Baruch Al-Makiys and Mary Ezrachi in your organization
While browsing the Internet for articles from the days of the disengagement, I came across an article in Haaretz about Baruch Al-Makiis (former head of the Yeruham Council) and to my surprise I saw your name featured in the article in a rather significant context. These are the words: “At the height of the crisis, in March of this year, Rabbi Michael (Michi) Avraham, who teaches at the Hesder Yeshiva in Yeruham, published an extraordinary ad in the local newspaper. Under the headline “Silence of the Lambs,” Avraham called for a kind of civil rebellion against Al-Makiis. The council is not functioning, it said, public funds are disappearing, and the residents are silent. Avraham asked the residents to sign a petition to remove Al-Makiis from his position and even threatened that at the next stage he would “declare a property tax revolt.”
The ad received an impressive response. About 900 residents of Yeruham signed it. Afterwards, the struggle headquarters, which called itself “Baruch Asham,” called for a boycott of Independence Day events in the town. “There is no struggle without a price,” the ad published by the struggle headquarters read, “We will not allow Almkeys to destroy the town, and we will not cooperate with it in any area.”
Can you explain the course of events and what exactly happened there with this Baruch Almakiis?
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By the way, the article you saw, by Miron Rapaport in Haaretz, we obtained after much effort because of a connection I had with this reporter. It was the first glimmer of attention we received from the national media, when much lesser acts committed in large cities (and therefore usually less harmful, because the systems are larger and more balanced), would have received entire editions about it.
https://www.haaretz.co.il/misc/2005-05-24/ty-article/0000017f-dbed-df9c-a17f-fffdb9e10000
And despite the connection I had and the unambiguous situation, you can see how much Haaretz is willing to condone the struggles of settlers.
Rumor has it that local government is considered among the most corrupt entities.
Did you support disengagement at the time? Why? And how does it make sense for a council head to talk like a bakery head? So you intend to get the people of the Hesder Yeshiva out of Yeruham?
“I don't intend to get them out. I intend to tell them, did you cut off half of Yeruham from me, which is registered in my name in the land registry? Give it back to me. My father told me: Whoever does you harm, do not return good to him, and whoever shows mercy to the cruel, will end up being cruel to the merciful. And Rabbi Blumentzweig (Eliyahu Blumentzweig, rabbi of the Hesder Yeshiva) and Michai Avraham should know: If you don't want me, sit down and convince me, and in three years there will be elections and you will overthrow me. Go to the Israel Police, complain about me. That's fine, I have a small hand, suitable for handcuffs. But if you think that every morning you will stand before me like settlers – I will not spare you, and within the framework of the law and proper administration, I will take you out one by one, with a truck, and applaud you from behind”.
What do you want from Rabbi Blumentzweig, what do you want from the people of the Hesder yeshiva?
“I will come and tell the rabbi: Let's see how the Hesder yeshiva can turn from a minus to a plus. Let's take ten of your people and help the drug addicts, the young Russian girls who go with the Bedouins, to get the whole settlement out of this mud. But now I am ashamed to return to Yeruham, to these oranges. All my fences are full of oranges, Shiites. On Passover, Rabbi Blumentzweig sent Passover flour dishes to Dimona, instead of to people they know here. I came and told him: May they burn you in hell. I cannot understand this, I cannot live with this. If there was one good thing in Yeruham, it would be moderation, he thought. Now you go there, it's like in Hamdon. But in six months I'll come and tell them: Get out of the holes, all of you, with all the 16-M you stole to help Gush Katif. Because I only have one power, my public.
Rabbi Blumentzweig is one of the most pleasant and honest people I know. How can you talk to him like that? By the way, the Haredi community in Yeruham is like those who studied at the Lithuanian yeshiva that Rabbi Tikochinsky ztchl founded there?
aaa, this is such a general statement that I assume that even you yourself do not know how to explain and substantiate it.
Yishai, I did not support the disengagement, but I did not oppose it. I argued then, and I also wrote this on the website, that supporting or opposing the disengagement is nonsense, because it does not stand on its own. In order to formulate a position on it, you need to hear what the policy is regarding every possibility that occurs after that. And so on for many questions about which heated and meaningless debates are being waged.
It seems to me that you did not read the article carefully. This immortal quote is from Almakeys and not mine. I am offended by the very possibility of attributing it to me. I share your opinion about Rabbi Blumentzweig, and even more than that.
There are also some and others.
Well. According to this article, everything is clear. The big problem was the religious settlement in Yeruham. There is nothing to be done and this is the mentality of the residents and this is who they wanted. The religious residents should have simply left (after all, they didn't buy apartments there). No one needs to be saved and no one needs saving. And no one is in danger. This alma-kays is corrupt in terms of the Ashkenazim and the residents who came there temporarily to save them and along the way improve their financial situation in preparation for moving to another place) but not in terms of the original and real residents of the place who don't seem to have been bothered by his actions and conduct. The outside intervention by force was wrong (although not unjustified in itself), at least in the long run. The original residents (and real residents according to the article) should have learned from their direct experience about the consequences of their choice.
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