Soft power: The meaning of home for Gush Emunim settlers

Abstract

For the ideological settlers of the West Bank, home has become a key symbol, representing their vision, signifying their essence, and serving as a major resource in their struggle against their Palestinian neighbors. In this article I claim that the primacy of the physical and conceptual home in the settlers' worldview is a novelty in Zionist ideology and Jewish thought, though traditional concepts and ideas are uses selectively to formulate the importance of home. Most crucial is the context of struggle against the nearby Palestinian home and its images of authenticity. The importance of home has implications regarding family values and gender roles. Lately, the settlers' concept of home has encountered two contradictory processes: its violation in the second intifada; and the gaining of legitimacy as a result of its relative stability over time.

Keywords:

• West Bank settlers
• Gush Emunim
• home
• Hebron
• disengagement

Notes

 1 Ortner, “On Key Symbols.”

 2 For this group and its characteristics, see Aran, “Jewish Zionist Fundamentalism”; Lustick, For the Land and the Lord; Lustick, Unsettled States, Disputed Lands; Feige, Settling in the Hearts; and Taub, The Settlers.

 3 This essay is based on a rethinking and revision of my prior research on the Gush Emunim and West Bank settlers, especially my book Settling in the Hearts, as well as collection of new material. It was initially presented at a conference on the Israeli house, Tel Aviv 2008, and a seminar at Brandeis University, November 2011.

 4 See Confino, “The Nation as a Local Metaphor”; Manning, Ephemeral Territories.

 5 Gurevitch and Aran, “Al ha-makom.” The article was published in English in a shorter version, “The Land of Israel.”

 6 Gurevitch and Aran made this point in “Al ha-makom” and dedicated a section of their article to the Gush Emunim settlers.

 7 Neumann, Land and Desire in Early Zionism.

 8 Inbari, Habaitah.

 9 Much has been written on the kibbutz movement and its transformation. See for example, Near, The Kibbutz Movement.

10 Shlomo Aviner, “Harigat Mashiah Ben-Yosef” [Killing the Messiah Ben-Yosef], Nekuda, no. 11 (1980): 11.

11 See Tomer Walmar and Ilana Kuriel, “Mankal mo'etzet Yesha ba-ma'ahal: ‘Meha'ah shel kulam’” [Head of Yesha Council in the tent camp: “The protest belongs to everybody”], August 2, 2011, http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4103403,00.html; Kobi Nahshoni, “Rabanim le-rosh ha-memshalah: Mehazkim et yadeikha” [Rabbis to the prime minister: We support you], August 3, 2011, http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4104139,00.html.

12 For a discussion of the settlement project as an alternative to the Israeli welfare state, see Gutwein, “He'arot”.

13 I shall not discuss here the actual architecture of settlers' homes. For a discussion of the architecture of settlements in general, see Weizman, Hollow Land. For a description of the interiors, see Sima Zalcberg and Oz Almog, “Dfusei megorim ha-ukhlosiyah ha-datit-le'umit” [Housing patterns in the national-religious population], http://www.peopleil.org/details.aspx?itemID = 7807&searchMode = 0&index = 10 (part of an Internet project on Israeli culture initiated by Almog).

14 On the sukkah as home, see Lipis, “A Hybrid Place of Belonging.” On the multiple concepts of the cemetery in Jewish thought, see Bar-Levav, “We Are Where We Are Not.”

15 Affixing a mezuzah to the doorpost of the house can be interpreted as lending sanctity to a Jewish home. However, the sacred object is the mezuzah itself, which contains a parchment scroll written by a qualified scribe (sofer stam), and the precept commanding its installment (Deut. 6:9) defines the mezuzah as a mnemonic device, to remind the Jew of his religious obligations.

16 Mintz, Hurban.

17 Cited in Aviezer, ed., Sefer Hagai, 594.

18 Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, “Mitzvat yishuv ha-aretz” [The commandment to settle the land], http://www.yeshiva.org.il/midrash/shiur.asp?cat = 162&id = 133&q. For a discussion of this far from obvious mitzvah, see Taub, The Settlers, chap. 2.

19 See my book, Settling in the Hearts, for some examples of the West Bank settlers' persistent tendency to add a religious component to Zionist ideological principles. See also Aran, “Return to the Scripture in Modern Israel.”

20 Rabbi Yitzhak Shilat, “Ha-pahad lehafil koah nove'a mitokh hulshah musarit” [The fear to use force derives from moral weakness], Nekuda, no. 119 (1988): 48. For the settlers' view of the Palestinians, see Feige, Settling in the Hearts, chap. 6.

21 Sheleg, “Ha-menuhah veha-nahalah” [Rest and security], Nekuda, no. 94 (1986): 19.

22 A case in point is Homesh, a settlement in northern Samaria evacuated as part of the disengagement plan. The secular residents left early in the aftermath of some terrorist attacks. Religious settlers immediately came to replace them and remained to the end. Homesh presents an exemplary comparative case of the different behavior of secular and religious in face of eviction from home.

23 Dvorah Arzieli, “Hapes et ha-ishah” [Seek the woman], Nekuda, no. 154 (1987): 24–25.

24 On feminism among national-religious women, see El Or, Next Year I Will Know More.

25 Sahara Blau, “Tamid ishah” [Always a woman], Ha'aretz, December 12, 2008.

26 Zar, Mivtza masa'it.

27 Aharon Dolev, “Neshot Hadassah be-matzur” [Women of Hadassah under siege], Ma'ariv, May 4, 1979.

28 Auerbach, Hebron Jews, 107–8.

29 Miriam Levinger in an interview with Inbal Ben-Izri, June 24, 2011.

30 On Rehelim, especially in relation to questions of gender, see El Or and Aran, “Giving Birth to a Settlement”; and Feige “Do Not Weep Rachel.”

31 This account is based on Feige, “Do Not Weep Rachel,” 126–28.

32 Helman and Rapoport, “Women in Black.”

33 Shmulik Grossman, “Ha-rav Levanon: Ishah lo yekholah larutz le-mazkirut yishuv” [Rabbi Levanon: A woman cannot run for secretary of a settlement], May 23, 2010, http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3892871,00.html.

34 Shmulik Grossman, “Ha-rav Levanon mavhir: I efshar leshanot et ha-teva” (Rabbi Levanon explains: Nature cannot be changed], May 24, 2010, http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3893359,00.html.

35 Grossman, “Ishah lo yekholah larutz.”

36 Grossman, “Ishah lo yekholah larutz.”

37 Amrousi, Tris, 17.

38 Hayuta Deutsch, “Ad tzet ha-shabat shataknu” [We kept quiet until after the Sabbath], Nekuda, no. 255 (2002): 29.

39 As Rabbi Avi Gisser noted in an interview with Oded Shalom: “We have to prepare the people for the crisis of evacuation.” Yedi'ot Aharonot, October 1, 2004. See also Taub, The Settlers, 11.