This past weekend, we celebrated a very exciting Shabbat Chevron with many thousands of visitors, reading parashat Chayei Sarah with its story of Avraham Avinu’s purchasing burial graves and fields from Ephron the Hittite. This constituted Avraham’s first recorded real estate purchase in the Land of Israel; hence, it merited 22 verses, very rare in the Torah for a land purchase.
We had six guests,
all of them yeshiva students. Four of the six were from the baal teshuva
yeshiva Machon Meir, which has been sending us Chayei Sarah guests for many
years, since the days when I was translating the parashat hashavua
sheet of Machon Meir. Every guest is a treasure and a world unto himself, but
this year the award for most interesting guest might go to Yisrael, age 61, a
successful Hong Kong businessman who decided in midlife to convert to Judaism
and study Torah.
With Corona and
the war, it has been five years since we residents of Kiryat Arba-Chevron
enjoyed a full Shabbat Chevron such as we enjoyed during all the years since
1994. This year, we felt magic and electricity for weeks before the actual
Shabbat. Visitors from the outside started to arrive on Wednesday. We had arranged
to have our six guests weeks in advance. We then spent two weeks having to say
no to people calling and asking for a place to stay.
One of my
sons-in-law called and asked if I could find an empty apartment for one of his
married friends. I did not know of anything available. I remarked that since there
were so many people who wanted to come, some local families were leaving town
for the weekend and renting out their apartments. Hearing this, my son-in-law
checked with his friend, who made the following offer: He and another married
friend would be willing to pay 400 shekels for an apartment that could house
two families. When my son-in-law passed this on to me, I immediately went into
one of the local WhatsApp groups to advertise this offer. Yet just 10 minutes
after I placed my message, someone else placed a notice that he was looking for
an apartment and would be happy to pay 3,000 shekels! My son-in-law’s friends
could not compete with that!
One of the things
that made this Chayei Sarah special was the way that Jewish Chevron and Kiryat
Arba have begun to grow over the past year. First, the government has
authorized construction of new neighborhoods on several large pieces of land
officially belonging to Kiryat Arba. Kiryat Arba, with a population of 10,000
residents, has a master plan going back 50 years, to stretch several kilometers
towards Yerushalayim and to house 50,000 people. We are seeing the very
beginnings of this. So far, it only means that lots and lots of families are moving
into caravans, and we will wait and hold our breaths until construction begins.
Second, in
Chevron, the purchase of Arab properties by Jews is snowballing. This
represents a backdoor fulfillment of Rabbi Moshe Levinger’s dream from 1968 of
moving thousands of Jews into Chevron proper. Twenty years ago, I described the
struggle to purchase one such building, Beit HaShalom, and the legal battle
that was going on in the Israeli courts to make this happen after the money was
paid. At that time, it took the Jewish community of Chevron 10 years in court
to convince the authorities that the sale was legal and valid. Today, we have
the system down pat, and purchases are validated by the courts in a matter of
months, despite the same fabricated claims from the Arabs in their attempts to
nullify the sales. Each time Jews make a purchase, the Arabs go to court to
protest the sale. And each time they are proven wrong, the courts reject their
claims more quickly.
Part of our
success is also due to Mordechai “Moti” Zarbiv’s arrival in town. For years,
Mr. Zarbiv worked for Ateret Cohanim, the settlement organization working to
purchase Arab property in the Moslem Quarter of Yerushalayim. He knows all the
ins and outs of how to succeed in doing this in the fastest and most efficient
manner. Three years ago, Moti moved to Jewish Chevron and began working for
Harchivi, the Chevron version of Ateret Cohanim. The same genius he applied to
purchasing homes in the Moslem Quarter he now applies to Chevron. With his
savvy, his perfect Arabic, and his handsome Levantine appearance, he has been
quite successful at finding dozens of Arabs interested in selling their homes
to Jews and leaving the area. And the more purchases he makes, the more
neighboring Arabs wish to sell their property as well.
During the past
two years, we have seen quite a few such home purchases, which are always made
secretly. When we finally hear about them, it is after the courts have ruled
and Jewish families are allowed entry. Inhabited purchases of the past three
years include Beit HaTekuma, Beit HaTechiya, Beit HaTikva, Beit Rachel VeLeah,
Beit HaCherut, Beit Elias in the Casba, a property behind the Menucha Rachel
Chabad cemetery, and most recently, Ma’ale Doron. And there are many more that
we do not yet know about. And as I have previously reported, we are waiting for
construction to be completed on Beit Chizkiya, the 31 apartments being built
adjacent to Beit Romano. The contractors have finished the subterranean parking
facilities but are waiting for all the units to be sold before beginning
construction.
On Shabbat
afternoon, while I was giving our guests a tour of the Avraham Avinu neighborhood,
which goes back to the year 1517, my wife went on a tour of the newest
neighborhood, Ma’ale Daron, behind Me’arat HaMachpela. For hundreds of years,
Jews lived in this area. I have seen niches for mezuzot in some of the Arab
ruins. Restoring Jewish life to this neighborhood represents part of our return
home.
* * *
As a religious
Jew, I dream of all Israel becoming religiously observant. I dream of the
political and military echelon of Israel being run by Jews who believe in G-d
and Torah. I dream of political and military decisions infused with religious
faith. As the years go by, we see gradual advances in all these areas. Despite all
the pain of the war, political infighting, and diplomatic pressure on Israel
from abroad to take steps not in our Jewish interest, there is more good
happening than bad. And still, there is frustration that, although frum
young men enlist in the elite units of the IDF in large numbers, they seem to
be excluded from rising too far in rank, to keep them from joining the army’s
decision makers.
*
* *
Twenty years ago,
there was a stellar personality in the Israel military named Colonel Dror
Weinberg, the brigade commander of all the military forces in the Chevron area.
He grew up religious in Kfar Saba and studied in the elite yeshiva high school
of the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva, Yashlatz (yeshiva letze’irim,
yeshiva for young people).
Among religious
Jewry, it was widely predicted that Dror would become the first religious head
of the army, which so many Jews hope to see. Weinberg was just too good – as a
person, as a soldier – for this not to happen. Tragically, Colonel Weinberg was
killed during the Second Intifada in 2002.
Now, with the
appointment of David Zini as head of the Shabak (the Sherut Bitachon Kelali,
the Israeli General Security Service), we have taken a step forward. David
Zini, a religious Jew raised in a family of 10 children and himself the father
of 11 children, started his education in a Talmud Torah, went on to yeshiva high
school in the Golan Heights, studied for one year in the Shavei Chevron Yeshiva
in Chevron, and later spent a year in the Har HaMor Yeshiva in Jerusalem.
This man has now
been appointed to run the Shabak. Never before has anyone with his background
held such a high position in either the army or the Shabak. Also known as “Shin
Bet,” the Shabak is a cross between the FBI and the CIA. It spies on our
enemies, but it is local. Its task is to protect the country, the government, and
the prime minister, from harm.
During the 1990s,
the Shin Bet gained a bad reputation through its “Jewish department,” a department
that arrested teenage Jewish boys and interrogated them like criminals if it
suspected them of mistreating Arabs. One of my sons, an idealistic young
person, suffered a week of such interrogations. Many religious people in this
country wanted to shut down the Jewish section of the Shabak and leave such
investigations to the police.
Having David Zini
become head of the Shabak gives us cause for hope that things can improve, and
that the undemocratic nature of the Shabak in its treatment of Jewish young
people can be reevaluated. Just last week, Zini had his first test, which he
won with flying colors. The Shabak, under his planning, arrested 40 terrorists
from Bet Lechem before they could carry out a series of imminent terror
attacks.
I hope that, just
as one Arab house purchase in Chevron leads to others, so too our success with
David Zini will bring a sanctification of G-d’s name and lead authorities to being
open to more religious Jews helping run the country.
* * *
During my parents’
last years in the United States before making aliya, their rabbi was
Rabbi Moshe Hauer, zt”l, of B’nai Jacob Shaarei Zion. My parents always
spoke of him in the highest terms possible, and I was impressed with him when I
visited my parents in their rental on Clarks Lane. I was privileged to attend
his Israeli funeral in Yerushalayim, and I just wanted to express my gratitude
to him. Yehi zichro baruch.
