UNM Israel Alliance

by David Wilder
October 26, 2008
The Jewish Community of Hebron
P.O. Box 105, Kiryat Arba 90100 Israel
Tel: 972-2-9965333; Fax: 972-2-9965304

Last night at just after one o’clock my cell phone rang. When the phone rings at 1:00 in the morning, at least in my house, something is wrong. Orit Struck was on the other end, apologizing for waking me up and then informing me that hundreds, if not more troops, – police, soldiers, the riot squad, etc. were on their way to the Federman farm, located just off the road between Kiryat Arba proper and the Givat Harsina (Ramat Mamre) neighborhood, just about five minutes outside of Hebron. Their goal: to destroy the farm.

The homes on the Federman property have been there for over ten years. Noam and Elisheva have lived there for the past two years. Every once in a while the war drums start sounding, with rumors of an impending expulsion from the land, which the government says is ‘illegally settled.’ Most times, it’s just noise. Tonight it looked like the real thing.

I was out of the house within about ten minutes. But when I arrived at Ma’arat HaMachpela, on the only road to Kiryat Arba, I found it blocked by Border police and metal gates in the middle of the street. They motioned to me that the road was closed and that I should leave. I pulled out my press card, which in Israel is the closest thing to a magic wand, and presented it to the officer in charge. He took it and made a call on his walkie-talkie. A minute later he came back and returned the card. And told me to leave. “But I’m a journalist,” I claimed. He looked at me, said “I know, but you can’t go,” and walked away. I requested numerous times, as did others, a warrant declaring the area to be a ‘closed military zone.’ Sometimes they responded, ‘there’s a warrant, it will eventually get here,’ and other times, ‘there is no warrant.’ Others were told, ‘there’s a military operation going on – you have to stay here for your own good, so you won’t be in danger.’ Some were told, ‘there’s an armed terrorist in the Kasbah – we have soldiers looking for him. It’s dangerous for you to be here. Go home!’

The truth was that all roads leading to the Federman farm had been sealed off. The troops didn’t want the enemy to have any reserves assisting them.

At about 1:30 the two homes on the Federman farm were forcibly invaded.

Sinai Tur and his wife Rivka were told that they had seven minutes to get out. The Federman family didn’t have such luxury. The troops broke the home’s windows and climbed in through them. They quickly made their way to the children’s bedrooms where they shook awake the kids, dragged them from their beds, beating some of them, and forcefully expelling them from their home, still in pajamas. Some of the kids went via the door; others via through the window. Noam was immediately arrested, being suspected of planning to ‘blow the forces up with gas balloons.’ His daughter Isca, 16
1/2 years old, was also arrested for some unknown reason.

Once everyone was out, the bulldozer started plowing down the houses and other structures on the property. It didn’t take too much time, as the families were not allowed to remove any of their belongings. Down came the houses, on top of everything that was inside. By 3:30 or so, it was over.

The families were left homeless and propertyless. As Elisheva Federman put it: “they wouldn’t let me take my children’s books or belongings or mementos. Eighteen years of marriage, nine children – everything we had, gone.”

For no apparent reason, except pure hate. Hate for Jews living in Judea and Samaria; hate for Jews living in the Hebron – Kiryat Arba region; and an extra special hate for Noam and Elisheva Federman, who epitomize love for Eretz Yisrael.

The Israeli government, in particular Defense Minister Ehud Barak, (who is searching for political brownie points to assist him in the now upcoming election) and Generals Gaddi Shamni and Noam Tibon (who is an expert in destroying houses – he commanded the forces that destroyed the home of Livnat Uzeri, whose husband Nati had been, only months earlier, killed by terrorists in their home,) is intent on making life as difficult as possible for Jews in Yesha and in the Hebron region in particular.

Late this afternoon a large group of people began work to rebuild the Federman farm. A short time ago an appropriate response was issued by the ruling junta: A warrant was received informing that at ten o’clock tonight the entire area would be declared a ‘closed military zone,’ that cement blocks would be placed there surrounding the property, and security forces would remain there to insure that the area remained sterile (i.e. Judenrein).

Earlier today journalists interviewing me did not seem so interested in the destruction of the property or the expulsion of the families. Rather they seemed intent on asking/attacking me as a result of remarks made by people at the site of the devastation. Those comments ostensibly called for the death of IDF soldiers, and the ‘wiping out of their names,’ and that they should all ‘be like Gilad Shalit.’

There is a saying in Hebrew that a person should not be held responsible for his words when his loved ones are still lying dead in front of him. That is how I relate to the above-quoted remarks. The expulsion from Gush Katif and Northern Samaria are all still much to fresh and the fate of those expelled still hurting much too much. It is no secret that this administration has plans to implement further expulsions, be they in the Hebron area, or Binyamin and the Shomron. There is a feeling in the air – a sensation reminiscent of the Rabin-Peres days following signing of the cursed Oslo Accords, when ‘settlers’ were unofficially declared ‘enemies of the state’ and were so appropriately treated.

The IDF and other security forces are an integral element necessary for Israel’s survival. But they cannot and must not be taken advantage of to batter the very people they are supposed to protect and defend. I don’t believe that anyone has any plans to begin a civil war, but the comments, as extreme as they are, seem to represent the growing frustration level amongst many Israelis. I see them, not as an active threat, rather as the mercury on a thermometer climbing higher and higher, much too fast.

Perhaps those making decisions in the current government should realize that what they refuse to do to Arab terrorists and their families they are all too willing to do to their own Jewish citizens, who have not murdered anyone. And it seems, with an appetite. An appetite to destroy.

See:
Photos of the destruction
Video of the destruction
See an interview with 12 year old Oved Federman (in Hebrew)
Hear Elisheva Federman (in Hebrew)

UN Watch — New York, Sept. 24, 2008 — In the first major TV debate on the UN’s upcoming Durban II “anti-racism” conference, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer exposed the cynical subversion of human rights and the anti-racism cause by the world’s most intolerant and repressive regimes. Debating Neuer from London is Islamic Human Rights Commission Chair Massoud Shadjareh, a pro-Hezbollah activist who led the anti-Zionist incitement at the orignal Durban conference in 2001.

Part of a Trend in Sub-Saharan Africa To Claim Jewish Ancestry
Forward – By Marc Perelman
Thu. Oct 02, 2008

WANDERING JEWS: With traditions that echo Jewish ritual, these Nigerians seek official recognition as Jews. ‘We want a rabbi to come here and elevate a Torah,’ said Harim Chevron Levy (second from right).

Lagos, Nigeria — Efraim Uba was born and raised Catholic in southeastern Nigeria, the homeland of the Ibo ethnic group. He spent 17 years as a Pentecostal preacher before joining a messianic congregation where members wore yarmulkes and tallits but praised Jesus. In 1999, one congregant traveled to Israel and came back claiming that the Ibos were Jews. He convinced the whole congregation to embrace Judaism.

“We believe we are from Israel, and we only recently discovered that so many old Ibo traditions were in fact Jewish ones,” said Uba, 60, who was wearing a large silver Jewish star around his neck. In 1999, he founded the Association of Jewish Faith in Nigeria, an organization with some 20 congregations, most of them in his native region.

He is one of an estimated 30,000 Nigerians — a fraction of the nation’s 135 million people — who claim to be Jewish. In recent years, they have abandoned the Christian faith of most southern Nigerians and are longing for official recognition by rabbis and by Israel. Just this summer, four members of the community were the first to formally convert to Judaism.

Following the examples of Ethiopia’s Falashas, the Lembas of South Africa and Uganda’s Abuyudaya, the Nigerian Jews are part of a growing number of sub-Saharan Africans who have embraced Judaism. Nigeria’s Jews, like the Falashas, claim to be descendants of some of Israel’s lost tribes who settled in what is now southeast Nigeria. By comparison, the Abuyudayas do not claim to have blood ties to the ancient Israelites and converted by following a local leader.

“There is a real phenomenon of construction of a Jewish identity in sub-Saharan Africa over the last few decades,” said Edith Bruder, a French researcher who recently published “The Black Jews of Africa: History, Religion, Identity” (Oxford University Press). “You have a belief among some local communities that they are descendants of Jewish communities who settled there since ancient times. This phenomenon has accelerated recently with the Falasha precedent and the globalization of information.”

The Nigerian Jewish claim was bolstered several years ago with the discovery in the area of an onyx stone reportedly bearing the name “Gad” in ancient Hebrew.

In addition, the Ibo Benei-Yisrael, as they sometimes call themselves, have traditions bearing some resemblance to Judaism. Among them are the circumcisions of newborn males on the eighth day, the separation of women during the menstrual cycles, the mourning period resembling a shiva and the prohibition of eating the meat of an animal that was not blessed. There is also the blowing of a ram’s horn, akin to blowing of the shofar.

But to be officially recognized as Jewish is a tedious process. Israel granted that recognition to the Falashas only after careful vetting. The Abudayadas underwent a conservative conversion six years ago, a path the Ibos are reluctant to embrace. Their reasoning is simple: To convert would undercut their claim to be Jewish by ancestry.

“We are Israelites. This is our identity, and our religion is Judaism, so being denied inclusion into the Jewish family makes us feel lost,” said Michael Ginika, a 53-year-old accounting teacher. “We are trying to come back to Judaism. We were lost for a long time through drifting and scattering, and we are just reaching out to be educated. There is no yeshiva, no rabbi here, so we are in a dungeon.”

Help from abroad to practice Judaism and for recognition as Jews is crucial for these far-flung communities. For the Ibos, it has come in the person of Howard Gorin, the conservative rabbi of the Tikvat Israel Congregation in Rockville, Md. Gorin first became involved in African Jewry in 2002, when he found himself at the helm of the conservative Beit Din — or religious court — that converted some of the Abayudaya Jews from Uganda. A friend then sent him an e-mail from a Nigerian interested in Judaism. Two years later, he landed in Lagos. He has visited Nigeria several times since, handing out prayer material and, more importantly, providing advice about the best way to earn official recognition.

Gorin has been designated chief rabbi of Nigeria, which is both recognition of his dedication and a savvy move to help legitimize the community here and abroad.

Last July, four Ibo Jews traveled to Uganda to attend the installation of that country’s first rabbi.

They used the occasion to undergo a formal conversion before a panel of three conservative rabbis, the first time that Nigerian Jews had taken this step. The conversion process included an interview, a symbolic circumcision and the ritual cleansing.

“I keep telling them that this is a step they need to take if they want to be recognized, and I hope this will trigger a move by others to follow suit,” Gorin told the Forward. The next step, he added, would be to bring Conservative rabbis to Nigeria to perform conversions with the help of Nigerians who could sit on the three-person panel.

The Ibo Jews contend that their 60-million ethnic brethren, who are overwhelmingly Christian, are aware of their Jewish origins but refuse to acknowledge them.

In Nigeria, the Ibos are often identified with Jews because of their business acumen, their attachment to family and education, and the discrimination to which they have been subjected, most tragically during the Biafran civil war of the late 1960s. During that war, they received Israeli military aid, fueling speculation of secret ties between the Ibos and the Hebrews.

The path of those Ibos who have chosen to espouse Judaism has invariably involved a passage through one of numerous messianic congregations that have sprouted in southern Nigeria over the past two decades. Some of those churches mix Christian and Jewish rituals, and so a few of their attendees have decided to explore Judaism exclusively, in most cases after some interaction with Israelis or other Jews.

For instance, there’s Anderson Olidike. He was born an Anglican in the southeastern state of Anhambra 32 years ago. A decade ago, he arrived in Lagos and met an Israeli engineer who brought him to a local Jewish congregation, which he began to attend regularly. At that time, he changed his name to Harim Chevron Levy (the middle name is in reference to the Israeli town of Hebron and not the oil giant) and learned how to lead prayers.

With his beard, black suit, black hat and tzitzits, he elicited some puzzled looks when he met this reporter at a hotel in Lagos and recited some prayers in Hebrew to demonstrate his fluency.

“When people see me with those clothes, they think I am part of a secret organization and they change sidewalks,” he said, smiling.

The following Saturday morning, he led the services, as usual, for the Shuva Letzion congregation. Ten men wearing tallits and reciting familiar prayers gathered in the living room of a house on a quiet street — a luxury in this bustling town. From behind a wooden panel, five women could be heard praying along. They prayed fervently and asked me to recite the prayer for the wine before passing around a glass of Manishewitz.

Levy explained that the community was encountering a series of material obstacles to live a full Jewish life. “We eat kosher, but we don’t have a kosher slaughterhouse,” he said. “We don’t have a mikveh. There are no recognized authorities to officiate for weddings and bar mitzvoth. We need to share tefilin because we don’t have enough of them. What we want is a rabbi to come here and elevate a Torah.”