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Orit is a writer and painter who immigrated to Israel from Los Angeles in 1999.
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By Orit
October 23, 2006
For the past year, ever since the Expulsion from Gaza, I have been a welcome guest at the Shabbat tables at many families beyond the "green line." I have always enjoyed visiting the settlements on Shabbat and holidays. The fresh air and beauty of the surroundings as well as the warmth and values of the residents in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) have always been a welcome respite from the cold, post-Zionist, rat-race I often encounter in Tel Aviv.
With my religious background, I have blended in at the settlements with ease. I stay throughout the Shabbat, often observing halacha to the fullest (with the occasional checking of messages in the privacy of my guest room, shhh...) If I feel like it, I go to shul. No one would be able to tell without my informing them that, only a few nights earlier, I may very well have been throwing back a few chasers while wearing jeans and a tank top at a trendy Tel Aviv bar.
I really believe that if secular people enjoyed a Shabbat dinner with a family in the settlements, they'd be won over by the special atmosphere, family values, history, and people there. They may not support the settlements or change their political opinions right away, but they would be given a pathway towards understanding and unity.
However, there doesn't seem to be any serious effort on the part of communities as a whole to reach out to secular Israelis via Shabbat hospitality, which could be one of the most effective tools for outreach. Especially since many secular, liberal Israelis don't know how to reach the settlements, let alone recite kiddush on Friday night, they would never set foot into settlements on Shabbat, or any other day for that matter, unless warmly and actively invited.
I'm sure there are many open-minded families in Judea and Samaria who would love to open there homes to secular Israelis in the center of Israel, but there's a problem: religious Jews don't want to cause other Jews to sin by making them drive on Shabbat. However, to host secular Israelis for an entire Shabbat, i.e. Friday through Saturday, is overkill. These Israelis, who have probably never in their life observed Shabbat, would not want to give up an entire Saturday in the "occupied territories." They'd rather give up on the idea of visiting settlements altogether and spend Friday night driving to a bar or what not.
I myself often wish I could come to the settlements for Friday night dinner, possibly along with a few friends, and then drive home. But from conversations I've had with settlers from more religious settlements, communities are usually not keen on the idea of letting secular people drive in and out of the settlements on Shabbat, for religious reasons and otherwise. This is unfortunate. It creates the impression that non-religious Israelis will always have to be "guests with caution" in the settlements. If Yesha is the land of Israel, shouldn't all Israelis feel comfortable spending time there?
I think more of an effort should be made on outreach to mainstream Israelis -- not religious outreach (no secular Jew ever wants to feel that someone is trying to make them "religious"), but human outreach. If a task force for Friday night hospitality got together and put an ad in the trendy magazine Time Out Tel Aviv inviting Israelis for Shabbat meals, many would come and visit with an open and curious heart -- provided they could leave Friday night and wear whatever they wanted at the table without feeling judged or uncomfortable.
At the end of the day, what's more important: the utopia of the Shabbat atmosphere, or the utopia of a united Israel in which religious and secular Jews live in harmony on the land of Israel? The issue at stake is pikuach nefesh -- saving lives, for which violations, let alone leniencies, of halakha are permissible.
To keep the settlements in our hands, the settlement communities must be open in every sense of the word to the entire house of Israel, or Yesha will forever be seen as the province of settlers and religious Jews who must fight for the land alone.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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