1. Seven Rabbis at Bet HaShalom – Hope in the Face of Hardship
Raphael Blumberg
During the past several weeks, precisely as hundreds of bombs have been
falling on Sderot, the Western Negev – even Ashkelon, with over 100,000
residents – our Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert has been working to concoct an
agreement with President George Bush and the Palestinian Authority. That
agreement would spell destruction for communities in Eretz Yisrael comprising a
population of hundreds of thousands of Jews, and place the entire State of Israel in
existential danger.
In the meantime, as a "show of good faith," Prime Minister Olmert has placed
a building freeze on construction in Judea and Samaria, worse than any since the
White Paper of the 1930's. In 2007, Jewish populations in Judea and Samaria grew
5%, while the rest of Israel grew 1%. Yet Olmert has frozen new housing starts
precisely in those areas, even in Ma'aleh Adumim and the Jerusalem
Neighborhood of Har Choma..
To protest these developments, on Sunday, January 20, a conference was held
in "Beit HaShalom", described in articles I have translated for this column a
number of times over the past eight months. The conference, under the auspices of
"The Union of Rabbis for the Jewish People and Eretz Yisrael", had as its theme,
"We shall continue to build and to strengthen Eretz Yisrael."
Preliminary publicity said that the conference was intended for "rabbis and
educators," but many others, such as myself, clamored to attend, knowing that we
would emerge strengthened from participation.
Seven rabbis spoke at the conference, all of them revered educators with long
careers in Rabbinic leadership, first and foremost, our beloved Rabbi Dov Lior,
shelita, Chief Rabbi of Kiryat Arba-Hebron and author of the "Dvar Chevron"
Responsa. Four of the rabbis were native English speakers, and two of them,
Rabbi Yehoshua Bienenfeld and Rabbi Meir Fendel, came from long and
distinguished careers of service in the United States. The eclectic nature of the
speaker's rostrum was no accident. The message of the conference was intended
for all world Jewry.
Each rabbi combined a message of warning with words of hope and
encouragement, and each emphasized one basic point: after many years of polite
demonstrations, attended by forty, four thousand or four hundred thousand
participants, the time has come for action on the ground, establishment of
outposts, private purchase of lands and properties from the Arabs.
Several rabbis also emphasized the holiness and timeliness of such endeavors,
quoting sources from Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, Rabbi Ya'akov
Moshe Charlop, Ramban, Gemara and the Zohar.
Rabbi Meir Fendel, a vice president of American Young Israel described the
heroism of the people of Sderot, where his son David is head of the Sderot Hesder
Yeshiva. He described a city of 20,000 people in which residents have trouble
sleeping at night out of fear of falling bombs.
Yet, as Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, Rosh Yeshiva of the Kiryat Arba hesder
yeshiva later pointed out, when it is suggested that more drastic steps be taken by
the army to end the bombing, they are rejected by the present government, "lest
they cause suffering to innocent Arab citizens from Gaza". Rabbi Waldman asks
rhetorically, "And what of the innocent suffering of the residents of Sderot!?"
HaRav Lior enlisted an idea from Chasam Sofer, who stressed that when
Avraham arrived in Eretz Yisrael, he did not find an empty country here. "The

2. Canaanite was then in the Land." Later on, the descendants of Cham moved to
Africa or were annihilated, but at this point they had no intention of ever leaving
Eretz Yisrael. Surely Avraham must have asked himself how G-d was going to
house all of Avraham's descendants in the Land. He seemed to be facing a dead
end, with no way out. Yet Avraham "believed in G-d, and G-d counted it as
righteousness" (Genesis 15:6). Avraham Avinu didn't know what the future would
hold, but he had strong faith.
In light of this Chasam Sofer, Rav Lior explained that rabbis the world over,
blessed with the faith of Avraham, must encourage their flocks to understand that
the tribulations we are facing now in Eretz Yisrael are a divine process that will
work out in the end, even if we cannot quite see how right now.
Likewise, Rabbi Yehuda Amichai, in charge of the "Otzar Ha'aretz" program,
that provides ideal solutions to Shemitah without relying on Arab produce,
pointed out that according to the Targum, Amalek traveled 1600 kilometers in one
night before attacking Israel in the Desert. Understanding this, Israel were likely
to ask: "How did Amalek accomplish this? Surely this is a sign that G-d was on
their side!" Israel were liable to despair. Yet they did not. Moshe had Yehoshua
select fighters and they went and attacked Amalek, succeeding in weakening them
and driving them back. Rav Amichai then pointed out that we, too, might be
tempted to feel the same, that G-d is on the side of our enemies, from within or
from without. Yet we, too, should understand that if we combine human effort
with prayer, G-d will help us to emerge victorious.
Rabbi Waldman shared a fascinating story from the days when with Rav
Moshe Levinger he was seeking ways to gain authorization for Jews to live in
Hebron. In January 1968, the secular "Greater Israel Movement" offered to
arrange a meeting for them with Yigal Alon, Education Minister in the ruling
Labor government. The purpose was to ask him for help in gaining government
backing for settlement in Hebron. Yigal Alon, a Laborite of the old school, gazed
at them in perplexity. "That's not Zionism!" he exclaimed. "Do you think that
Ginosar or Metulah would have been come into existence had we waited for
authorization from the Jewish Agency [the acting Jewish organ of government]?
First you act. Then go get authorization." Thus were the seeds planted for Rav
Levinger's successful efforts in Hebron, resulting in the establishment of Kiryat
Arba, and ultimately in the rebirth of Jewish Hebron.
Later, Rav Waldman added, he and his friends were disappointed with Alon
when he came up with his "Alon Plan", which offered part of Eretz Yisrael to the
Arabs in exchange for a peace treaty. Once more they went to meet with Alon.
When they expressed their concerns, Alon replied, in Yiddish, "Jews have to act
with wisdom! Don't worry – No Arabs will accept this!"
Following the talks, a short film was shown showing many of the outposts
created in the past several months since Chanuka. Almost all of them are still in
place, despite several having been evacuated once or twice. This is the best
answer to dictates from Condoleezza.
At the end of three hours, my hands and feet were icicles. I had been sitting in
an immense, unheated, barnlike chamber with a cement floor and cement walls,
and with no windows (the residents of Beit HaShalom have not been allowed to
install windows, but only plastic sheeting, which isn't a full-proof solution – part
of the "freeze" on construction). I can only imagine how hard it must have been
for some of those older rabbis. Yet for everyone present, the mood was one of
exhilaration and purpose.

3. Let us pray that the young people who are working so hard to maintain
a presence in hills and valleys of Eretz Yisrael will continue to reap success.
Someday, millions of Jews will live where today there are huts and tents.
Raphael Blumberg of Kiryat Arba, author of "They called him Rebbe", about
Rabbi Boruch Milikowsky, z"l of Baltimore, has been translating the "Truth from
Israel" articles for twenty months.
Send comments to Zvi Katzover, Mayor of Kiryat Arba, at Rivka@kiryat4.org.il.