After reading Jasmoon's Blog about the destruction of houses I had a lot to share on the subject.
My sister lives with her husband and three children in a settlement called Amona. A little over a year ago all the houses built there were destroyed by the Israeli government. people who gathered to protest were brutally beaten by the police. I witnessed the entire thing. the only reason I was left alone was because I had a professional looking camera so I looked part of the foreign press.
Over the weekend I spent time with friends of mine living in a temporary trailer home( In Israel they are called Caravans.) in a Kibbutz called Ein Tzurim. During the disengagement from Gaza less than two years ago 8000 people lost their houses and communities. for more than a year they had no new relocation to rebuild their lives. They were put up in different hotels and guest houses around the country.They still await proper compensation and a new home.
Interestingly, the Kibbutz itself was relocated from its original place. It was founded by Holocaust survivers and Israelies in the forties. After Jordanian troops conquered the area during the war of Independence in 1948, the Kibbutz members spent over a year in a prisoner camp in Jordan before returning to Israel to rebuild their homes in a different part of the country. the Israelies of a nearby Kibbutz by the name of Kfar Etzion did not relocate since they were all killed(over 125 of them) after surrendering to the Jordanians. Their children, who were evacuated prior to the Massacre, were the ones who 19 years later after 1967, decided to return home to where their fathers were killed and rebuild the kibbutz. This started what is called "Gush-Etzion" and it is where I grew up (Efrat) and where I currently live (Tekoa).
My own family carries the pain of my Grandparents who had to leave everything behind- their families, property and possessions in their homes in Germany when fleeing as refugees from the country that had been their home for generations.
And I carry the Jewish Collective memory of a people who have been mourning about a destroyed Temple for almost 2000 years...
So all I'm trying to say is that losing a home is very difficult .
The meaning of exile "Galut" is a central idea in Judaism and is deeply connected to that painful loss. To the deep pain of feeling lost, disconnected and as if we have no place in this world.
A deep Yearning has awakened within me. A yearning I have carried within me for thousands of years. I have received it from my ancestors and will pass it on to my children.
Perhaps that is the source of my Zionism.
I pray that my pain and loss shall open my heart to others that are suffering.
That my yearning to overcome my exile should not be at anyones expense.
There are many verses in the Torah in which God commands his people to be sensitive to the strangers living among them for they too had once been strangers in Egypt.
For thousands of years the Jewish people would celebrate passover, the holiday celebrating our freedom from Egyptian slavery, by gathering families together wherever they were in the world for a Beautiful ceremony and great meal. I would like to end this comment with a closing prayer that we wold end our passover "Seder" with. "Leshana Habaa BeYerushalaim Habnuya" May we merit that next year we shall be in a Built Jerusalem.
No destruction should take place in this holy city, in this sacred land.Not to Israelies or Palestinians.We pray for all parts of Jerusalem to be built. For everything broken shall one day be fixed. From our destroyed homes and communities to our broken hearts.
Reb Nachman, a Chassidic Master once taught "If you believe it can be broken, you must believe it can be fixed".
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Mamish. A student in our class is doing her final project on the suffering that both Palestinians and Israelis have endured and are enduring. As Keren mentioned earlier in the quarter, comparing sufferings isn't productive in that it doesn't necessarily lead to change. But what I think is more improtant is that in sharing with each other, in your sharing your history and your family's history of exile, that we can learn to cultivate compassion, in the sense where we really feel the suffering of all of us, and in cultivating compassion the work to build, to build a Jerusalem, and a homeland for Palestinians and Israelis will follow. I am so grateful that you are sharing this, and illustrating the pain that both sides have and are enduring. It is my hope that the destruction that you and your fellow Israelis and that students at Al Quds and their fellow Palestinians have endured will become remanifest in creation. It seems especially fitting that you post this just before Shavuoth, the words of creation being given to us in order to be creators and compassionate human beings in our own lives. Achichah, Ahron
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