The Chain

Musings #62
July 26, 2004

The Chain

Yesterday I participated in the long chain of people stretching from The Temple Mount in the old, walled city of Jerusalem to Gush Katif. I stood with my friends and neighbors on the shoulder of a major Israeli highway. As far as I could see, in both directions, a colorful salad of people crowded together, spiced with lots of carrot-orange tee shirts and hats. This wasn’t a thinly, stretched out chain, people barely reaching the next closest. We were three, four, five thick frightening the police as we found ourselves spilling onto the road.

Ninety kilometers, sixty miles. That’s all the distance to Gush Katif from Jerusalem. Now is that far? Distance is one of the excuses given why we must abandon and destroy the Jewish communities of Gush Katif. In many parts of the world, such a distance is considered a reasonable commute to work.

Israel, even including all of Biblical Eretz Yisrael, is a very small country, but everything is here. You don’t have to travel far for a change in climate or topography. I remember our first winter in Shiloh, one rainy morning our daughter and her friends were waiting for the van to take them to school in Ofra, just 15 minutes south of us. It got later and later. There were no phones in our neighborhood; finally we managed to contact Ofra via a security communications device.
“Why hasn’t the van come to pick up the kids?”
“It can’t in this weather.”
“Why, not? Just a little rain.”
“What rain? There’s a snowstorm here!”

If you want warmer weather, just a couple of miles east is the Jordan Valley and completely different climate and color scheme. My husband and elder son went on a trip to Poland a few months ago; they couldn’t believe how boring the landscape was. The same topography and vegetation for hundreds of miles in all directions, nothing like home.

A number of years ago we had some very recent immigrants from Russia over for Shabbat. Friday night as we sat at the table, they looked out the window to the east and saw lights in the distance.
“What are those lights?” the old man asked?
“Some cities in Jordan,” my husband replied.
“Jordan, so close?”
“Don’t worry; it’s far, ten, maybe twenty kilometers.” My husband said reassuringly.
“In Russia, anything less than a thousand kilometers is considered close.” The old man explained.

Our whole country is smaller than what many international defense experts think is minimal for a security buffer zone.

Living in Shiloh, even just visiting, puts a very different perspective on everything. Shiloh is the center of the country. In a half hour or less, you can drive to Jerusalem or Petach Tikvah, much less to the Jordan Valley. When the media refer to “ merkaz ha’aretz” the “center of the Land” they’re actually referring to the coastal plain, which is the western strip, by the Mediterranean Sea, not any geographical center. It’s amazing how many people have no idea where Shiloh and other parts of YESHA are in relation to Tel Aviv, Beersheva and other major Israeli cities.

I have to admit that I was surprised that the chain from Jerusalem to Gush Katif was only ninety kilometers long. I had taken granted that it must be much, much more…at least a hundred and fifty. It was quite a lesson to me, too.

We have a very tiny country. Every inch, centimeter is precious. The Jewish pioneers in Gush Katif shouldn’t be ripped out of their homes. Their homes and businesses shouldn’t be destroyed. They’re no less Israeli than the kibbutzim in the Negev or the Galilee, or Tel Aviv or Rishon L’Tzion. We must be united to defend our right as Jews to all of our Land.

Our being here is part of a chain, the chain of Jewish history, from Avraham and Sarah, Moshe, Joshua, King David and thousands of years later to David Ben Gurion, Menachem Begin and all of us here today. Our links are strong; we’re not breaking.

Batya Medad, Shiloh
Shilohmuse@yahoo.com
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/
http://www.shilo.org.il