I go by the name Aviela Deitch, but when I graduated Nicolet High School in 1990, it was Andrea Krissman. Even though I’m the fifth Milwaukee-area generation of my family on my mother’s side, I picked up about 20 years ago and made aliyah (moved to Israel).
Fast forward to Aug. 29 of this year. My husband Shalom Deitch, a computer programmer, and I picked up ourselves, our six children, and our 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 while I was growing up in Milwaukee. Knowing that you not only have the opportunity but also the responsibility to take a hand in building a community is absolutely huge.
Migron is located about 12 minutes north of Jerusalem and is currently comprised of 48 families. The adults here work mostly but not exclusively in fields concerned with helping others, such as social work, various therapies, teachers, special education, elder care, and guidance counselors.
Additionally, there is a bank executive, a few computer programmers, a mechanical engineer… you get the drift. As there is childcare here from daycare through senior kindergarten, the smaller children are here, while the older kids are bussed to top-quality schools in nearby communities.
The community, in some circles called a “settlement,” was established in 1999 as a result of an archaeological expedition here that showed 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-sent mobile homes. A synagogue and mikveh were built, as well as a horseback riding therapy clinic, petting zoo, playgrounds, a daycare center, and kindergartens; and eventually eight families built their own homes.
Practically from the beginning, the government brought up an electric line, telephone service, and set up running water and a functioning sewage system.
After seven years of hard work, a lawsuit 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, this process of Migron’s development could be seen for seven years preceding this suit. What’s more, the plaintiff was not listed as local Arabs, but rather as the Israeli organization Peace Now on the complainants’ behalf.
From 2006 through 2011, great legal and legislative efforts were made for Migron to be allowed to grow and flourish. Eight permanent houses were built, 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, Ma’ale Adumim, the Judean Desert, and many points of Binyamin into Shomron (Samaria) — are breathtaking.
The crime rate is nearly zero percent. The children are bright and polite and parents are involved. The locally available schools are excellent. People help one another in so many ways. It is such an ideal place to live.
We were very impressed seeing that the residents here indeed do 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 it just continues from there.
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 disabled children in Israel live. She helps otherwise non-communicative children to 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 a 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 three months to eight years: Etai Yonatan, Hallel Nechamah Elroi, and Matan Baruch.
Shalom has been demoted by the Israeli police department. He had worked for many years as a 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.
Avital is a qualified accountant studying for her masters degree. Their youngest son had his brit milah only about a week prior to the night of Sept. 5-6, 2011.
On that horrific night, with no warning, Israeli riot troops, dressed in black, leaped 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 deeds presented them to the land on which the houses were situated.
On that night, 11 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 adults and children that have 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 be picked up and moved to different plots of land if that were 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 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, plus a psychological staff that remained sporadically for the following two weeks, but the older children stayed home. And we all worked together.
By late afternoon, three older caravans (mobile homes) had been repaired, 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 making matching pieces where the originals had been destroyed. A gardener showed up and 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.
And so the saga continues, and we’ve been joined by nearby Givat Asaf, Givat HaUlpanah and again, Amonah — dozens of Jewish families on land that can be proven legal 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 could not come up with the proofs necessary to show that this land is theirs. It is once again ownerless.
Apparently, this has made no difference in the previous ruling, that because Migron is built on so-called “private land” it is to be destroyed by March 2012. March… Purim… we should only see the tables turn as they did so many years ago.
To learn more about Migron, see the “Migron (English)” Facebook group, or check out our site, soon to be translated to English, at www.migron.net. The destruction is documented in a movie on YouTube, to be found under Migron that in its English-subtitled form, has been viewed nearly 10,000 times.
If you’re in Israel, I’d be proud to take you on a tour of this very special place. My email is aviela.deitch @gmail.com.
Former Milwaukeean Aviela Deitch works from home as a virtual assistant and serves as the foreign press liaison for the community of Migron.
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