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Last update - 22:35 07/08/2008 Yearning to return home to Homesh By Nadav Shragai Tags: Homesh, settlement  Three years after the evacuation and destruction of Homesh, in the northern West Bank, during the disengagement, there is a continuous but not permanent Jewish civilian presence there. A small yeshiva, headed by Rabbi Elishama Cohen, a graduate of Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav Yeshiva who lives in the long-standing Harasha outpost, operates outdoors, in a small grove in Homesh. Dozens of people spend time there every week. People from Homesh First, an umbrella organization of right-wing groups whose goal is to rebuild Homesh and other northern West Bank settlements, arrange transportation to and from Homesh and even supply food and water to those staying there. The students at the Homesh yeshiva - about 15 young men - come from area communities. "It's self-sacrifice," says Yisrael, a bachelor of around 26. "Sometimes we come by car and sometimes on foot. In the summer we find shade under the trees and in the winter we spread a few tarps. When the weather gets stormy we go into a cave." This year, a shmita year, the seventh, sabbatical year, when the land is not worked, he says, "We learned the Talmudic Tractate Shvi'it, which discusses the connection between the Torah and the Land. Every day we study here for around nine hours. We're lucky because we can simultaneously fulfill two mitzvot, the mitzvah of settling the land and also the mitzvah of studying Torah, but it's not easy. These aren't conditions for pampered types," Yisrael says. Advertisement The yeshiva is not the only thing in Homesh. Over 100 people do a few days of "reserve duty" every month guarding the site during the day or at night. Yossi Dagan, for example, a well-known Homesh First member, did his guard duty a few weeks ago. As on previous occasions he came with some friends and equipped with a portable grill, charcoal and some chicken wings and hamburgers. "For me, it's a privilege, experience and pleasure all rolled up in one," Dagan stresses. The ruins of Homesh have recently become a hot touring destination, with groups coming from Haifa and the Galilee, among other places. In March 2007 Limor Harmelekh-Son held her son's brit milah (circumcision ceremony) on the ruins of the home where she lived with her first husband, Shuli, who was killed in a terrorist attack. Since then three couples have held sheva brachot meals at Homesh in honor of their marriages. And recently a memorial service was held there for Ido Zoldan, a leading activist Homesh First who was killed by terrorists slightly over a year ago. In addition, area families sometimes spend Shabbat in Homesh, arriving on Friday with children, cooking pots, prayer books and Torah scrolls in tow and leaving Saturday evening, at the end of Shabbat. The Israel Defense Forces and the police have evacuated people from Homesh dozens of times, but the people of Homesh First always return. Sometimes they flee into nearby hills and caves to wait out the security forces, other times they obediently leave and return later. On several occasions the courts have released activists who were removed from Homesh and detained. Some of the judges have ruled that the criminal and penal sections of the Disengagement Law do not unequivocally provide for prohibiting entry to the ruins of Homesh. Judge David Gadol of Kfar Sava Juvenile Court explained that because the evacuation in the framework of the disengagement plan has been completed, the penal elements of the law, which were intended to prevent disruption of the evacuation, are no longer in effect and cannot serve as the legal basis for charging suspects. Gadol noted that Homesh and the other northern West Bank settlements, unlike the evacuated settlements in the Gaza Strip, were not handed over to the Palestinian Authority. He called for the authorities to clearly define Homesh - whether as part of Area C [areas under Israeli control, as the previous IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz defined it for the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee - N.S.) or another definition - and the laws that apply to it. Intact infrastructure The fact that much of the infrastructure in Homesh was not destroyed together with the community's homes is one of the factors encouraging the repeated return of the Homesh First activists. The roads, including the ring road, have remained almost completely intact, as have the sidewalks, the stairs leading to the homes and yards and the stone walls with their niches for electric and communications boxes. Even the landscaping has remained, with cypress and pine trees, rock gardens with rosemary and even some oleander bushes. Menora Hazani, daughter of Gush Emunim founder Benny Katzover, has been traveling around Israel for months, showing her film "Hitna'ari" ("The Skies Are Closer in Homesh") to various audiences. The film follows the disengagement plan through the story of Homesh and the personal story of Hazani and her family. In one, summarizing sentence Hazani sadly states, "the old Zionism died in Homesh, was packed up by chuckling Arab boys and loaded onto a container and sent off. No one knows where to." Hazani talks a lot about the crisis between the Israelis and the Jews, "a crisis whose roots are religious," and finds a solution for "the expulsion decree" in the words of Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburg, the head of the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva: "The Jewish people returning to its land resembles a nut," the rabbi writes, "but when the fruit is ripe, the shell becomes an obstacle... this shell starts at a certain point to endanger the frit, to conceal and choke it. The crisis is a necessity... the time has come to crack the shell." Homesh First began as a small organization that stood in opposition to the establishment within the settlements. Its members repeatedly call for "correcting the error of the disengagement and the expulsion, which many today acknowledge. Homes is just the beginning." Members are beginning to form core groups whose goal is the return of Jewish settlers to Gush Katif, in the Gaza Strip, as well. At first they were just a handful of people whose demand to return to Homesh seemed outlandish even in settler circles. Gradually, however, they have been joined by the who's who of mainstream religious Zionism, from the Yesha Council of Settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, to the Bnei Akiva yeshivas and their leader Rabbi Haim Druckman to the regional councils. Support has even come from quarters such as the Nahalal Forum, the successor of the Ein Vered Group of the Zionist agricultural settlement movement and Meir Har-Zion, the legendary warrior who was Ariel Sharon's partner in Unit 101. Nobel Prize laureate Prof. Robert Aumann took part in one of the marches to Homesh and a group from Sderot led by Alon Davidi, head of the Committee for a Secure Sderot, also visited the remains of the community. Homesh First also coordinates the efforts of Garin Homesh, a group of 40 families that want to return to Homesh. Some are living in the settlement of Shavei Shomron, about a two-hour walk from Homesh. In the meantime, there is no one to approve their "return home," not even in tents, as they proposed. They and the people of Homesh First are therefore making do with various stunts aimed at demonstrating the seriousness of their intentions. One such event involved buying shovels, pickaxes, rakes and brooms and mobilizing dozens of teens to "make the place habitable." In another, they and Samaria Regional Council workers replaced the original Homesh street signs (which were named after Homesh residents killed in area shooting attacks in the area). Together with engineer Mosi Finkel and a team of architects and engineers, Homesh First and Garin Homesh prepared a detailed plan for a city of 20,000 residential units in Homesh. It details the educational institutions, industrial areas and services that will be integrated into the "new city." Dagan says it will be submitted to the next prime minister. Another venture is the sale of first rights to building plots in Homesh, for the symbolic price of NIS 1,000 each. Eighty families have signed up so far. "We," concludes Dagan, "are believers who are the children of believers, and do not for a moment sit with arms folded." Bookmark to del.icio.us   Safe haven reached 200 fleeing Georgia after the outbreak of hostilities arrive at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport. Fatal heartbreak Disabled man dies of heart attack after his girlfriend was arrested by Immigration Police.   1.   The funny thing is: One day they will realize that they wasted 22:44  |  Andreas 07/08/08   2.   Like you believe that Jews waste time by studying Torah 10:54  |  Binyamin Dissen 08/08/08

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