The Hilltop (28 page)

“Article? What article? Shuv-el, stop that!” The call from the head of the regional council had disturbed the Assis family's dinner, which included cottage cheese spread on the tablecloth, bits of egg thrown into the air, and orange juice spilled on the floor.

“What are you saying, Dov? Who? Shuv-el, Shuv— Just a minute, Dov, I'll get back to you shortly.” But the moment Othniel pressed the red button on his Nokia, the device rattled again with another incoming call. Natan Eliav, the secretary of Ma'aleh Hermesh A., was on the line. “Yes, Natan, yes, yes, I don't understand it. Listen, I need to— I'll get back to you in a— Rachel! Rachel!” he called, and the third time, to signal the urgency of the matter, he stood up and switched from the religious enunciation to street-speak:“Ra-chel!”

A meeting of the Planning Committee, chaired by Rachel Assis, was scheduled for that same evening. Shaulit Rivlin cradled Zvuli in her bosom, Gavriel Nehushtan caressed his sparse beard, Hilik Yisraeli stirred a cup of coffee, and Othniel joked, asking, “Is today Planning or Absorption?” Anyone willing to serve on a committee of sorts did so, and so, for the most part, the same four or five outpost residents were members of all of them.

Hilik dunked a cookie into his coffee just as Othniel asked if anyone had received any current information.

“Current information about what?” Gabi asked.

“I don't know. I got a bunch of calls about some newspaper article. Did something happen in the region? I didn't have a chance to get back to them.”

No one knew, and Rachel said, “There's always something happening here. Let's focus on the meeting. I'll read out the list from the previous meeting. I'd like to finally get things prioritized today.” She rustled the printed page and began reading in a stern, teacherly tone:

“On the horizon:

“One. Establishing a fixed structure to serve as a kindergarten for the children of the settlement (Housing Ministry).

“Two. Building a mikveh (deputy defense minister).

“Three. Developing a lookout facility on the adjacent hilltop, with an observation point facing the desert and a visitors' center. (Contact the Public Works Department.)

“Four. Construction of fixed homes for existing and future families (Housing Ministry).

“Five. Absorption of families and the expansion of the community's land area (Tefahot Bank).

“Six. An Internet website with promotional videos to help recruit funds and attract new residents (Yakir Assis?).

“Seven. Approaching the Interior Ministry's Names Committee to request a renaming of the settlement to distinguish it from Ma'aleh Hermesh.”

“What names have you proposed?” questioned Shaulit. She wanted to propose naming the settlement after her father, may God avenge his blood. Othniel figured as much. When the playground was established, she wanted the park named after him, too. “Doesn't Zevulun Park sound more appropriate than Mamelstein Park?” she had asked anyone who was willing to listen at the time. Her request was denied.

“I haven't proposed anything yet. I'll convene a discussion at another time. We're constantly convening one committee and then we begin discussing issues related to another one, so please, let's maintain a little order.”

Silence ensued, followed by a brief discussion about names nevertheless.
Then one about a fixed structure for a kindergarten, the issue that had been bumped up to the top of the agenda despite reservations voiced by Gavriel, who proposed building a new synagogue and leaving the kindergarten in its current location.

As always, Shaulit raised the subject of the mikveh for the women. Rachel seconded her. It wasn't easy living in an outpost hundreds of meters away from the closest ritual purification bath and maintaining the laws concerning
niddah
. The women were sometimes forced to maneuver around under the cover of darkness and hide behind bushes and think twice before hitching a ride. It was embarrassing to know that a stranger would immediately smell the fragrance of shampoo and see wet hair under a head scarf and know what they'd be doing that night. Othniel was about to say something, but his telephone rang. He glanced at it and apologized. It was council leader Dov again. He told Othniel about an article about Ma'aleh Hermesh C. that appeared in a newspaper in the United States. He didn't have precise details, but he'd received a call from someone at the Foreign Ministry who heard from someone at the embassy in Washington. The matter was being looked into—exactly which newspaper, small or big, important or not, a supporter or an opponent, remained unknown.

“About Ma'aleh Hermesh C.? In America?”

“That's what they said.”

“Are you sure?”

“That's the rumor.”

The remaining committee members watched Othniel. The meeting was forgotten. Othniel was bombarded with questions. The phone rang again. He stepped outside and the Planning Committee followed him. Darkness had descended on the hilltop, the stars were out, inviting the Shema Yisrael prayer. A large crowd suddenly materialized and gathered outside the Assis family home. Josh received a call, spoke in English, and everyone stared at him because it sounded like he was getting some interesting information. He put his hand up to his forehead and said things like “No shit!” and “You're joking!” and “Are you sure?” and “Unreal!” and his bright eyes wandered to and fro in an expression that wavered somewhere between puzzlement and astonishment. By the time he said,
“Bye” and pressed the red button, everyone had gathered around him, waiting in expectant silence.

“It's an article in the
Washington Post
,” he said, “a big article, about the settlement.”

“C.?” yelled everyone en masse.

“C., C., only C. It talks about the playground. And Mamelstein. And the story with the D-9s.”

“What does it say?”

Josh had a vacant, pale look in his eyes.

The ring of an old rotary dial phone ripped through the darkness. Othniel removed his hand from his pocket, clutching the device. He looked at the display. “Unknown number,” he announced. Everyone went quiet.

“Hello?” Othniel said, and then, “Which ministry?”

And in a lower voice, as he stepped away to give himself some space to facilitate a more intimate conversation, “The Defense Ministry?”

F
amily legend tells that the forefathers of Joshua Levin were Marranos, or
anusim—
Jews of the Iberian Peninsula who converted to Catholicism to escape the expulsion of Jews from Spain in the fifteenth century but secretly preserved Jewish traditions. Many years later, in the eighteenth century, some family members decided to make their way to the New World, and journeyed, via Livorno in Italy, to the province of Nuevo Mexico, then in the north of Mexico and today the state of New Mexico in the United States. The legend goes on to say that despite the long years of Catholicism, and regardless of the undisputable fact that foreign blood types infiltrated the family fabric (Irish blood, for example, was responsible apparently for the red hair), they continued to observe customs such as the lighting of Sabbath candles up until the early twentieth century, when Josh's great-grandmother suddenly rediscovered her
Jewish roots, moved to Brooklyn, and married Israel Levinovsky, a young Hasidic Jew who had immigrated to the United States from Lithuania a short time before.

One hundred or so years later, a number of circumstances joined forces to alter the path of Josh Levin's life: achieving the expectant, ripe-for-rebellion age of twenty; the Zionism forced down his throat day and night at the Aish HaTorah yeshiva; a touch of hot-bloodedness (the Irish genes again, perhaps); and the spark that ignited them all, September 11, 2001. The rage burned hotter inside him and told him “to do something.”

And so he immigrated and settled in the holy land of his forefathers, and ended up at a religious college in Ma'aleh Hermesh, because one of his teachers in Brooklyn had a friend there. Josh wasn't too taken by the college, but at the grocery store one night, he met Jehu and helped him out with some small change “to make up five shekels seventy” for his shopping, and Jehu suggested he “come take a look at C.” Already sick and tired by then of the endless philosophizing with his fellow students, Josh quit college and left for C. that same week, moving in with Jehu to share his trailer.

Now he was translating the
Washington Post
article that Yakir had printed off the Internet. Othniel burst into laughter on hearing the headline “U.S. Donor Supports Renegade Settlement in ‘Wild West' Bank,” and he continued to chuckle to himself while Josh, in broken Hebrew, pausing between words to think of the correct translation and not always coming up with one, told the story of the real-estate and money-market tycoon with close ties to the Republican leadership who showed up a few months earlier, in February 2009, at the small outpost on the edge of the desert to take part in a dedication ceremony for a playground he had donated. Othniel remained smiling through the article's description of the place, its homes, its motley bunch of people, and the ceremony and the tour afforded the American millionaire. Hilik, in contrast, wasn't smiling, and even appeared concerned when the piece proceeded to imply the writer's unsurprising political viewpoint: “Mr. Mamelstein neglected to mention in his emotional speech the fact that the Ma'aleh Hermesh C. outpost was established in part on private land that is owned by Palestinians.
Another portion of the settlement sits on a nature reserve, where the construction of residential homes is strictly prohibited.”

Othniel remained unmoved even when the writer described years of neglected laws and regulations throughout the West Bank. He lost his cool only when the article, with the help of quotes from “a high-ranking IDF officer,” embarked on a critique of the outpost's historical background. Like Hilik, he shook his head in the face of the painful inaccuracy of sentences such as “In 2005, they established an office for the farm, and then brought in a trailer for a guard that soon turned into a residence for an entire family,” and he started to get really incensed on hearing himself described as “a farmer who grows parsley and organic tomatoes there.”

“Parsley? Where on earth did he get that from? And did he say tomatoes? Not cherry tomatoes? Have a quick look.” Josh had a quick look and confirmed. “Tomatoes!” cried the horrified Othniel. “Has he lost his mind? It's a different kind of compost entirely, not to mention the seeds . . .”

The details of the political and legal history of the settlements elicited yawns, and as the article proceeded to discuss American legislation—the Clinton administration's Executive Order 12947, which prohibits activities that disrupt the Middle East peace process; the George W. Bush administration's Patriot Act, which, among other things, prohibits governmental funding to educational institutions except for educational or sporting activities; the law concerning tax deductions for American charitable donations abroad—the audience stared up at the sky or shifted uncomfortably and loosened bits of gravel from their sandals.

But when the report explained that by granting tax breaks on donations like Mamelstein's, the U.S. Treasury and the American taxpayer were, for all intents and purposes—and contrary to government policy—actually funding illegal outposts such as Ma'aleh Hermesh C., smiles returned to the faces of the congregation, and some laughter and clapping erupted, too. The journalist's “revelation” that some of the money Mamelstein donated to the outpost went toward the purchase of several pairs of night-vision binoculars was greeted with amusement. “Since when does spotting foxes on guard duty disrupt the peace process?” and “That
Mamelstein is one son of a gun.” And toward the end of the article, as the reporter revisited “last week's dramatic development”—the High Court ruling on the route of the fence, and the incident with the bulldozers—everyone again listened attentively to Josh, and even cheered the description of the action. (“The incident climaxed in a bizarre act of solidarity: The Palestinian owner of the olive groves, a religious settler woman, and an Israeli man whose ties to the area remain unclear all leaped together onto the blade of the bulldozer to bring it to a halt.”) Even Neta cracked a smile.

When Josh finished, the prevailing mood was upbeat—particularly concerning the role played by Sheldon Mamelstein. The bottom line—“The hodgepodge of laws and conflicting authorities, like something out of Joseph Heller's
Catch-22
, has allowed the Jewish settlers to create a kind of Wild West, where they behave like outlaw sheriffs”—did produce several angry curses from Neta Hirschson and a worried look from Hilik Yisraeli, but there was nothing new in that. Neta was usually on edge, and Hilik was always worried about something.

Y
akir was in his second life, Second Life, on the virtual island of Revival, where he and his bearded friends, in their broad skullcaps and baggy
sharwals
, had established their settlement, off-limits to foreigners—Christians, Ishmaelites, Amalekites, and anyone else who dared to challenge the laws of the place, which declared it holy land, Jewish land, and only for them, no one else. In keeping with the rules of Second Life, King Meir knew, he could close Revival to outsiders.

The day before, his friends had again visited Second Life's Muslim area. “We went to the mosque,” said King Meir, the Texan lawyer. “And when we went inside, we didn't take off our shoes like we were supposed to. And we took those veils that they hand out free to women and put them on. LOL!!!”

Yakir smiled and typed: “Cool!”

“It's a shame we can't drop a little bomb there,” wrote King Meir. His eyes, hair, and beard were black, his skullcap yellow, and his shirt, with the Kach Movement fist logo, also yellow.