GARDEN OF EDEN

 

The view confronting you is awe-inspiring.

On the top of a barren mountain ridge,  at the tip of southeastern Gush Etzion, with breathtaking views overlooking the Judean Desert and the Dead Sea, four American immigrants are building an oasis - a working organic farm and spiritual retreat center - with the hope of turning the site into a global tourist destination. For the past number of years, they have been utilizing various platforms, including radio and television, and going on speaking tours in Israel and abroad. They already have a tremendous following worldwide - sharing their love of the Land of Israel.

                                                                                    

Under the 1995 Oslo agreement, Judea and Samaria were divided into three areas: A, B and C. The first two were transferred to Palestinian control. Area C, which made up 60 percent of the area, remained under Israeli control.

In 2008, then-Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, unveiled a strategy to seize the lands of the Area. Their goal was to choke Israeli communities, blocking their development and transferring control over strategic lands to the PA. Since then, with lavish funding from the European Union, 60,000 acres of state land have been seized by the Palestinians. Illegal settlements have sprung up by the dozens,  and access roads to Israeli communities in Judea and Samarea have become dangerous for the Jewish residents.

In an interview with Maariv some time ago, Kobi Eliraz, who served as an adviser on Area C to three defense ministers, estimated that as a result of the land grabs, Israel today controls, at best, only 40 percent of Judea and Samaria.

Palestinian land seizures are impossible to miss. On the road to the farm, the Palestinians have set up a half-dozen illegal quarries, destroying the biblical landscape and enveloping the three Israeli communities in the vicinity—Ma’ale Amos, Ivey Nahal and Arugot Farms.

Some Jews have made it their mission to do something about it. Meet our two American immigrants, Ari Abramowitz and Jeremy Gimpel. Arugot Farms didn’t start out as a Farm. Ari started living out there, in 2016, on a barren plot of land in a small hut, without electricity. It contained one bedroom, a small kitchen and bathroom -  and no glass in the windows. His best friend, Jeremy Gimpel, joined him soon after. Both are rabbis; former Israeli Defense Forces’ soldiers; best friends and business partners. Combining their life savings, they and their families, moved to the hilltop, in order to build what they called  Arugot Farms. They were joined by two more idealistic farmers and their families, in order to cultivate and protect some 40 acres of state land.                                                                       

Local officials had asked the farmers to build Arugot Farm, in order to act as a shield and bridge. The Government allowed this project to be used for agriculture and tourism, but it was developed into so much more.  It is located on state lands the Jewish National Fund had been unable to maintain. Over 20 years ago, the JNF planted 10,000 trees on the site to protect it from “Palestinian” land grabs. But in the space of a few hours, “Palestinian” villagers surrounding the area, uprooted all of the trees.

Ari Abramowitz explained the significance of Arugot Farm and the vineyards in the context of the “Palestinian” land-grab war: “Our location is the last line of state lands in eastern Gush Etzion. A kilometer to our east is already PA-controlled territory. There are thousands of areas where Palestinians have seized control over state lands. Nature preserves are being destroyed and are disappearing. The Civil Administration isn’t doing anything to stop this”.

                                                                        

Then there was the day that the Germans arrived, continuing every year since then, to help build Arugot Farm - bringing their own tools. They explained that they were artisans and craftsmen, many of them children and grandchildren of Nazis. They had come, in their own words, to do teshuva (atonement). While their forebears had brought curses and destruction upon the Jewish people, their goal was to bring blessings and to build. When  asked why they chose Arugot Farm from all the other settlements and mountaintops, they explained that we are the furthest settlement in Judea – where the world stands most against us. And if this is where the world stands against us, they reiterated, then this is where they wanted to stand with us”. 

                                                                            

 

Every herb, flower, and tree here is a testament to the beauty and resilience of the Israeli spirit. In the heart of the biblical “Wilderness of Zif” where King David composed many of the Psalms, the Arugot Farm has been transformed from a barren desolate wilderness to a Garden of Eden.

                                                                        

It was from these mountains that the prophets of Israel shared their message of love, prayer, and hope. Today, indigenous Jews and their children are harvesting grapes, making olive oil and tending  flocks of sheep, like their ancestors did over 2,000 years ago.