And now for something completely different . . .
The MOOPs take the Shomron
On December 7, a date which Frank Roosevelt said would live in infamy, 50 MOOP members set out for an excursion to the Shomron.
Remarkably, all of them, as well as the Shomron, survived intact, and without international incident.
For the uninitiated, MOOP is an acronym that I coined for Modi’in Organization of Old People. They actually refer to themselves as Modi’in Seniors, but MS sounds like a disease and the term “seniors” summons to my mind echoes of high school. The absolute last image that should arise when picturing this assemblage of septuagenarians is high school. Except for the fact that all of us are on medication also.
Anyway, I hadn’t been to the Shomron in quite a long time and I always look forward to listening in on the scintillating MOOP bus conversation as to when the next bathroom stop will be, so we signed on. My wife bought (and hid from me, as is her wont) snacks to share on the bus, as well as her signature MOOP excursion specialty, which has won her a loyal following among MOOP women: two rolls of toilet paper, which she graciously shares as they line up outside the ladies room of the moment.
We met at 8:00 a.m. in the municipal parking lot across from the Modi’in Cultural Center (and across from English Cake, which opens at 6:30 and, as every MOOP knows, has toilet facilities as well as coffee and pastries).
Everyone was early, which is the beauty of arranging trips for old people. If we are not early, you may assume that we have died, and the bus can leave on schedule either way.
I expected to have a relatively unremarkable day, to see a sight or two, and to come back wondering what induced so many foolhardy people to live in what a respected and clever friend facetiously referred to as “injun country” when she heard where I was going.
What I did not expect was to have a beautiful and meaningful experience so powerful that it recharged my Zionist batteries that had been steadily losing strength under the onslaught of daily life in Israel and all the political bickering.
Sometimes you just need to be reminded why we are here, what this land does and should mean to us, and how outrageous and nonsensical are the canards and calumnies hurled at us by the ignorant haters. Sometimes you just need to be reminded that, as the great MOOP contemporary Pat Boone once sang, “This land is mine; God gave this land to me.” (If you are under 70 and reading this, Google Pat Boone and the song. While you are at it, read the book “Exodus,” part of the Zionist DNA of every MOOP. Maybe even order the movie, if only to see Paul Newman as the paradigm of Israeli manliness and Eva Marie Saint as the love interest. They don’t make them like that any more.)
Where was I? Ah, yes, the trip. First we visited a farm, inhabited by a single family of incredible courage and commitment. The family had eight children, four of whom had completed their service in the current war and one of whom is now serving. The parents had given up comfortable lives (the mother mentioned parquet floors) and successful careers because they felt the need to do something meaningful for their land and their people. They, and hundreds like them, maintain farms that reinforce Jewish ownership (if not yet sovereignty) and protect the land in Area C from illegal Palestinian incursions. One can read about “facts on the ground,” but until one actually walks the ground, assisted in some of our cases by canes and walkers, one can not comprehend the enormity of the undertaking of these brave pioneers.
Listening to the fervor and commitment in the voice of the proprietress touched all of us.
Yes, there is danger, she told us. Yes, she is sometimes afraid. But life is dangerous and we of this generation have a mission to preserve the land for our people. We have been given a great gift, one that generations of Jews yearned for; we dare not fritter it away.
[Note: Area A is under full control of the Palestinian Authority–one of the most jarring sights on the trip, not even commented on by the tour guide, were the bright warning signs on the fences surrounding Area A proclaiming that no Israeli was permitted to enter. It is judenrein. Area B has PA civil control but shared security with Israel, and Area C remains, thus far, under Israeli control.]
We drove by Ariel, a “settlement” with over 20,000 inhabitants, not including the more than 15,000 highly diverse students who attend its university. We saw many yeshivot, including those near Shechem and in Elon Moreh, with the thousands of students united by their love of their land, their people, and their God. We saw the “refugee camp” in Shechem where the oxymoronic fourth-generation refugees make their homes and live on the dole, maintained as “refugees” by an obdurate and cruel Palestinian leadership that uses them as bargaining chips.
We visited another farm, much older than the first. We learned about the young man who, hearing of the events of October 7, drove his motorcycle south and perished trying to save his people and repel the invader.
Then we made our way (by bus, in case any of you were wondering) to the top of Mount Gerizim. Standing in the footprints of six of the tribes that had traversed the desert to be in this land that had been promised to their (our) forefathers, looking into the valley beneath and across to Mount Eival, where the other six tribes had stood and the altar of Joshua still stands, listening to the echoes emerging from the valley where the priests and Levites had stood, proclaiming the blessings and curses that would shape the destiny of this people, aware that Abraham and Jacob had stood in exactly the same places, seeing the lonely, tragic grave of Yoseif in the inhospitable environs of Nablus (Shechem), no Jew without a heart of stone could fail to be moved and inspired.
It took us millennia to return home to the place that was promised to Abraham’s children 3,000 years ago. The blood in the ancient and hardened arteries and veins of fifty old people from Modi’in was renewed and invigorated by a feeling of continuity. Many of us have grandchildren serving in the IDF, keeping this dream alive for us and future generations.
When they entered the Land of Israel, the children of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel renewed their covenant with God in this very spot, in accordance with the words of Moses: “Be attentive, Israel, and obey! You have now become the people of the Lord your God.” They had fled Egypt, passed through the sea, survived the travails of the desert, received the Torah at Sinai–but not until they stood inside the land of Israel itself did they fully become the people of the Lord.
Without this land something essential to the faith will always be missing. Standing there, where they stood, the feeling was palpable and powerful.
One really can’t stay at that heightened emotional level for long. There was the obligatory visit to a winery, where people either appreciated or pretended to be able to detect the difference between mevushal and non-mevushal, and tasted or pretended to taste the subtle overtones of jasmine, cinnamon, and, yes, perhaps a trace of licorice, or chocolate, or kishke, in the Cabernet, the Merlot, and the Shiraz. We bought wine in abundance. There were more bathrooms, the women in endless lines, the men quickly making their way to the coffee shops. There was a meal (lunch scheduled for 3:00 pm!! MOOPs eat early bird dinner at 4:00; what were they thinking?); we did an impressive imitation of a horde of elderly swarming locusts.
You are probably tired (I was), but I would be remiss if I did not mention the final stop, the Elon Moreh Heritage Center, located on Mount Kabir, the site where Abraham first stopped and built an altar upon entering the Land of Canaan. I had no desire to see the expected promotional movie showing happy families on all-terrain vehicles, so I almost stayed on the bus. I was very glad that I pushed my fatigued, old body.
The video presentations were nothing short of amazing, including one evocative retelling, from the perspective of an initially skeptical photojournalist, of the eight efforts to launch settlements in Samaria, each frustrated and terminated by the government under Shimon Peres, who ordered the army to dismantle the settlements on the days they were built. Finally, unable to continue to resist the indomitable will of a people inspired by the words of R. Zvi Yehuda Kook (“Where is our Chevron? Where is our Shechem?”), the events of June 1967, and the destiny of the Jewish people, the government allowed a small encampment to remain standing, confident that the harsh conditions would limit their stay.
And now, more than a half-century later, because of those brave few and those who followed, there are 500,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria, helping to shape the destiny of the Jewish nation and serving as a beacon and an inspiration to the entire Jewish people, including 50 MOOPs, who could not be more grateful.