Nadia Matar
This past Tuesday, our movement, Women in Green, renewed the vigils at road junctions. It was clear to all of us that, in light of the statements by the Prime Minister and his cronies, concerning the planned continued handing over of parts of Eretz Israel to the enemy, the destruction of the settlement enterprise, and the establishment of a Palestinazi state in Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem, we must all take to the streets and at least begin to protest. To the cynics among us who ask: Once again to go back to the streets and hold signs? What good will this do? We did this before the expulsion, and of what use was it? I want to reply: the more protests, outcry, and demonstrations in the coming weeks, the more we will succeed in heating up the atmosphere, and only then will we be better able to organize the Israeli public for demonstrations and actions of another type, that were so sorely lacking in the struggle to save Gush Katif and Northern Samaria.

We were about fifteen people. We stood in Paris Square, near the Prime Minister’s Residence. We held signs, and we distributed stickers with the messages: “Olmert is dangerous for the Jews,” “No to the partition of Eretz Israel,” “No to a Perestinian state” (referring to Shimon Peres), and “The Land of Israel for the people of Israel.” To our surprise, we were greeted on the street with enthusiasm and sympathy that we had at all not anticipated. Except for a few lone leftists, the positive responses of those going past, both pedestrians and drivers, religious and a great many nonreligious, were far beyond what we had expected. The stickers, that we had taken from the attic – which we didn’t know if they would be of any interest to the public – went like hotcakes. Instead of indifference, we felt a thirst on the street for the messages that we broadcasted, especially for the message that the Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel. Once again, we received proof that the issue of Eretz Yisrael connects all parts of the people, religious and nonreligious, the young and not so young, new immigrants and those born in Israel. Once again we were reminded that at a time when “our leaders” talk of handing over parts of Eretz Yisrael to the enemy, it is imperative to strengthen the subject of our right to Eretz Yisrael, among all sectors of the people.

My shock and disappointment therefore knew no bounds when I read the article by Roi Sharon, that appeared in NRG Maariv, with the following headline: “Meahazim [outpost settlements] Are Out, Repentance Is In” (NRG, October 9, 2007), in which it was written:

A revolution in religious Zionism: bringing back to religion is more important than settling the land. […] For long years the leaders of religious Zionism championed the missions of building settlements and the struggle against the evacuation of settlements, with the commandment of settling Eretz Israel proudly standing at the top of the values for which the youth was educated. But 60 years after the establishment of the State of Israel, it seems that this public has decided to change the movement’s agenda, and to point to a new goal.

Last Shabbat hundreds of activists gathered in the settlement of Ofrah, and heard lectures by the head of the Ateret Kohanim yeshivah Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, the rabbi of Safed Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, and MK Effi Eitam. The three called upon religious young people to assault the Israeli street and bring the secular back to religion. This is a real precedent in the annals of religious Zionism, that until now refrained from engaging in efforts to effect repentance, at least openly […] Avihai Boaren, the Director-General of the Maayanei Yeshuah movement, also stated outright that causing people to return to religion precedes the settlement of the land. “As of right now, the struggle for Eretz Israel is secondary in importance,” Boaren said.

I did not personally participate in the conference, and I did not hear the speeches. It is well-known that journalists often distort matters, and therefore we should take care regarding such articles. From private conversations, however, with many youth on this subject, they tell me that this really is the new trend among our public. In the ulpanot (girl’s seminaries) and yeshivot the teachers hardly speak of Eretz Yisrael, of the need to settle it, to conquer it, to liberate it, and to defend it, but rather of the need to draw our brethren in Tel Aviv closer to Judaism.

I am not a rabbi, and so I cannot and do not want to answer on the halakhic level (even though one does not have to be a rabbi to be aware of the saying that “Eretz Yisrael is the equivalent of all the commandments”). I expect, and assume, that other rabbis will respond to this article on the halakhic level. But even though I am just a simple Jew, it is clear to me that there is a great error that might lead to great danger. Don’t understand me incorrectly: as someone who herself became religious even before I graduated from high school, I do not, Heaven forbid, rule out the idea of causing people to become religious. But I vigorously oppose educating our youth as if at present this is the national mission, that takes precedence over the settlement of the land. It is inconceivable that our public will all of a sudden educate its children to bring others back to religion, manning stands on the street to distribute Shabbat candles and to have people put on tefilin. This activity regarding the individual’s spiritual needs can also be done in the Diaspora, among the Jewish community in New York or in Poland.

But, however, the way I personally understand this, the Eretz Yisrael loyalist public’s contribution always consisted of imparting the awareness that Judaism is not only a religion, Judaism is not only Shabbat candles and tefilin. Rather, Judaism is also, and mainly, Jewish sovereignty, settlement, and independence in all parts of Eretz Yisrael, and Eretz Yisrael is the nexus of the world. The people of Israel must return to the Land of Israel, take possession of it, build in it, and settle in it. All the rest ensues from the power of Eretz Yisrael, because only sovereign and full Jewish rule in Eretz Yisrael will make possible the founding of a Jewish society in accordance with the Torah, a society that will be a light to the nations, and especially, a light to the Jews. Obviously, with G-d’s help, after we dwell secure in all parts of Eretz Yisrael, we will be able to turn to important social and other missions. But we are still distant from such a situation.

Professor Ruth Wisse, a professor of Yiddish, wrote an interesting book, Jews and Power. Wisse tells how the history of the Jewish people is actually divided into two parts. The first, and relatively short, part preceded the destruction of the Second Temple, when we enjoyed a certain degree of sovereignty or autonomy in Eretz Yisrael. The second part, which is much longer, followed the Destruction, in the Diaspora, where we developed the techniques of survival as a Diaspora people. In the Diaspora, practically speaking, we restricted Judaism to the religious sphere. In terms of our attitude to the foreign authorities, we always learned to bow down, to fold, to forgo, all in order to try and curry favor with the non-Jews. Upon the establishment of the State, we brought with us from the Diaspora those diasporic traits, that embroil us to this day.

Reading her book only reinforced my understanding that the call of the hour is to rid ourselves of the diasporic traits and restore to the stage the true national destiny of every Jew: yes, to be a Jew loyal to the Torah and the commandments, but attaining sovereignty and settlement in all Eretz Yisrael is foremost among our obligations, in order to build in such a state a magnificent and exemplary Jewish society that then will, please  G-d, bring the Redemption.

Interestingly, it is, of all people, our domestic and external enemies who understand the centrality of Eretz Yisrael, much more than a considerable part of our public. The desire to raze the settlement enterprise, the willingness to hand over parts of the homeland to the Arab enemy, the obsessive insistence upon removing meahazim (outposts) that bother nobody, all ensue from a single source: the understanding that it is Jewish sovereignty and settlement in Eretz Yisrael that preserves us as a Jewish people. Our internal and external enemies do not bother us in our observance of Shabbat and kashrut. No, what disturbs them is our being sovereign and independent in our land. And when they want to harm the Jews and try to break them as a people –  they do this by the attempt to sever the Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael.

Accordingly – and specifically now, when our domestic and external enemies are intensifying their efforts to take from us what sustains us as a Jewish people, namely, more and more parts of Eretz Israel – I would expect the national-religious public, and the Jewish people as a whole, with its rabbis and educators, to engage in the schools, the yeshivot, the ulpanot, the youth movements, the synagogues, and the community centers, not in bringing people back to religion – which is a type of convenient escape to activity that does not bother anyone – but rather in intensifying the topic of the importance of Eretz Israel, our right to it, and our duty to defend it.

I therefore call, here and now, upon our public: put aside the matter of making people religious, especially when there is a public that is already engaged in this. Specifically now, when a sword has been placed on the very existence of the Jewish people in its land (even for those who stand at the back-to-religion stands), we must be primarily occupied with Eretz Yisrael.

Whether this means bringing our brothers from Haifa, Gush Dan till Eilat, for tours in the Judea and Samaria region, in order to remind the people of Israel what are its roots, what is the land of the Patriarchs and what would happen if G-d forbid Israel would be shrunk to the 1967 Aushwitz borders. Whether this means distributing informational material to the youth on our exclusive right to the land, so that the youth who study in (nonreligious) state schools will, at long last, receive information and understand what we are doing here in Eretz Yisrael, why we are not “occupiers,” but the owners of the land, and why we are duty-bound to defend it. Whether this means giving courses to the youth as “know what to answer the enemy” (how is it possible that not a single ulpanah or yeshivah gives a course for contending with the lies and propaganda of Peace Now? Why is only the left active in the universities? Where is the national youth? Why is Bnei Akiva mostly busy with social projects and not with campaigns to settle the Land?) Whether this means starting courses how to establish and build a new settlement (courses for the youth in agriculture, driving tractors, working the land, building houses, electrician courses …). Whether this means mass participation by the public in operations to renew the settlement momentum by establishing settlements, such as those that are in existence since Sukkot – an operation in which thousands participated, and which raised the people’s morale. And whether this means the organization of a movement of opposition to the government’s malicious plans and of defense of the settlements.

To sum up, there is no shortage of Eretz Yisrael activities and ideas to keep us busy, when the true call of the hour, that takes precedence over everything else, is truly Eretz Yisrael.

Even Menahem Ussishkin understood this, when he declared: “When the people of Israel will redeem the Land of Israel, then the Land of Israel will redeem the people of Israel.”

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