Sunday, October 10, 2010

Judea and Samaria, 1982




October 7, 1982, Twenty-Eight Years Ago in Judea and Samaria


Excerpt from my book, "Letters From Israel" page 221-222

We went on the ACI (Americans and Canadians in Israel) trip the day after we spoke to you (my mother and daughter) and picked up two older ladies in Karmiel, drove into Haifa, and met the bus on the Carmel. We went to the West Bank, or Samaria. to be more specific, and it was quite an eye opener for us. Ha, I had to get up at 5:00am and went to bed at midnight because we had such good late TV. I woke up sneezing, which was a surprise, and took an allergy pill, so fought sleep all day and night. It was so terrible. Yes, I do get that way once in a while and can't stop sneezing.

Anyway, what happened was that we drove on the highway from Haifa to Tel Aviv along the coast. It is a lovely drive, and turned left at Kvar Saba, went into that teeny town and out of it, and we found ourselves in Samaria. I was so shocked. It's practically on the other side of the highway. We stood at a plaque where Sharon and his men had fought not too recently and saw our highway and cars. It was unreal! We drove deeper into Samaria and saw Arabs, sheep, a little Arab town outside Kafar Saba, and in the distance Ramalla, which was a larger Arab city. I saw lots of land that looked somewhat like Eastern Oregon, and finally came some twenty-five minutes later to a Jewish settlement where we had lunch in their succa. We brought our own sack lunches with us. This settlement is made up of mainly Israelis and a few Americans who are very dedicated and Zionistic. One of their people is a non-Jew who is a Japanese man recently from Japan who has a paper factory there where he makes paper for computers. He goes to services, and once got all dressed up in his Japanese robes and proceeded to take movies of the Friday night services until he was asked to please stop.

They are building beautiful homes but no apartments there, and are almost ready to move in. The establishment is six years old. You know that house in Ontario on the corner with the red tile roof and wood sides? One house I saw looked like that one. The other houses had the same roof but were made of cement.

Anyway, the point is this. The shape of Israel decided by the United Nations is really weird. They gave us the seacoast from Haifa to Tel Aviv, and that's it. The land adjacent to us is ancient Samaria and Judea. How dumb! We should have that land.

Resource: Letters From Israel by Nadene Goldfoot copyright 2003; found in Ontario, Oregon Library and amazon.com

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