The Horrors of Gaza
Exactly 20 years ago, Israel pulled out of Gaza, uprooting close to 10,000 people from their homes in communities established by the Israeli government 30 years earlier.
Exactly 20 years ago, Israel pulled out of Gaza, uprooting close to 10,000 people from their homes in communities established by the Israeli government 30 years earlier.
Shortly after the People of Israel liberated the Biblical Heartland once again in 1967, courageous pioneers seized the opportunity that finally arrived after centuries of tears and yearning—to restore the region to its former glory! They eagerly faced the challenge of replenishing and reviving the hot, scorching desert of the Jordan Valley where their ancestors, several millennia earlier, took their first breaths in the Land.
So what is it like to be living in Israel when we are making history? Or on a more mundane level, how are we managing with the Iranian attacks as we run constantly to the bomb shelters?
Time for some good news! This war has gone on for so long. But I want to escape from all of that for a few minutes and talk about the good things that we are witnessing.
A band of pioneers established Alon in April of 1990. Named after the late interim Israeli prime minister Yigal Allon, the community of Alon stands as an emblem and testament of God’s promise to Abraham.
This week is a very special week in Israel. It actually began last Thursday with Holocaust Remembrance Day. As I was listening to the stories of these survivors as they were interviewed on television, I could not help thinking how vital it is that we listen to these stories, that we absorb their messages.
On May 29, 2001, Gilad Zar, a security officer for the Samaria Regional Council and a founder of the community of Itamar, tragically joined the long list of thousands of terror victims who were slaughtered during the Second Intifada.
So many of the challenges that the leaders and the people of Israel faced in the time of Samuel, Saul and David, are so similar to the challenges we face today in the modern State of Israel.
Just over a century later, a group of devout pioneers sharing the same love and passion for the Land of Israel, founded a new community just north of Jerusalem. Drawing their inspiration from Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira, they named it “Abir Yaakov,” the same venerated title that was used to address the late Rabbi during his life. Subsequently renamed “Kochav Yaakov,” (“Star of Jacob”), the community has absorbed many Jews who, like Rabbi Abuhatzeira, left their respective countries of birth to live in the Land of Israel.
As we watched the return of what we thought were the bodies of four beautiful Israelis, we wept with the families and with all of Israel. Shiri Bibas and her two gorgeous red-headed children, Kfir and Ariel — their story and their pictures traveled the world and became the symbol of the evil and cruelty of the Hamas terrorists.
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