army is slow to respond if at all. The legalization of illegal construction has become the normal course of "business" putting the public at risk in more ways than one.
Perhaps the government can save taxpayer funds, fast track an "emergency declaration" permit for these people to allow them to begin safe and permitted construction on the hill top between three already permitted and established Jewish communities in what is shaping up to be an increasingly rough neighborhood and allow the soldiers spend their time more productively defending Israelis from attac
Gush Etzion's Derech Emunah is an attempt to add to Kavod Shamayim, but also a way to survive..
J.P. Katz is a video journalist at www.tribejournal.org, a freelance group that tells the untold stories in Israel and who believes that in order to understand the macro we need to better understand the micro.
