"I fear that [extreme left-wing Israeli author] David Grossman won't like this story," writes Arutz-7's Haggai Segal in this week's edition of B'Sheva, "but it's true to life. One day, about 15 years ago, a letter from a Catholic country was placed in my mailbox. A 12-year-old girl named Gila wrote to me in good English that she is following 'with concern' the stormy events in our region. She had recently encountered Grossman's book 'The Yellow Wind' – the preparatory document of the first Arab intifada – and could barely get over her sorrow and frustration. Grossman tried to convince his readers that the Jewish settlers were the bad guys in the Judea and Samaria story, but she actually felt that the opposite was true – and decided to make contact with them. I was mentioned briefly in the book, not necessarily complimentarily [Segal was a member of the first Jewish 'underground,' in the 1980's – ed.], and so she turned to me.
"I sent her a letter in reply, including – at her request – a photo of the community of Shilo. Gila then thanked me in return mail, and for a while we continued sending letters on and off, until I tired. After all, as a writer, my audience was more focused on Hebrew-speakers than on Catholic girls from abroad, no matter how much she loved Israel and settlers – which she did.
"But Gila didn't get tired. A month ago, I suddenly received a call from her, and she told me that she now lives in a Yesha community near Jerusalem, and that she is in the midst of an Orthodox conversion to Judaism. She still doesn't know Hebrew, but she is most optimistic, and is more convinced than ever that the settlers are right. She is careful about daily prayers and eating only Kosher, is modestly dressed like a young observant Jewish woman, and gratefully remembers Grossman. After all, he placed several tiles along her path from Rome to Jerusalem."
"I sent her a letter in reply, including – at her request – a photo of the community of Shilo. Gila then thanked me in return mail, and for a while we continued sending letters on and off, until I tired. After all, as a writer, my audience was more focused on Hebrew-speakers than on Catholic girls from abroad, no matter how much she loved Israel and settlers – which she did.
"But Gila didn't get tired. A month ago, I suddenly received a call from her, and she told me that she now lives in a Yesha community near Jerusalem, and that she is in the midst of an Orthodox conversion to Judaism. She still doesn't know Hebrew, but she is most optimistic, and is more convinced than ever that the settlers are right. She is careful about daily prayers and eating only Kosher, is modestly dressed like a young observant Jewish woman, and gratefully remembers Grossman. After all, he placed several tiles along her path from Rome to Jerusalem."