Instructions for unsubscribing can be found in the footer of this message.

————————————————————————–

Dear Friends,

The article below about Shdema appeared on English Arutz 7.

You are all invited to join our weekly activities in Shdema. Every Friday morning we go up to Shdema to show a presence and to hear a lecture/shiur.

Program of lecturers in Shdema for the next weeks:

Friday 27/3 at 8:00 am ­ Rabbi Yaron Durani on Birkat Hailanot
Friday 3/4 at 9:00 am ­ Ruthie Wallfish on the Exodus from Egypt
Friday 10/4 at 9:00 am- Igor Bialsky on the Iron Curtain falling
Friday 17/4 at 9:00 am ­ Sefirat HaOmer by Rabbi Yaron Durani
Friday 24/4 at 9:00 am- The fall and rise of Gush Etzion
Friday 1/5 at 8:00 am- Ezra Yachin on the Lechi underground
Friday 8/5 at 9:00 am Shiur by Rabbi Uzi Sharbaf
Friday 15/5 at 9:00 am Yehuda Etzion on Bar Kochva,Rabbi Akiva ,Destruction and Redemption
Friday,22/3 Yom Yerushalyaim at 10:00 am: with Dudu Elharar and Geula Cohen, Israel Prize winner- songs of Naomi Shemer on Erets Israel

The Committee for a Jewish Sdema & Women in Green

Rav Yaron Durani (El David-Nokdim) - Igor Bialski (Tekoa) -Tsuri Botush (Har Choma)- Elisheva Ginzberg (Alon Shvut) - Orli Glauber (Har Choma) - Ruthie Wolfish (Tekoa) - Ina Viniarski (Tekoa) - Timna Katz (Neve Daniel) - Nadia Matar (Efrat) ­ Anita Finkelstein (Tekoa) - Gedalia Friedman (Neve Daniel) ­ Yehudit Katzover (Kiryat Arba Hebron) ­ Eli Rodan (Elazar)

For details about the struggle for Shdema: http://www.womeningreen.org/
For Rivka Rybacks pictures: http://www.yeshabulletin.com/FIGHT%20BACK/FightBack.htm

———————————————————————————–

Enthusiasm in Shdema: “It Will Yet be a Jewish Neighborhood”
Adar 27, 5769, 23 March 09 01:33
by Hillel Fendel
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/130566

(IsraelNN.com) Facing opposition from the government, army, and skeptics, pioneers continue their campaign to make Shdema, south of Jerusalem, a Jewish town.

The struggle is being waged on several fronts at once: Visits to the site, planting trees and planning construction, lobbying Knesset Members, speaking tours abroad, Youtube videos, and more.

Email readers: Click here to view Shdema video http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/130566

Shdema is the strategic site of an army camp between Jerusalem and eastern Gush Etzion, which played a significant role in stabilizing the capital’s southern front after the Six Day War. The IDF reinforced Shdema with a rampart and bulletproof concrete structures during the Oslo War (September 2000), when bullet fire from nearby Beit Sahour became common. In 2003, however, as part of the IDF’s gradual withdrawal from areas in Judea and Samaria, the dismantling of Shdema began as well.

In 2008, reports began to be circulated that Shdema was actually to be given over to the Palestinian Authority. As a result, Jews of Kiryat Arba, Gush Etzion and elsewhere began their activities to keep Shdema Jewish ­ and have not ceased since.

The latest video, a professional production, features a visit to Shdema by a busload of Land of Israel loyalists from Raanana, as well as guest appearances by former Lechi fighter and MK Geulah Cohen, MK Aryeh Eldad, attorney Elyakim HaEtzni, columnist Caroline Glick, Shdema campaign leaders Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katzover, and others.

The film begins with a typical Shdema scene. Matar, leader of the grassroots Women in Green organization ­ which has taken a leading role in the struggle for Shdema, as in other Land of Israel causes ­ is seen helping clear the road for the ascent to Shdema. “The army is not here yet to open it for us,” she laughs, “so, as the Sages say, ‘When there’s no man around, be a man ­ or a woman!’”

The Message: Grassroots Organizations Can Make a Difference!
Other familiar Shdema settings featured in the film, and in many of the ascents to the site over the past year, include speakers, planting, singing, painting and refurbishing the buildings ­ and inculcation of the idea that, though chances for success appear slim, grassroots movements can succeed in making a difference.

An example is the Dagan Hill neighborhood of the nearby Gush Etzion city of Efrat. “Fifteen years ago,” Matar recalls, “ten women, and a few men as well, went up to a barren hill, determined not to let it fall into Arab hands. We were thrown out, we were arrested, we were ridiculed ­ but we kept at it, and finally, with G-d’s help, it is now a full-fledged neighborhood ­ with dozens of young couples, a yeshiva, and more. That is how we have to work.”

Katzover agrees: “The People of Israel don’t have the luxury today of being weak… Just like we went to Hevron in 1968 and reclaimed land that had been stolen from Jews, that’s how it always is: We go out, set up facts on the ground, then the officials have to come in [etc.], and then we set out for our next mission.”

Speakers on the video emphasize that the government’s policies facilitate Arab takeover of the land: laws against illegal Arab construction are not enforced, while Jews are barely able to “close off a porch.” Also accentuated is that any land Israel abandons, such as Gush Katif and Shechem, is soon used to launch terror attacks against the Jews.%ad%

Eldad: Israeli Withdrawal Won’t Solve Global Jihad
“We suffer here from a local symptom of a global disease named Global Jihad,” says MK Aryeh Eldad, on the backdrop of a Hizbullah mob chanting ‘Death to America!’ and scenes of the World Trade Center destruction. “The true nature of the conflict is a religious war, and that’s why no division of the land or drawing of a new border in Israel will solve the problem.”

Developing Shdema
The plan for Shdema is now two-fold, the activists say: 1) To make sure the government enforces its current demolition orders on the illegal Arab destruction on the bottom of the Shdemah hill, and 2) to build a Jewish “Shdema Cultural Center.” The Center will teach the theoretical and practical skills necessary to maintain Jewish independence and full sovereignty over the Land of Israel, including agriculture, construction, self-defense, Bible studies, Jewish history, and Israel advocacy.

© Copyright IsraelNationalNews.com

=============================================
Women For Israel’s Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:wfit2@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org

To subscribe to the Women in Green list,
please send a blank email message to:
list4-subscribe@womeningreen.org
Check your spam filter for confirmation to reply to

To unsubscribe from the Women in Green list,
please send a blank email message to:
list4-unsubscribe@womeningreen.org

Summary of Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katzover’s Speaking Tour in the US

Dear Friends,

Below please find Helen Freedman’s summary of our talk at the Safra synagogue in New York last Wednesday. After her summary , you will find a link to our latest must see movie on the struggle for Shdema , featuring MK Arieh Eldad, Elyakim Haetzni, Caroline Glick, Moshe Peled and others.

Yehudit Katzover, representing “The Committee for a Jewish Shdema” and I, chair of Women in Green, finished a full week of lectures and talks in the US under the title of “Why grassroots activism is so important for the future of Israel”.

We spoke in Los Angeles and New York . In both places we talked about our plans and activities that involve a return to the Zionist values of love for the land of Israel by settling the land through agriculture and construction.

We pointed out that the Jewish People are in the midst of an existential struggle over the Jewish right to dwell in Zion. Enemies of Israel all over the world are trying to prevent Jews from living in Judea and Samaria, Israel’s Biblical homeland . The call for a “two-state solution” i.e. for the creation of a Islamo-fascist terror State in Judea and Samaria, is a call for the destruction of the entire State of Israel. If Israel’s evacuation from the Gaza strip brought Kassams and Grad missilies on Ashdod , Ashkelon and the entire Negev; it is clear that the creation of a Palestinian State in Judea and Samaria would bring havoc and destruction upon Tel Aviv and Haifa and Jerusalem.

And thus, what needs to be done to protect the State of Israel ,is for the Jewish People to strengthen its hold in Judea and Samaria by expanding the existing communities there, creating new ones, thereby raising the number of 300,000 Jews already living there to one million Jews.

We need not be apologetic about any of these plans, for Judea and Samaria are an integral part of the land of Israel and belong to the Jewish people only. We also pointed out that the previous elections have clearly proven that the majority of the Jewish people have voted for a policy of loyalty to the land of Israel and have said a clear NO to the policies of weakness and capitulation to Arab terror, which is a clear NO to the creation of a Palestinian State in Israel’s Biblical Heartland.

As longtime activists we reminded our audiences that Jewish history has proven that often our political leaders need the push from the grass roots to act in the correct way. That is what happened in 1979 when a group of 13 women entered the Bet Hadassa building in Hevron and thus led to the reinstalling of Jewish life in Hebron. Something similar happened years later when ten women from Efrat and Gush Etzion fought for the Dagan hill saving it from being handed over to the PLO. Those are only two of many more examples of grass-roots activities started by few that succeeded in influencing the public and the politicians who then followed in the footsteps of the activists.

Yehudit and I described that among the many activities we are part of, today we are, together with our fellow activists, involved in saving Shdema from falling into hostile Arab hands. Shdema is an Israeli military base that was abandoned for political reasons. Situated in area C under Israeli control ,Shdema overlooks and controls the highway connecting Southern Jerusalem to Eastern Gush Etzion.

Women in Green and The committee for Shdema have been active over the past years in keeping Shdema in Jewish hands. Our goal is to establish an educational and cultural center in Shdema. The Center will offer a unique blend of spiritual and practical study programs to internalize and fulfill the Jewish and Zionist vision of settling the land of Israel. We will integrate studies of history and our Jewish heritage with “hasbara”, communication skills to strengthen the love of Israel to youth and adults alike. Courses teaching practical agriculture and construction skills will promote the value of Jewish labor.

At the end of our talk we screened our latest must see short movie about our struggle for Shdema. (see link below)

After the screening of the movie the public was invited to ask questions. One of the questions asked was: “I understand the dangers of the creation of a Palestinian State- so what should Israel do to prevent the creation of such a State?”.

I answered that in my eyes, before anything else, the government of Israel must abolish the Oslo Agreements, and must wipe out all terror organizations . After that we must annex Judea and Samaria. One cannot make peace with people who call for the destruction of the State of Israel and for an Islamic Jihad against all of western civilization. Let’s remember that fundamentalist Islam wants to not only destroy Israel but also wants to turn Europe into Eurabia and then turn against the USA. Destroying all terror organizations by the government of Israel is thus in the interest of the entire Western World.

I added that we cannot differentiate between the Fatah, Hamas, Jihad or other terror groups. Mahmoud Abbas, the current leader of Fatah after Yasser Arafat, is as much of a terrorist as Haniye or Osama Bin laden. Must we remind our public that Mahmoud Abbas was the financier of the Munich massacre of the Israeli athletes; a man whose so-called doctorate from Moscow university, consisted of outright Holocaust denial; a man who has for decades been a close aid to the mass murderer Yassir Arafat and an active figure in the terrorist PLO hierarchy. In the past few years too, the Fatah organization has committed numerous acts of terror against Israelis. The PA continues to act as an enabler of terrorism by teaching its children to emulate terrorists and extols murderers of Jews as heroes and role models. All those terrorist leaders must be put to trial by the State of Israel and executed, I said, as the US did to Saddam Hussein and the Allied Forces did to the heads of the Nazi regime.

Clearly I was talking about the need to bring Abbas and other terrorists to justice for crimes against the Jewish People and humanity as the job of the government of Israel and not of any private individual as some malicious emails are trying to claim through distortion and defamation.

As the past 16 years have proven, Women in Green is a non-violent grass roots organization that promotes, through education, the love of the Land of Israel and our Jewish Heritage.

Women in Green promote pride in our Jewish and Zionist values, steadfastness as to our right to our Land, and expect the government of Israel to protect the Land of Israel and the people of Israel, by fighting a uncompromising battle against Arab terrorists and their leaders. We advocate the death sentence for terrorists convicted by the State of Israel after due process in a court of law for the following reasons:

1) elementary justice (as practiced in many States in the US)

2) deterrence

3) prevention of tragic situations like the current Shalit case, where an entire country is held hostage by a terror organization. If terrorists and their leaders had been executed by the Israeli government, we would not now be subject to such blackmail by Hamas.

The fact that some people in Israel and the US want Israel to negotiate a suicidal “two-State solution” with Mahmoud Abbas, does not make him less of a terrorist and a murderer. The call to bring him to justice is as much a legitimate call as is the call to bring Osama Bin laden to justice.

Women in Green are happy that the majority of the people in Israel in the past elections have shown to believe in the same values Women in Green have been promoting for the past 16 years; values of love of the land of Israel and of our Jewish heritage.

We,extra-parliamentary activists for the land of Israel have lots of work ahead. The Israeli Left together with anti-Israeli organizations abroad, will surely try to threaten and pressure the new elected government to make concessions to the Arab enemy. It will be our duty to make sure the new government will stick to the national and Zionist values it was elected to promote.

To all the wonderful friends whom we met on our speaking tour:

it was great meeting you in person.

We especially want to thank our dear friend Alan Jacobs for organizing our trip to the US.

We also want to thank Doris Wise Montrose from the Children of the Jewish Holocaust Survivors in Los Angeles and all her wonderful friends for organizing our talk in Los Angeles.

Thank you to the wonderful families who hosted us on Shabbat. Thank you to the families who sponsored a Kiddush in Beth Jacob.

Thank you to Helen and Barry Freedman from AFSI for organizing the evening in New York.

Below please find Helen Freedman’s summary and a link to the new video on Shdema.

With love for Israel,

Nadia Matar, Women in Green

Yehudit Katzover, the Committee for a Jewish Shdema

—————————————————————-

HILLTOP HEROINES

By Helen Freedman

Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI was proud to present a dynamite duo, Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katzover, to an overflow audience at the Safra Synagogue in NYC on Wednesday night, March 18. Barry Freedman, AFSI’s Executive Director, opened the program by reminding the over one hundred admirers of the “hilltop heroines” that the AFSI Chizuk missions, which have taken place twice a year since 1994, have provided many hundreds of people with the opportunity to meet the grassroots heroes and heroines represented by Nadia and Yehudit.

Yehudit Katzover told us about her experiences as an early “settler” in Kiryat Arba/Hebron in the days before running water, paved streets, and available medical facilities; however she described the joy felt by all in just being in the promised land, fulfilling the dream. In 1979, fifty years after the 1929 Arab pogrom which emptied Hebron of its Jews, Yehudit and twelve other women, along with their 45 children, “occupied” Beit Hadassah in Hebron and remained there for one year, demanding the acceptance of the return of the Jews to Hebron . They won their battle, and today Beit Hadassah is a flourishing home to many Hebron families.

Nadia Matar, co-founder of Women in Green with her mother-in-law, Ruth Matar, reminded her group of warm admirers, that the first “settlers” were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. She therefore terms all “settlers” as “inheritors”, those who are fully participating in realizing the biblical promise. She decried the foolishness of pursuing the “two state solution” in the face of all the evidence exposing it as a path to Israel’s destruction. Instead, Nadia injected the excitement of hope and progress in describing her activities regarding the saving of Shdema. Shdema, an abandoned Israeli military base, overlooks and controls the highway connecting the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Choma to eastern Gush Etzion. It is a vitally strategic area that must remain in Israeli hands. Every Friday morning, the Committee for Shdema, along with Members of Knesset and distinguished lay people, make their presence felt at Shdema with lectures, concerts, and study groups. Their plan is to build a Land of Israel Cultural Center at Shdema. Details can be found on the website: www.womeningreen.org. Those interested in being in Shdema on Friday, May 22, 2009 , with the AFSI Chizuk mission, coming up this May 17-26, should contact Barry Freedman at: afsi@rcn.com ; 212-828-2424; 1-800-235-3658.

AFSI is indebted to Rabbi Elie Abadie and Alisa Shams for their continuing hospitality in opening their synagogue to AFSI’s lecture series. Get on the AFSI email list to learn about upcoming events at the Safra Synagogue: afsi@rcn.com .

LINK TO LATEST MOVIE ON THE STRUGGLE FOR A JEWISH SHDEMA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7TXpIqPjfo

__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 3846 (20090211) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

Instructions for unsubscribing can be found in the footer of this message.

————————————————————————–

Dear Friends,

One of the messages inherent in the holiday of Purim is that even if the lot has been cast and everything seems lost, one must not despair. As the activists Mordechai and Esther taught us, you must act to change the evil decree, even if, in the beginning you represent only a minority among your people. If you are a proud Jew, who adheres to his belief and in the justness of his cause, you will not kneel down or bow to the haters of Israel. If you do not fear to “go through the city, crying out loudly and bitterly” (Esther 4:1) to defend your brethren- then eventually, with G-d’s help, you too will succeed in awakening the people and changing the decree.

From then to the present, the Jewish People has been forced to act against the descendants of Haman, who was from the seed of Amalek.

The distinguished Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Charlap, of blessed memory, explained in his article “Arousing the Hatred of Amalek”, that in order to understand the meaning and importance of the commandment to “remember what Amalek did to you on your journey after you left Egypt” (Deuteronomy 25:17), we must deeply examine Amalek’s intentions.

Rabbi Charlap explains, based on various midrashim, that Amalek led Israel to be doubtful, hesitant, and questioning regarding the very fact of the involvement by G-d in the life of the people; until the Children of Israel actually questioned:
“Is the Lord present among us or not? (Exodus17:7).
Amalek understood that only when the children of Israel would lack faith, their enemies could defeat them in battle.

During the time of the wilderness, Amalek introduced doubts and hesitation about the existence of the G-d of Israel. In our modern time, Israel’s enemies try to implant in the Jewish People doubts and hesitations concerning our right to the entire Land of Israel. Unfortunately, those external enemies have partners within Israel too. Both internal and external enemies continue to push forward the Amalekite plan of “the two state solution” knowing very well that the creation of a Islamo­Fascist Arab State in Judea and Samaria would bring upon the destruction of Israel as a Jewish State.

The one and only obstacle to this suicidal “Two-State solution plan” is the settlement enterprise.
300,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria are the belt that defend the entire country from becoming targets for kassams and Grad missiles.

For Israel to be strong we must make sure that the new elected government will have no doubts and hesitations as to the justness of our cause and the clear knowledge that the entire Land of Israel belongs solely to the Jewish People. In order to overturn the “Two-Sate solution Decree by the US and EU and UN, the new Israeli government must strengthen the Jewish stronghold in Judea and Samaria by creating new settlements, expanding the existing ones, and stop all Arab take-over of thousands of dunams of State Land.

Ultimately the world will have to understand that the only way to achieve peace is when Israel will have complete control over the entire Land of Israel with Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the Golan and the Temple Mount.

For that we need leaders who proudly and fearlessly declare:
The entire Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel based on the Torah of Israel.

In the past elections a few weeks ago, the majority of the people in Israel voted for such a strong Jewish Zionistic leadership.

On this holiday of Purim we pray that those leaders will finally have the courage to live up to the people’s expectation, and will act like Mordechai and Esther, with faith in Hashem.

With blessings of “VeNahafochu”- “May the Jews finally rule over those who hate them”,

Happy Purim,

Nadia Matar
Women in Green

=============================================
Women For Israel’s Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:wfit2@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org

To subscribe to the Women in Green list,
please send a blank email message to:
list4-subscribe@womeningreen.org
Check your spam filter for confirmation to reply to

To unsubscribe from the Women in Green list,
please send a blank email message to:
list4-unsubscribe@womeningreen.org