By: Aviela Deitch, JEWISH PRESS
I go by the name Aviela Deitch, but back when I graduated Nicolet High School in 1990, it was Andrea Krissman. Yep, even though I’m the fifth Milwaukee-area generation of my family on my mother’s side, I picked up about twenty years ago and made aliyah. Fast forward to August 29 of 2011, and my husband and I picked up ourselves, our six children, and our lots and lots of stuff and moved from our two-floor home in a larger, established community to a mobile home a third the size in Migron.
And why? Largely because I wanted my children to learn what I learned growing up in Milwaukee – knowing that they not only have the opportunity but also the responsibility to take a hand in building a community.
Migron is located about twelve minutes north of Jerusalem and is currently comprised of 48 families. The adults here work mostly, but not exclusively, in areas concerned with helping others, occupations like social work, various therapies, teacher, special education, elder care, and guidance counselor. Additionally, there is a bank executive, a few computer programmers, a mechanical engineer… you get the drift. As there is child care from daycare through senior kindergarten in the community, the smaller children stay here, while the older kids are bussed to top-quality schools in nearby communities.
The community, in some circles titled a “settlement”, was established in 1999 as a result of an archaeological expedition done here that revealed conclusive signs of a Jewish past. It didn’t take long for the first few dozen families to move in. All were and continue to be housed in government-provided mobile homes. A synagogue and mikveh were built, as well as a horseback riding therapy clinic, petting zoo, playgrounds, a daycare center, kindergartens, and eventually eight families built their own homes. Practically at its inception, the government put up an electric line, telephone service, and set up running water and a functioning sewage system. After seven years of hard work, a suit was suddenly filed in the Israeli Supreme Court, claiming that the land was under private ownership of a number of local Arabs.
Odd.
The Binyamin region, where the biblical tribe of Benjamin settled, is a collection of mountains. There is no flatland between these mountains. To each complainant, the process of Migron’s development could be seen for seven years preceding this suit. What’s more, the plaintiff was not listed as the Arabs, but rather as Peace Now on the complainants’ behalf.
From 2006 through 2011, great efforts were exerted on the legal and legislative sides of things in order to get things back on track, in order for Migron to be allowed to grow and flourish. Eight permanent houses were built by growing families, children were born and grew, and new families moved in. Even with the heavy, cloudy question mark hanging on the horizon, Migron is an attractive community. The 360 degree views, where one can see Jordan, the Dead Sea, Jerusalem, Maále Adumim, the Judean Desert, as well as many points of Binyamin into the Shomron (Samaria) are absolutely breathtaking. The crime rate is very near zero percent. The children are bright and polite and parents are involved. The local schools are excellent. People help one another… in so many ways, such an ideal place to live. We were very impressed to see that the residents here do indeed live their entire lives for the Nation and Land of Israel. All men here have served in the Israeli military and continue to serve in the reserves. Most women here have spent at least a year of their lives entirely devoted to volunteering for various national institutions. And this is just the next step in their national service.
Earlier this year, building stoppage orders were put forth for the houses of three amazing, incredible families. It is important to note that these families never received any orders of destruction, which is what would legally be required before destroying a structure.
Tami and Uri Gutman and their five children, ages 2-10: Shlomo, Yonatan, Tal, Hadas and Yishai. Tami works with children at Aleh, where some of the most severely disabled children in Israel live. She helps otherwise non-communicative children learn to react to their environment. Uri teaches middle school in the Noam school system.
Ruchamah and Chaimi Teitelbaum and their three children, ages 3-7, : Ori, Oz and Hadar. Ruchamah is a guidance counselor in Eli, a larger community farther north, and Chaimi both learns in kollel and spends many hours advocating for Migron’s case in the Knesset and with other public figures.
Shalom and Avital Gefen and their four children, ages 3 months – 8: Etai Yonatan, Hallel Nechamah and Elroi, and Matan Baruch. Shalom has been demoted by the Israeli police department. He had worked for many years as a top notch sapper, largely defusing explosives that were being held in Arab villages, in wait for transport and use in large, Israeli cities. Having determined that they live in an “illegal area”, Shalom has been taken off this force and put in a petty position. In the meantime, the sapper unit is down one very capable employee. Being that he still retains full sets of both fingers and toes, it seems that he is very good at his job. Avital is a qualified accountant studying for her Masters Degree. Their youngest son had his brit milah in his home only about a week before the night of September 5-6, 2011.
Migron resident and and his house in the background.
Photo Credit: Uri Lenz/Flash90
On that horrific night, with absolutely no forewarning, riot troops, dressed in black, leapt behind the boulders serving as a back fence for these three families’ homes and delivered the news that they were there to destroy. They came with neither documentation nor court orders and weren’t interested in seeing the deeds to the land on which the houses were situated. On that night, eleven children were torn out of their beds in their pajamas and taken out into the cold night, never to see their bedrooms, or many of their precious belongings, ever again. Within hours, in front of both the adults and children that spent a significant portion of their lives building up this fine community, the Teitelbaum, Gutman, and Gefen homes were destroyed.
Two of these three homes were built in a fashion that they could actually have been picked up and moved to different plots of land if necessary. It wasn’t necessary, because nobody was willing to hear of it, and now there’s nothing left.
As much as the rest of us managed to pack and haul away is just about all that remained intact. Massive crews of Arabs were brought in by the forces, apparently to help pack. What they did in reality was to throw personal belongings, children’s toys, clothing, religious items, furniture and appliances out of the homes with force. Not much remained in its original state.
After about an hour and a half of sleep, the community, emotionally bleeding and battered, arose to a new day. Nobody made it to work. The kindergartens operated fully, and a psychological staff remained active sporadically for the next couple of weeks, but the older children stayed home. And we all worked together. By late afternoon, three older caravans (mobile homes) had been fixed up, all belongings were packed, moved and unpacked in the new “homes”. From surrounding communities, professionals arrived. A carpenter voluntarily put all the furniture back together, carefully crafting custom-made matching pieces where the originals had been destroyed. A gardener showed up and quietly planted flowers in the new plots to make the residents feel more at home. After hours of hard work, the day was capped off by a meeting of all residents in the synagogue, where we were treated to encouraging words by rabbis, activists, and others. Our children were given geraniums to plant, to sow new hope, from other children in Amona, a nearby community that lost eight houses a few years ago. One speaker capped off the evening poignantly by saying that were he to be writing a motto for Migron, it would be “Migron – the community where nobody says ‘Ba Li’ (I feel like it.). They say only ‘Ani Ba’ (I’m coming.).`
And so the saga continues. We’ve been joined by nearby Givat Asaf, Givat HaUlpanah, and again, Amonah — dozens of Jewish families on land that can be proven to be legally owned if anyone were to take the time to look. The Arabs dropped their case against Migron in the Supreme Court in early November 2011, as they simply could not come up with the proofs necessary to show that this land is theirs. It is once again ownerless. Apparently, this made no difference in the previous ruling, and because Migron is built on so-called “private land” it was to be destroyed by March, 2012. March… Purim… we should only see the tables turn as they did so many years ago. Now, D-day (destruction of the community) is slated for August 1.
Please join in supporting Migron.
About the Author: Aviela Deitch resides in Migron. She can be reached at aviela.deitch@gmail.com. To learn more, join the “Migron (English)” Facebook group, or visit the site at www.migron.net.
@ dweller:Yamit, I agree with you but one must be careful because “due process” doesn’t necessarily mean “due judicial process”. Under the conditions of war, unlawful enemy combatants may receive due process from the military. That may also be the case in the so called “occupied zone” where Barak is handing out military process. But of course the residents at Migron are hardly unlawful enemy combatants or any kind of enemy combatant..
@ yamit82:
It’s less than 20 years old and exists on behalf of a polity that’s had no more experience with such things than the Libyans or Congolese.
The Russian Civil War virtually destroyed what little existed of the Russian middle class — and for the next 70 years the whole natural development of that polity was put on hold; put into suspended animation. The Sleeping Beauty has scarcely awakened from her nightmare; it will take more than the kiss that ended the Cold War to bring her to life. She had scarcely entered adolescence when she pricked her finger & swooned. Now that she’s awake, she’ll have to take up the process of maturation from the point where it was halted. And that’s BOUND to mean what it means for everybody else at that stage — zits and all the rest of it.
But you can’t use this as an excuse to kiss-off a written constitution.
I don’t say that Constitutional guarantees are of themselves sufficient. Without the communitarian spirit of the people and existing institutions that incorporate a people’s respect for the law, a written constitution, all by itself, has about much prospect for becoming a living part of the common life as astroturf has of sending down living roots in the outfield of a baseball diamond. That was one of de Tocqueville’s major observations of the early stateside scene, and why he was so impressed with what he saw.
So I grant that Constitutional guarantees are not sufficient — but they ARE necessary.
And no, they don’t prevent the “rending of the political fabric”; if it’s going to be rent, then it’s going to be rent.
But preserving the political fabric is not their primary function.
Most importantly in time of stress, those guarantees provide an anchor, to which an earnest citizenry may repair for renewal and for a bulwark against tyranny; in that respect written guarantees are indispensable. And I’m sure that Eidelberg would agree where is Israel is concerned.
They are necessary in much the same way that SCRIPTURES are necessary
— but not sufficient.
Don’t know what he means by this. Dred Scott certainly had been a slave in the various slave states that his owners shlepped him to.
@ yamit82:
As usual, you’re clueless as to where I’m coming from — so invariably it’s YOURSELF who ends up going off half-cocked.
I’m noticing too, of late, that you seem inordinately fond of the expression “with no factual basis,” yet when it comes to deciding what the facts ARE, they seem to consist — for you — of whatever somebody else has said that happens to support your own predetermined opinion.
It’s true that I wrote in brief, but there was nothing ‘off-the-cuff’ about what I said; I’d thought about it for a long time — some decades.
What’s more, I’ve seen all the arguments that Risman makes, and with all due respect, find them wanting.
It has the rudiments of a Bill of Rights: in an 800-year-old document called the. . . .uh. . . . Magna Carta.
I wonder how comfortable Mr Risman would be with abolishing that as just a charming but flaccid appendage of cultural history.
In point of fact, if the presence of written guarantees were empty of value, then Churchill wouldn’t have found it necessary to go to the trouble of generally suspending Habeas Corpus — it originated in Magna Carta — as an emergency measure during WWII. Indeed there’d have been nothing to suspend.
It was precisely because a substantial element of the delegates to the 1787 US Constitutional Constitution THEMSELVES found the original document insufficient unto itself, that a Bill of Rights was appended to it, and incorporated within it. It is in those first ten Amendments that the right[s] to Due Process are articulated.
Something tells me that as this particular national election draws nearer, everybody — not just Americans, but everybody around the globe — is going to find just how important those written American guarantees are.
I think we’re in for a bumpy ride.
@ Wallace Brand:
Wallace Brand Said:
None
@ yamit82:
I would like to reply but What is your point?
@ dweller:
As usual you make off the cuff statements with no factual basis.
A Written Constitution?
by Brian Risman, Publisher and Founder, The Law Journal UK and Consultant in International Law
Does a written constitution provide greater accountability and democracy?
The UK has no written constitution and Russia has one of the Best if not the Best. In Russia, their constitution is largely ignored.
The Abuse Excuse: One Size Fits All?
@ Wallace Brand:
Ricky Cohen is a graduate of Princeton and Yale Law School. As a judge, he sat on the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court.
The “Chicken Case”
“Last Meals”
Michael King attended Law School at Loyola University. He has been selected as a Southern California “Super Lawyer” by Los Angeles Magazine for each of the past three years. “Moishe the Knight”
@ Wallace Brand:
No constitution => no guarantees of due process.
@ Stanley:
I am of the view that attorneys are very astute and effective. They don’t let emotions get in the way, as illustrated by the following two anecdotes.
The Devil approached a Washington lawyer. He said, “I can give you anything, money — one million — ten million. Prestige, a judgeship — the Supreme Court even.
The lawyer thought for a moment and responded: So what do you want?
“Oh”, the Devil replied, just your soul, your wife’s soul and the souls of your children. If you have any more, you must throw them in too.
The lawyer thought, and thought, and finally looked the Devil in the eye, and after a moment or two he spoke: “So what’s the catch?”
Then there was the woman who had been married three times and was going to get married a fourth. She went to her doctor for a checkup.
After examining her, he said in amazement: “Madam, you’ve been married three times and you’re still a maiden. How can that be?
Well”, the woman responded, “My first husband was a optometrist — all he wanted to do was look. My second husband was a psychiatrist — all he wanted to do was talk. My third husband was a construction contractor. Delay! Delay! Delay!
The doctor said, “Well, with that experience, how is it I see stars in your eyes. ” “Oh!, she responded, my fiance’ is a lawyer.”
That is enough defense of the lawyers.
@ yamit82:
Is he Lois, Barbara, and now Stanley?
Who next?
@ rongrand:
ron do you remember ayn’s line about the NASDAQ heading south just like you know who diving for a sailors fly? I think your friend Stanley has a thing for you. 😉
rongrand, I must say I totally agree with that statement,I am impressed.
Don’t take it personally but, over 50 years in business and having to deal with attorneys I find I am in agreement with most of my business associates, they lack common sense. Unfortunately a majority of attorneys are overly impressed with themselves. That is why I am not too impressed with some judges. You can have a jerky attorney who is popular and elected to serve on the bench however, sitting on a high chair and wearing a black robe doesn’t change anything, a jerky attorney is now a jerky judge
Jewish Terror: The Israeli establishment is scared and threatened by about a thousand ideological Young Kids.
Their method is ‘Price Tag’ For every act the Government, police or Army takes against them they exact a price from the Arabs, the Army and Shtinkers from Peace Now and other anti Jewish and Israeli NGO’s. They even went to the apt. of one of the shtinkers from Peace Now late at night and spray painted their slogan Price Tag on her door.
Video is graphic, in Hebrew, but it’s message is obvious. The establishment elites are scared. Which is a good thing.
Video Here
@ yamit82:
Wow, this is all above my pay grade however, I feel compelled to support them. Again I don’t understand why the rights of Israeli settlers are being unfairly treated by their own government and the IDF who should be protecting them. I understand the IDF is only following orders and I am sure they don’t like it.
These young ladies are certainly courageous
Again as I mentioned in the other article, “If I believe G-d led me back to the Holy Land and to date has provided me to defend it” then what the hell are we supporting the Arabs who don’t belong here.
Maybe I just don’t understand it at all.
The following is taken from an extreme left wing blog: Mondoweiss
VIDEO: Settler youth discuss conquering Jordan, destroying mosques and increasing attacks on the IDF with Israeli TV
Version of video with English sub titles
Israeli Channel 2 aired a rare interview with the “hilltop youth,” a network of young settlers associated with the recent attack on an Israeli army base in the occupied West Bank (and with “price tag” graffiti). All between the ages of 18 and 20, these right wing zealots live in structures built from the debris of demolished houses and find delight in news of a mosque burning to the ground.
The juxtaposition of images and words in the video is disturbing: “behind the smiles and summer camp atmosphere in the middle of winter, there are very rigid opinions.”
The interviews begin in the West Bank outpost Ramat Migron with three “young, giggling women” who describe the West Bank, and everything on it, as belonging to the Jewish people. As for the Palestinians who live there:
Next Oded, a young man in favor of colonizing and ethnically cleansing Jordan, takes Channel 2 to a small stone structure known as “the hut,” where he describes Jordan as part of “land of Israel… I am all for going to war with Jordan, to conquer them and live there.”
The correspondent’s voice makes a slight shiver in confusion and fear, and he asks what of the Jordanian women and children, and their houses? Oded replies that they will be removed with “decisiveness and sensitivity.” What the IDF said about removing Jews from Gush Katif… YAMIT
In the third and final stop on the settlement tour, we meet Meir Bretler, a hilltop youth “leader” who Channel 2 says is responsible for organizing the Kasser el Yahud border crossing to Jordan. Bretler closes the interview informing Channel 2 there are approximately 1000 families in the hilltop youth. He hits at the fears of the IDF, and secular Israeli society, that the settlers are growing in numbers, and won’t take direction from the military.
It is a shocking lack of due process that instead of remanding the case to a magistrate’s course where an evidentiary hearing can be held to determine ownership, the Court decided the case on the “presumption” that if a house is on private land, it is presumed not to be owned by jews.
I am confused as ever and I need my friend Yamit to weigh in on this. He has experienced a similar situation.
I am beginning to believe the Israelis are their own worst enemy.
I hear that the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel is helping. Hopefully they will
be successful in stopping the Supreme Court from carrying out this anti-zionist action. The destruction of Migron seems to be based on a post-zionist philosophy which is a Peace-Now concept that should not exist. Perhaps it is time to seriously look at Peace-Now to determine if it is a pro or anti Israel group, not in its ideology but in its practical results.
What a shandah.
The wrong people are being driven off Israel’s land…