By Joel Magalnick, JTNews Correspondent
When Israeli Ephraim Bluth came to town the week of Feb. 8, he had a busy agenda. In addition to speaking at Northwest Yeshiva High School and Seattle Hebrew Academy, he made presentations at two synagogues and for a private party as well.
Bluth’s annual trip to the United States—one that usually includes Seattle among its many stops—was twofold: to raise money for his West Bank settlement school programs, and to raise awareness of Israel and the intifada from the perspective of where he lives.
Bluth, a native New Yorker, lives in Elon Moreh. This settlement, in yesha, as he calls it—the area inside the pre-1967 borders that were captured from Jordan in the Six Day War—is located about an hour’s drive north of Jerusalem and due east of the beach city of Netanya. It sits atop a foothill in an area dotted with settlements. Information brochures about the city explain how “a modern breed of pioneers renew our people’s commitment to Jewish settlement of Jewish land.”
The city is home to four educational programs in addition to the families that live there.
The most well known is the yeshivat hesder, an institution for religious men who extend their army commitment to five years so they can split their time between “deepening [their] sources of Jewish tradition,” Bluth said, “and service in the Israeli army.”
The city, which holds a primarily religious population, also has a small seminary and a women’s college. The fourth program Bluth explained with pride: a high school for Russian immigrants.
“It’s a unique high school in Israel, because the language of instruction is Russian,” Bluth said. “We do not recruit students from the former Soviet Union, we do not recruit students from Israel. They are all—100 percent of them—referred to us by guidance counselors in mainstream Israeli high schools.”
The school is a fully accredited four-year institution for boys with problems adjusting to their new language.
Bluth is the director of development for these schools, but he said his mission when coming to the U.S. is not to simply ask for money.
“When I come to Jewish communities, I don’t stand up in the synagogue and rattle on about why they need to give us money. I talk about issues,” he said. “The last thing they want to talk about is another yeshiva that needs money in Israel.”
Bluth chooses his words carefully. He acknowledges the controversial and dangerous situation of where he lives, but explains his Biblical right to exist there.
“Living in Israel, anywhere in Israel, is important,” Bluth said, “I represent the segment of the Israeli population that feels that all of the land of Israel is relevant in terms of Jewish settlement.”
He acknowledges that Palestinians live in the area, but puts blame for the intifada squarely on the shoulders of their leadership. He never mentions a separate Palestinian state as an option.
“The diatribes that are emanating from Palestinians throughout the entire Palestinian leadership indicates that the most extreme elements of Palestinian society are today setting the political tone of discourse,” Bluth said. “It’s totally unclear if Palestinians would be prepared to live under Israeli sovereignty.”
A report from Americans for Peace Now, which advocates a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, states that some settlers in this contested region have set up multiple outposts in the past two years—with the clear intent of building settlements—on Palestinian land. Though Elon Moreh is not one of the settlements listed in the document as having done so, Bluth’s position is similar to those who have taken this land.
Also at issue is the security barrier Israel has been building, roughly along the post-Six Day War border called the Green Line. The barrier, which has ignited fierce controversy on all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for its existence and its route, among other issues, will not enclose Elon Moreh.
“The wall cannot encompass all Israeli communities that are today in this area,” says Bluth, “so it only encompasses those major communities which are near or relevant proximity to what was the Green Line before the Six Day War.”
Yet from the outside Elon Moreh is well protected, and rightly so, said Bluth, who has seen violent crimes take hold of his city.
In 2002, during a Passover seder, a Palestinian broke into one family’s home and killed four of its members. Others in the house escaped through windows before they could be seriously harmed, and “the terrorist was subsequently eliminated,” said Bluth, “but the damage was horrific.” There have been other incidents as well, but this was the most serious.
With Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s announcement of a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, many of the residents of the settlements, even in the West Bank have become nervous, while others have become indignant. Given a mandate to leave their homes, would settlers take up arms against their own people?
“Within the parameters of democratic discourse, yes we [would] fight that position,” Bluth said. “We can have a violent discussion, but that is the extent of the violence that we would entertain.”
Anyone who might do otherwise, Bluth called “misguided.”
He noted, however, that the Sharon government was elected on a platform of promoting Jewish settlement. While that platform may have been turned on its head, it might just be talk. At this time, Sharon has not presented any formal plan for withdrawal to his party, cabinet or the government.
“If he’s going to have a change of heart, he has to take it to the Israeli people,” Bluth said, adding that he thought any type of unilateral withdrawal would backfire. He said it would promote the feeling among Palestinians that terrorism pays.
“Rather than achieve the result that Mr. Sharon hopes for – a reduction in terror – he may well achieve the opposite,” Bluth said.
Ultimately, Bluth believes, Israel will somehow or another persevere. When he comes to American cities, he calls for greater support of Israel while trying to bring Jews as a people together. In Seattle, he did not reach out beyond the Orthodox community, but did say he welcomed the opportunity to speak to other congregations or organizations. “We are bound together with the knowledge,” he said, “that that which unites is greater than that which divides us.”