A few days ago 100 girls from America came to Beit El to experience Shabbat here in Beit El when the Torah portion that contains Jacob’s dream is read. Friday night they listened to a panel with a variety of different people from Beit El. They had tours of the Site of Jacob’s dream and the archaeological remnants there and much more. During the panel some of the girls had questions like: why do you live here, what is the hardest thing about living here etc. It got me thinking what does it mean to live here? How to communicate what it is like to live here to others? Like any other place there are good things (the beautiful view, history, and the people) along with challenges.
My husband Max, and I moved here the day after we got married. We moved into a tiny mobile home, with a floor that you had to be careful where you walked so that you didn’t step into one of the soft spots and fall through. That was all that was available at the time. That was in 1993. There were numerous electric and water outages all the time and you used to know everyone you passed on the street. There were at the time only a few hundred families living here. The bus drove through Ramallah to get to Jerusalem (about an hour drive by bus) and during the Intifadah we would often get rocks thrown at us or sometimes even Molotov cocktails.
Why you might ask yourself would anyone choose to live in a place like that?
We came here because of idealism, we believed in Jews returning to the land of Israel, and where could that be more appropriate than the heartland of Israel – Judea and Samaria. The name Beit El, or Bethel as it is sometimes called, literally means the House of God. It is here that Jacob had a dream of a Ladder reaching to the sky with angels going up and down it, where he got a promise from God that the land he was lying on was holy and would be for him and his descendants, that God would watch over him and that all the families of the world would be blessed through him. The judge Samuel used to come to judge people here in Beit El and Deborah used to judge people nearby. The prophet Elijah had a school for prophets here and the people of Israel would often come up to Beit El to pray for divine wisdom and aid. The Maccabis fought the Greeks in the Maccabean revolt - and today we have Hanukkah because of that. Beit El is the second most mentioned place in the whole Hebrew bible after Jerusalem.
We live in an area which is often times called in the media the West Bank. We are portrayed often as violent, radical settlers. I think we get a really bad name in most mainstream media. The truth of the matter is that the people here are friendly, hardworking people from all over the world who believe in the importance of family, community, faith and God. We have people here from Russia, Europe, America, Canada, England, South Africa, India, Morocco, Tunisia, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Peru, Mexico, Ethiopia and even Korea. They are all Jews returning to their homeland. It makes for an interesting multicultural mix.
Life is not always easy here, but it is always meaningful. The level of every day luxuries here doesn’t compete with those found in America, people don’t make as much money here, and the houses are smaller, but there is a sense of purpose, a sense that what you are doing makes a difference, a sense that you are making history. Come to Israel and find out.
If you ever come to Beit El I would be happy to give you a tour!
Yael Enkin
