Why the Settlements of Israel Are So Very Important

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Doesn't anyone remember what land Judea covered?   Judea was the largest tribe of the 12 tribes of Israel-Jacob, father of the 12 tribes.  When they marched into Canaan, the last census taken by Moses showed that they had 76,500,, and had actually gained 1,900 over the 40 years of the Exodus.  We Jews are their descendants and of the others who were in bondage in Egypt with them, and a few others we've picked up over the generations.  

      East Jerusalem-Arab neighborhood-which is a part of Judea.   It's now populated by Arabs.                                                

              Jerusalem, the whole unified city, located in Judea.  
                                             

            Mea She'arim in Jerusalem an orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Judea.                                           

Rehavia or Rechavia (Hebrew: רחביה, Arabic: رحافيا) is an upscale Jerusalem neighborhood located between the city center and Talbiya.

Since its establishment in the 1920s, the area has always been associated with German-Jewish culture and tradition. The quarter remained an island of German culture and language long after the establishment of the state of Israel and up to this day through the Schocken library (by late German-Jewish editor Salman Schocken) the largest and most significant collection of German books in the country is to be found in the neighborhood.  House of the Head of Government) is the official residence of the Prime Minister of Israel. It is located at 9 Smolenskin Street, on the street corner of Balfour Street in the upscale Jerusalem neighborhood of Rehavia, situated between the city center and the Talbiya neighborhood.

Judea came to be the tribal area where Jerusalem was created and used by King David as his capital as assigned by Joshua after the death of Moses.  It sits in the center of the Judean Mountains.  Judea was the southerly part of the 2 kingdoms into which Israel was divided in 933 BCE (2,955 years ago) after the death of King Solomon, David's son.  The northerly part remained as Israel, only it now had a different King, Jeroboam from the tribe of Ephraim, who had been Solomon's superintendent of forced labor-working on the Temple-so many months out of the year, as time donated. 

Northern Israel  became known as Samaria, which was originally the capital of the Northern kingdom of Israel since Jerusalem stayed as the capital of Judea, of course.  King Omri had founded Samaria, that sat on a hill bought from Shemer (I Kings 16:24).  The site, about 7 miles NW of Shechem, now called Nablus, that has since become an Arab city, was on an isolated elevation dominating a wide countryside.  It happened to be in Jordanian territory in 1948-1967, going back into Israeli hands at the end of the 1967 Six Day War.

Cities of Refuge (illustration from a Bible card published 1901 by the Providence Lithograph Company)

 Historically, it was in the territory of Ephraim, of the 12 tribes  of Jacob, and was a Levitical city, (In the Hebrew Bible, the Levitical cities were 48 cities in ancient Israel set aside for the tribe of Levi, who were not allocated their own territorial homes, but traveled around teaching other tribal members)  ... and a city of refuge and the center of the House of Joseph-Joseph, the special son of Jacob that wound up as the man just below the pharaoh in rank.    The city occupied 25 acres.  Nablus is now a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately 49 kilometres (30 mi) north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132.  44,000 lived there in 1967.  It's been the center of fanatical Arab nationalism.  A small Jewish community had been located there, probably not anymore.  

The extent of the Promised land reached the Pelanium arm of the Nile Delta, the Gulf of Elath, and the Euphrates River opposite Aleppo in the East;  it included most of Syria and altogether covered about 58,000 sq. miles.  This entire area was where Israelites lived under David and Solomon (I Kings 5:4).  Israel originally was  to be in 1920 17,500 sq miles of which 45% was in Transjordan, which is today's Jordan. 

        Within 2 years, Britain gave away Trans-Jordan to Abdullah, a prince in need of land from Arabia.                                               

Settlements in Judea-West Bank.  Held by occupying Jordan, they came back to Judea's rule-now Israel once again, with newer villages, towns and cities developed before and after Israel's birth of April 14, 1958.  

Our history lies within Judea and Samaria. This is the center of our homeland.  Britain cut our heart out when they divvied up Palestine in 1922, and it lies a few yards away from our border.  Whatever was Britain thinking when they gave it all away after being given to responsibility to help create the Jewish Homeland?  I can tell you what.  It was not about Jews or creating their homeland.  

                        nine miles distance on e and f  to coastline                        

                                                  

 Today's geography of Israel covers much less land, and much of Judah is now called Judea-Samaria by the Israelis, and West Bank named by Jordan.  Judah had become Judea by the Roman occupation and destruction of the Temple and the city.  The name, West Bank by the occupation of Jordan's eastern side of the Jordan River, and then the naming of the Western side, as West Bank. 

Who can even find Jerusalem on a map?  People   aren't being educated in the history of the Middle East let alone Israel's history. Many Jews are not even celebrating our many holidays that keep the culture together.  The most they know might be to eat bagels, or even to wear a star of David around their neck.  Like Alan Dershowitz wrote long ago, the American Jew is vanishing!  We're being assimilated!  What are the remnants of our culture?  Not our religion!  How many can recite as much as Alan Dershowitz of both history and our religion?  

I'm finding that there are Jews in the world who do not know their history, who live in homes in Europe and USA  who are living an entirely different life from the Jews of Israel.  Jews of Israel had reason to make aliyah, who wanted to keep their religion and its customs and beliefs  alive.  Such people as those belonging to J Street profess to back Israel, but what they call "backing" is slashing Israel, giving cause for anti-Semitism towards Israel by Jews and Gentiles alike. There is no excuse for this.

                                        

     Technion in Haifa.  The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is a public research university located in Haifa, Israel. Established in 1912 under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire, the Technion is the oldest university in the country.  The Technion is ranked as the top university in both Israel and the Middle East, and in the top 100 universities in the world in the Academic Ranking of World Universities of 2019.

I ask, "What makes American Jews such as J Street think they are smarter than the Jews of Israel?  How would they like it if all the European gentiles told USA what to do and think?  J street's weak excuse is that they, as the family see better ways, better roads to follow.  They are not living there.  They have no idea of what they think.  All they do is criticize.  It has to do with more of what people think of the American Jew than what is best for Israel.  They know not what Jews in Israel experience for they are not walking a mile in their shoes. The admonition to walk a mile in someone else's shoes means before judging someone, you must understand his experiences, challenges, thought processes, etc. The full idiom is: Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. In effect, it is a reminder to practice empathy.

                                        

       In front of the Knesset is the menorah

In fact, Israelis are their own biggest criticizers.  It's inborn.  They are constantly measuring their efforts religiously comparing to the 613 commandments.  Americans are of a different breed; few are religiously in tune with their land like the Israelis are.  I know.  I made aliyah in 1980, and saw the change in myself.  I saw the world in a  different lens, especially where I lived in Safed.  I know there are things that happen that never reach the ears of American Jews.  We are so lucky to have remnants of our people after the Holocaust who are intelligent and can make excellent decisions.  Those survivors have made it to Israel as well as the rest of the land, in teeny tiny numbers, but they are here.  Genes, environment, it all makes up a people.  Israelis have experienced more than the Americans, believe. me , in survival.   If the Israeli had given up their right to decide and followed the couch potatoes advice,, there would be no more Israel.  Give them the respect and honor of doing so, baruch hashem.  They know the spotlight is always on them, with an audience of hatred and envy,  just waiting for them to forget their lines and goof it up.  

Such settlements that Americans, even my favorite fighter for Israel, Alan Dershowitz, is against Israeli Settlements, so I guess I'm to the right of Alan.  

                                             

 Ariel is what is called an urban Israeli "settlement" but is a city in the central West Bank- of Samaria, part of the Israeli-criticized territories, approximately 20 kilometres (about 15 miles) east of the Green Line and 34 kilometres west of the Jordan border.

Ariel was founded in 1978 on land that was used for military needs and on land that was declared state land, including cultivated farmland of Palestinian villages in the district and on rocky land the villagers used for grazing their flocks. At the beginning of 1978, a group of Israelis formed in order to create a settlement in the hills of the northern part of the West Bank, and  made a formal request to the government to be given land to build a new community and were given three options by the army; the area near the 'lone tree' which would later become Barkan, the area which would later become Kfar Tapuach, and a hill near Kifl Hares that was known to the local Arabs as 'Jabel Mawat', the hill of death, because of inhospitable terrain. The leader of this group, Ron Nachman, chose the latter because of its strategic location on a possible Jordanian invasion route towards Israel's main population centre of Tel Aviv. 

In the spring of 1978, some of the group's men erected tents on the chosen hilltop, and in August 1978, a total of forty families came to live in the settlement.  From 1978 to 1988, Ariel continued to develop, and established itself as the urban center for the nearby Jewish settlements. In 1980, the prefabricated homes were replaced with permanent housing. 

The College of Judea and Samaria, which would later become the Ariel University Center of Samaria, and eventually Ariel University, was founded in 1982, now 40 years old.   Three elementary schools, a community center, a sports hall, and a synagogue were built. In May 1982, Ariel was connected to the national power grid.

During the mass immigration of Jews from Soviet Union that began in 1989 and continued throughout the 1990s, Ariel, which had a population of 8,000 in 1990, experienced a population boom. Unlike in Israel proper, apartments in Ariel were plentiful and cheap, which proved attractive to the immigrants. Some 6,000 Soviet immigrants moved to Ariel, almost doubling its population.

In 2005, the residents of Netzarim, a former Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip which had been evacuated, found temporary housing in the dormitories of the Ariel University Center of Samaria. At the beginning of the academic year, about one-third chose to settle permanently in Ariel, while the rest moved to Yevul. 

In 2007, the city began receiving immigrants from English-speaking countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and South Africa in significant numbers.

Nachman, a central figure in the Likud party, presided over Ariel from 1978 until his death in January 2013, at first as head of the local council and as mayor from 1985, when the settlement was officially recognized as a city. Both religious and secular Jews reside in Ariel. The city has sixteen synagogues.

 In January 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by leading figures in his governing coalition, declared Ariel the "capital of Samaria", and "an integral part of Israel". In December 2010, thirty-five MKs petitioned the government to annex Ariel to Israel. 

Palestinian representatives have opposed the incorporation of Ariel into Israel in any future settlement, arguing that the Ariel 'finger' would interrupt the territorial integrity of a Palestinian state and includes a major aquifer. Ariel's future is thus not clear: "as well as an obstacle to an Israeli-Palestinian agreement, it could also serve as a crucial trade-off for negotiators hammering out a final deal". The population is 20,540.  

Ariel is one city in Judea-Samaria.  Betar Illit, Ma' ale Audumim and Modi'in Illit are others at city sizes.  As Jews are treated with hatred, they can find refuge in Israel.  The world is causing such cities to begin and to grow.

  Another "settlement,"  Modi'in Illit

Why are settlement of Israel so very important?  Unlike American history, these are in the land of our fathers, our history, our blood.  They are built in our ancient homeland, land that was to again become ours..We had a civilization here that was destroyed by the Romans.  We are Judea and Samaria's indigenous people.    To forget our history would be to forget the reason for being, for living, We love this land for it holds our hearts and souls. To hear the names of past lives and places makes our hearts pound faster.  That's why these people dared to enter Judea and Samaria and settle down; to care for it.  

Resource;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHAEKYBm8gc- debate with Alan Dershowitz and Jeremy Ben Ami, president of J Street= which I saw on YouTube accidently; a hot and heavy debate.  I cheer on Alan's passion in defense of Israel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AReBKzAVaNw--another debate between Dershowitz and Ben Ami, serious debate, hot and passionate, found on Youtube.  

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea_and_Samaria_Area

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levitical_city

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beit_Aghion#:~:text=House%20of%20the%20Head%20of,center%20and%20the%20Talbiya%20neighborhood.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_Shearim