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Open the heart to the evacuees
Two years after pullout, suffering, wandering of Gush Katif evacuess contiues
Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau
It’s been two years since the "disengagement.” At that time I wrote with pain about the tremendous life’s work of the residents of Gush Katif, which was collapsing before our very eyes. Yet with all my might I wanted at least to believe in the great white hope that awaits us just around the corner. I believed that quickly, really quickly, the gates of the heart would be opened. I prayed and I hoped that the gates of wisdom, mercy, and mutual responsibility would be opened, and that a remedy, even a partial one, would be found for the suffering and the terrible misery.
| Comparison |
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| Evacuees compare pullout to Holocaust / Efrat Weiss |
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(Video) Movie produced to mark two years since Gush Katif disengagement features evacuees comparing evacuation to Nazis' actions during World War II. 'Comparison constitutes cynical abuse of Shoah,' Yad Vashem says |
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The evacuees have been torn, through no fault of their own, from their home, from their land, from their livelihood, and from the scenery of their childhood. There’s no doubt that they were, and have remained, an integral part of society, and like anyone else, they deserve to continue to live among us with dignity. The government owes them – by right and not by charity. The least that the government owes today to our brethren, who were sent by Israeli governments to settle a desolate strip of land, is to return them their lost dignity. Their personal dignity, family dignity, community dignity.
They were not and are not in any way to blame, and we must not allow them to continue to wander – not for one day, not for two, not for weeks, not for months, and certainly not for years – with their children and grandchildren in crowded trailers, in makeshift sites, on kibbutzim that don’t want them, and in temporary settlements.
It is frustrating, it is depressing and it causes despair. They were promised permanent housing within two years, and because of bureaucratic and other problems they still have no permanent housing, they do not have jobs, and they do not have a steady income. They have absolutely no idea what is in store for them. I cannot see one good reason, a logical excuse, for the suffering caused by this evacuation to continue endlessly.
On the eve of Tu Be’av 5765 (2005) I visited the home of Shlomo Friedman in Neve Dkalim. Shlomo was a Holocaust survivor who came to Israel and fought in the Golani Brigade. He later headed a large educational institution and was among the first of the pioneers who were called upon to settle Pithat Rafiah. After his home was destroyed in Yamit he and his wife went and built Neve Dkalim. I visited him before his second expulsion from his home in Israel, and after he had undergone catheterization. “How much strength do I still have left to withstand, a third time, the destruction of my house, and wandering?” he asked me, weeping. This year, Shlomo, of blessed memory, is no longer with us.
Anyone who actually takes an interest gets the general impression that the Gush Katif evacuees have received large sums as compensation, that they are certainly sitting on deposits of gold and silver. Anyone who really knows the sad situation knows that this appearance is mistaken. People have not found their way, they are going through their savings. Many are having existential difficulties. They are coping with forced unemployment, with psychological pressures, with distress, with disease, with children who have lost their anchor.
In an article I published before the evacuation I used the image of the gall bladder, which has an important role in the body’s metabolism. This gall bladder, which all of Israeli society has in common, is today inflamed, scarred and bleeding. Every doctor knows how dangerous this gall bladder is, and what great pain the inflammation is causing. If the personal, family, and community hardships caused by the uprooting of thousands of innocent citizens from their homes, which have gone on for two years, are not solved immediately, this gall bladder is liable to burst and to affect the healthy cells that still remain in Israeli society.
Rabbi Y.M. Lau is the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv-Jaffa
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