By Forest Rain
“To me, you cannot say, that’s not realistic”
There are those who talk and there those who do. I deeply
admire the doers. The people who make things happen, particularly those who,
with unwavering determination, pull a new reality out of thin air. The stubborn
ones who keep treading the long road, against all odds, despite being derided
and denied, accused and despised.
“The people who are
crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
When Steve Jobs
created the famous Apple ad honoring the misfits and troublemakers who have no
respect for the status quo, the general public loved the romance of the idea
presented. Public reaction is very different when it comes to real people who
fit this description.
Few people have made,
as Jobs liked to say, “a dent in the world”, like Daniella Weiss. She changed
the map of Israel. Literally.
For the past 50 years,
Daniella has been (and still is!) the most prominent woman in the settlement of
biblical Israel – Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.
Daniella was a key
member of Gush Emunim, a Zionist movement with the mission: “To bring
about a major spiritual reawakening in the Jewish people for the sake of the
full realization of the Zionist vision, in the knowledge that this vision’s
source and goal in the Jewish heritage and in Judaism’s roots are the total
redemption of both the Jewish people and the whole world.”
Basically, their idea was that Jewish identity is tied to our ancestral
homeland and to fully actualize our identity, it is necessary to live in the
land that gave birth to our People. Healing the divide between this land and
her people, the people and the land, will not only heal Jews but will also heal
the world.
To make this vision a reality, the leaders of Gush Emunim
went to different areas of biblical Israel. Rabbi Levinger went to Hebron.
Rabbi Chanan Porat went to Gush Etzion.
Daniella Weiss, with the core people of Elon Moreh went to
Samaria. Her actions and mentorship led
to the creation of 300 communities, 800,000 Jews living where, before 1974,
there were none.
Between 1984 and 1988, Daniella served as the Secretary
General of the Gush Emunim Movement. For 11 years Daniella was the Mayor of
Kedumim. Since 2007, Daniella, together with others, including the late Rabbi
Levinger, established The Nachala Settlement Movement.
When I was a child in
America, the word “settler” meant “pioneer”, the people who braved the
wilderness and built America with their own two hands. They were people to be
admired and emulate. After the Six Day War, Israelis returning to their
ancestral homeland, were treated as heroic miracle-makers. After the Yom Kippur
War in 1973 many people, including Israelis, were not so certain about being
the people physically actualizing a biblical prophecy.
As if settling down,
and making yourself comfortable, in the land of our ancestors could be a bad
thing. I can imagine Daniella would laugh and say: “Do you really think that
Jews returning to their promised land is avoidable?”
People who believe in
biblical prophecy are often derided. Those who take action to make the
prophecies come to life are considered by many to be crazy. They are called
extreme, hard-liners, messianic...
Jews living in their ancestral homeland, willing to defend themselves and their
families, even when the government is unwilling (or due to international
pressure, unable), to come to their aid are deemed by European governments, the
US State Department, and even by some on Israel’s left to be “the obstacle to
peace.” Recently different governments
have sanctioned individual residents of Judea and Samaria, including Daniella
Weiss, as if they are to blame for the lack of peace.
Jewish presence in the
land makes it impossible to divide the land and that makes many people angry.
They forget that Judea
and Samaria, not Tel Aviv, is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish People. They
refuse to look at the map and see how the Jewish communities of Judea and
Samaria protect the metropolitan of Tel Aviv from an October 7th-style invasion
from Palestinian Authority-controlled territories, the same PA whose leaders
promised more October 7s, whose people overwhelmingly support Hamas. For
example, the PA city of Kalkiliya is 14 kilometers, 9 miles from the
Mediterranean Sea – an easy stroll away from Kfar Saba. The outskirts of Kalkiliya and Kfar Saba are practically touching,
closer than the distance between Gaza and Nir Oz. The only difference is
that in Gaza there were no Jews and subsequently no IDF to prevent the
invasion.
One doesn’t need to be “messianic” to recognize the
importance of Jewish presence to establish Jewish safety. Bible believers, both
Jews and Christians, will say that it is wrong to divide God’s land. Indigenous
rights dictate that Jews have the right to live in their indigenous homeland.
But even if only focused on the practicalities needed to create security, it is
easy to understand that civilian life means homes and roads that remain open
because they are in use by civilians. The IDF doesn’t occupy territory, it
protects homes. Pulling civilians out of that area (like what happened in Gaza)
creates a vacuum that the enemy fills – and when that endangers the nearby
civilian population, it is necessary to use extreme military force.
The presence of communities actually keeps the peace, as
much as peace is possible in this region.
Daniella Weiss’s
Nachala Movement continues to support the return of Jews to our ancestral
lands. She says: “I don’t need to be told that the people need to lead the
government in making things happen. I teach others that idea.
She says 650 families
have registered to establish communities in Gaza. Governments, organizations,
and even many Israelis say that this is a wild, crazy, and dangerous idea.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “It’s not realistic.”
Daniella’s response?
“To me, you cannot say it’s not realistic. Gaza is part of the historic land of
the tribe of Judah and we are going to return to our land.”
For 50 years she’s been making the unrealistic real.
Steve Jobs said it
better than I ever could: “Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The
rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see
things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the
status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things.
They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy
ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can
change the world, are the ones who do.”
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