Sidebar 'A bond between us'

KIBBUTZ MEFALSIM – What do you get when you bring together a group of right-wing, Orthodox West Bank settlers; a cadre of secular, left-wing kibbutzniks; and 16 exhausted but exhilarated men from New Jersey and put them in the range of Kassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip?

What you get is an inspiring prayer service, an interactive meal, and connections that could last a lifetime.

That’s what happened last weekend when a group from the West Bank communities of Gush Etzion spent Shabbat at Kibbutz Mefalsim in the Sha’ar Hanegev region, an all-too-rare detente among ideological rivals in Israel.

They were joined by members of the Business and Professionals Mission of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, the philanthropy that helped broker the ongoing powwow between Sha’ar Hanegev and Gush Etzion three years ago.

Founded almost immediately after the dismantling of Jewish settlements in Gaza in the summer of 2005, the goal is to bridge segments of Israeli society that the disengagement had forced apart.

“At a time when there was genuine fear that there would be violence between Jews, we brought together the two communities and their mayors,” UJC MetroWest Israel operations director Amir Shacham recalled. “They realized that they had more in common than they thought, as Zionists who believe in settling the land of Israel.”

Shacham acted as a matchmaker. The two communities began an affiliation with MetroWest during the 2001 Israel Emergency Campaign and have maintained it since, with MetroWest continuing to provide funding for security needs and activities.

The latest installment of the dialogue represents a role reversal of sorts: In the beginning, Gush Etzion felt besieged, with its residents facing the brunt of the Second Palestinian Intifada in the West Bank.

Now it is Sha’ar Hanegev that is facing nearly constant rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, most of them aimed at Sderot, a city that is farther from Gaza (two miles) than Mefalsim (one mile).

The kibbutzniks, the 40 Gush residents, and the visiting Americans joined together in an evening kabalat Shabbat service and a dinner, whose kosher food was brought in from Sderot and paid for by UJC MetroWest. After dinner, the settlers and kibbutzniks continued the dialogue, this time over joint study of a text on tzedaka by the medieval sage Maimonides.

When the dialogue began three years ago, both sides agreed not to talk politics, because they knew that neither side would be able to persuade the other.

But what dialogue could not do, the rocket attacks did.

Speaking to a reporter on Sunday, the visitors from Gush Etzion said they were not surprised to hear that some of their counterparts’ views had moved closer to their own with every rocket.

Laura Ben-David, an immigrant from Florida and a graduate of Bruriah High School for Girls in Elizabeth, lives in the Gush Etzion community of Nevei Daniel. Tair Soussana has lived her entire life on the kibbutz. The two shared what they had learned from one another.

Soussana said she had always voted for the left-wing Meretz Party, whose base of support comes from kibbutzniks. Soussana supported the Gaza disengagement that Ben-David had protested against, and she told her new friend from Gush Etzion that she now regrets it.

“I apologize for supporting disengagement, because the people evacuated from Gush Katif have suffered so much, while the security situation hasn’t changed,” Soussana said. “I wanted the withdrawal to improve our security, and I believed it when the government promised it would go to war if a single rocket were fired from Gaza after the withdrawal. I was even in favor of giving up half of Jerusalem, but now the reality has convinced me that if we give them east Jerusalem today, they will want Mefalsim tomorrow.”

Soussana said she had moved from one end of the political map to the other, shifting her support from Meretz to the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu Party. She said she had skipped over more moderate parties after Israel’s centrist Kadima-led government failed to stop the rockets.

“I have seen that the Left’s path of dialogue with the Arabs is no longer realistic,” Soussana said. “A sovereign country cannot allow constant attacks on its citizens. We have to stop talking about the occupation and what [Palestinian] kids are going through and start thinking about our own kids, who need psychological help after living in fear for so long.”

Ben-David said she was glad she found so much in common with Soussana. But, she said, she also got along well with kibbutzniks who maintain very different political views.

“We have common ground when it comes to what is best for the people of Israel,” Ben-David said. “Our ultimate goal is still the same — for the people of Israel to live in peace.”

‘Living-bridge relationships’

Ben-David and others from Gush Etzion said they were surprised that they were not instructed upon their arrival in Mefalsim what to do if a “color red” warning were sounded announcing the impending arrival of a rocket, something they did not end up experiencing.

She said she felt less urgency among many Mefalsim residents than she did in Sderot, where she has an office.

“In Sderot, people bend over backward to thank us for coming,” Ben-David said. “I thought it was odd that the Kassam issue wasn’t addressed at the kibbutz. I didn’t feel at all like we were in an area of Kassams falling.”

In fact, three Kassams fell just outside Mefalsim that Friday morning, hours before the arrival of the visitors.

Sha’ar Hanegev Mayor Alon Shuster said his fellow Mefalsim residents felt relatively unconcerned about the rockets, compared to others in the region, because they have not suffered damage from a rocket and because of the support system and community feeling that exists there.

“If people go to Sderot or another kibbutz that has been hit harder, they won’t see the same nonchalant feelings about the rockets that they saw in Mefalsim,” Shuster said.

Shuster, Ben-David, and Soussana each talked about how special it was for them to leave their relatively homogenous communities and spend time getting to know Israelis from much different backgrounds during a tranquil Shabbat.

UJC MetroWest president Kenneth R. Heyman of Short Hills added that he was glad to see mission participants observe the success that the federation has had across Israel, especially in the Gush Etzion-Sha’ar Hanegev partnership.

“The experience of that night was symbolic of the wonderful living-bridge relationships we have developed with the communities,” Heyman said. “I was very proud that our community was the catalyst for bringing these regions together, culminating in Gush Etzion people coming to Sha’ar Hanegev for Shabbat.”

---

'A bond between us'

THE 16 MEMBERS of UJC MetroWest’s Business and Professionals Mission to Israel included two men who had never been to Israel before and some who had not been there in 15 years. Only five participants had experienced coming to Israel on a mission before.

The group, in Israel March 10-17, met with leading Israeli businessmen and commentators and visited UJC MetroWest partner communities and projects. They toured the 1967 border by helicopter, visited an IDF base, toured Gush Etzion, visited the Golani Brigade Museum and Memorial, and met with Etgarim, a nonprofit that provides the disabled with sports and recreation activities.

They also visited Kibbutz Erez overlooking the Gaza border; spent time with soldiers from the “lone soldiers” program, who are in Israel without their families, a program supported by MetroWest; and visited the model MetroWest partnership Atzmaut project in Rishon Letzion that helps integrate Ethiopian immigrants into Israeli society.

But mission chair Steve Roth of Short Hills said that at the end of the trip, all the participants said their experience in Mefalsim was the highlight.

“It was an absolutely phenomenal experience seeing the three different groups all come together,” Roth said. “There is a bond between us that we all know we need to support each other in these and all troubled times. That was the point of the mission as well: to show not just our financial support, but that we are here to help, support, and nurture.”

Saul Simon of Short Hills, who had not been to Israel in 15 years, said he cried during the mission’s closing session when he talked about the Shabbat in Mefalsim. Simon said he considered his friends in New Jersey sheltered compared to the people of Israel. Meeting Israelis under fire made him realize that he cannot take life for granted.

“I was deeply moved and emotionally touched to be there at the kibbutz and pray at the synagogue,” Simon said. “I experienced the passion of the people who continue to persevere, have courage, and stay strong even though they live a mile away from Gaza. They said their fathers lived there and they wanted their children to live there. That was very heavy for me.”

—
 

Local stories posted courtesy of the New Jersey Jewish News