Shalom Shalom on the Range

What do you tell your child who comes from school to find his home gone?

“There is nothing more maturing, more strengthening, and more character-building for a child than such situations. I teach my children to overcome, not to despair. Don’t forget, these children have seen the destruction, but they have also seen that their parents don’t despair and instead rebuild their homes from scratch without tears, complaints, or despondence. They have seen how life returned to its routine very quickly despite the destruction. There is no better way to prepare them for real life than this.”

Source: Granevitch-Granot.  "Weathering the Storm in Outpost Land."  Mishpacha.com, September 9, 2009: http://www.mishpacha.com/getPdf/1/275/22/0/36

One may say quite a bit about Israeli outposts, ranches, and settlements, not to mention the pluck (or audacity) of pioneers, but may it suffice to say here that finding one's Chavat Gilad home gone may be equally the result of Arab aggression and occupation or Israeli government intransigence, a great confusion of terms, I know.

Call it what you like, enjoy the PDF and get a load of that landscape!

One may wonder with reason how such a heaven on earth had become the neglected playground of armies across centuries until the middle of the last one.

There is a small wrinkle in the story--more incentive for reading it yourself, I should think--and it is this from one of the residents: ""But I know one thing: This land was purchased by Moshe Zar. The battle concerns who will settle on this land, and if we’re not here, someone else will be.”

No sale was blocked.

Where lies the heart of the dispute but over the identity, cultural and religious, of the new neighbors?

Location of the effort: thiry minutes from Jerusalem.

Related

Deloria, Vine.  God Is Red: A Native View of Religion, Golden, Colorado: North American Press, 1994.

# # #