Thursday, five in the evening, the deer forest in Moshav Odem, Golan Heights. It seems as if the Israelis have realized that the entire holiday season has been reduced to a few days of ceasefire, and so they have come here now, together. Religious and secular, Jews and Arabs, everyone has been looking for one thing in the Golan this week: shade. I don't know who went to visit the cowshed, but we stood with many in line at the robotic, computerized cowshed, which of course is not under the sun. It is not clear who was walking in Banias, because more than 1,000 people came to an air-conditioned chocolate factory in the settlement of Ein Zivan in one day.
Ahead of us in line, on the way to see elk, ibex and deer, stood a family from Sderot, who of course received a discount. Behind us stood a family from Gedera, who wondered why they didn't get one too. Before the tour among the animals begins, one of the children points and asks where the protected area is. The guide explains with a smile that there is no such thing here in the Golan. Only sometimes, in the distance, do you hear gunshots and explosions from the civil war in Syria. To another child, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, the antlers of all the elk remind us of a shofar. The month of Elul is approaching.
Sunday afternoon, the "Magic of the Fruit" visitors center in Moshav Nov. We are standing in line to board wooden wagons and take a tour of the large plantation, to see some nature up close. In line for the trip – one family from New York, one from Givatayim and one from Jerusalem. All of them are three or four generations. In the plantation itself, among the many Thais, we discover, to our surprise, Israeli workers.
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""These are the new Palmach people," Avraham Sade, one of the owners of this huge packing house, explains to me later. "A bit of a strange name, huh? They're reestablishing the Palmach. Seriously. They asked to work here, and of course we accepted them. Jews usually want managerial positions, but these guys want physical work.".
Yoav Elkin, one of the founders of the new Palmach, answers my question about when this organization began in the utmost seriousness: "We were founded in 1941. We are a direct continuation of the Palmach of old. We are talking about 70 young people who live in several communes in the area, and who come to engage in agriculture as a preferred job after the army, but it is much more than that. There is a commitment to cooperation here, there is an educational and social statement here.".
I remind him that the Palmach was actually disbanded with the establishment of the state, and he replies: "The spirit was never disbanded. Once the goal was to establish a Hebrew army, and now the goal is to connect young people to the land and create a Hebrew workforce.".
Their workday begins early in the morning, and until three or four they engage in vigorous manual labor. Then, in the community setting, they prepare food together and also study together, mainly the "Palmacha Book." Elkin, a youth worker and student, originally from Tel Aviv, talks about a new and wonderful connection to nature. "Going back to Tel Aviv and seeing a tomato in the supermarket is no longer the same. I know where it comes from.".
""Gush Katif Heritage Center in the Golan," proclaims the intriguing sign at the entrance to Moshav Avni Eitan. Gush Katif? In the Golan? It turns out that several dozen families from Gush Katif chose to settle there after the disengagement. Some even continue to engage in agriculture, and have established greenhouses in the Golan using the same technology they used in the Gaza Strip.
""Even when we were on the boxes, in the hotels, we started talking about a place where we would preserve all our heritage," explains Tova Hadad, once from Kfar Darom, now from Avni Eitan. "We chose to tell the story of our own lives in the museum, and there is also a therapeutic element here. Most of the actors in the films that are shown in the museum were expelled from Gush Katif, and we also made the artwork.".
One of the impressive films at the site presents Jewish history in the Gaza Strip, which it turns out began during the Hasmonean period and continued through the Mishnah and Talmud. An archival film, which the guide Noga Solnik describes as "painfully current," deals with dairy farmer Nissim DeGorkar from the settlement of Atzmona, who tells the story of a dairy farm that had more than 400 cows. It turns out that more than a decade ago, when he arrived at the dairy farm in the morning, DeGorkar noticed that the cows were moving restlessly, as if something was disturbing them in the ground they were treading on. IDF soldiers came to inspect and discovered a tunnel there that terrorists from nearby Khan Yunis had tried to dig into the dairy farm in order to carry out an attack. The news reported with astonishment about the new phenomenon at the time.
After more than an hour there, I noticed that I hadn't seen a single picture of the evacuation. Not a soldier, not a policeman, not a tear. Everything is very optimistic and full of life, as if there had never been a disengagement. And that's the goal. When you hear about a history that goes back thousands of years, the visitor gets the feeling that Jewish settlement in Gaza has always continued, with breaks along the way, and so it is now. So if not there, in the meantime they are settling in the Golan, or in a series of new settlements established by the evacuees in the Lachish region. The main thing, as it says on the center's website, is "out of Zionism, joy, and construction.".
Is this the whole picture? No. In Jerusalem, during those very hours of great freedom, hundreds packed the more famous museum commemorating the disengagement. The Jerusalem Gush Katif Museum opened – not for nothing – on the eve of Tisha B’Av six years ago. More than 100,000 have visited there since then, but they have had a completely different experience. This museum not only presents faith and pioneering against the backdrop of white dunes and the blue sea, but also attempts to burn away trauma. Among other things, in a dark, pitch-black room, the turbulent struggle during the evacuation, the poignant public protest, and the last moments in the lives of the communities are displayed. Lots of bulldozers, soldiers carrying away settlers, and images of destruction and devastation. There is an unequivocal attempt here to warn against another retreat.
In the photo above, MKs Shuli Moalem and Zevulun Kalfa from the Jewish Home, who visited the museum a few days ago and couldn't hold back their tears, are seen. They would leave the Northern Museum smiling.
From the Golan, the "Red Sun" halls in Rishon LeZion seemed very far away. I learned about Mahmoud and Morel's wedding from the newspapers next to the cash register, at a restaurant in the artists' settlement of Aniam. That's why I'm just asking: It seems that in the public debate, there were mainly two positions heard, either "Death to the Arabs!" or "Marriage to the Arabs!". What about those who think differently?
This week's Torah is the "Re'ah" Torah. It deals with man's free choice, the animals that are permitted and prohibited from being eaten for kosher reasons, his relationship with the poor, the year of the Shemitah, and more. But let's face it, this is one of the Torah portions that Israeli children know the least about. That's how it is when kindergartens and schools are closed. This week I heard a child ask with the utmost seriousness: "Mom, are there Torah portions this week even during the Great Holiday?".
Jewish status:""From the beginning of the new month of Elul until the day after" "Yom Kippur - These are the days of grace" (from "Kitzur Shulchan Aruch", (About the month of Elul which will begin this coming Wednesday)
• The column is published in Yedioth Ahronoth
