Yesterday I witnessed the Khurban (Destruction) of somebody’s world

At 8:00 today we set out on our annual Tisha B’Av journey to read Eikha (Lamentations) at sites of khurban (destruction) in our times. Standing next to the burned-out Sderot police station, we will recite new kinot (Tisha B’Av dirges) written by October 7^th survivors. We have already gazed in pain upon some of the 21 Palestinian shepherding communities that were either literally expelled at gunpoint by settlers and settlers drafted into reserve duty, or fled because of ongoing violence and intimidation. We stood this morning with Fakhri Abu Diab at the site of his demolished home in the El Bustan neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem and will be in a destroyed Bedouin community in the Negev. In between morning and afternoon journeys, we prayed the special Tisha B’Av minkha (afternoon) service. This year more than ever minkha’s first softening of our deep mourning and first rays of hope were important but incongruous with the afternoon stops still ahead.

The khurban experienced by so many this year is simply incomprehensible. Listening to those whose homes were destroyed and lives shattered is demanding of us to seek to comprehend, or at least bring them into our hearts.

Yesterday I was with a Palestinian shepherd as his world (continued) to fall apart. For years he has been beaten and harassed and settlers have run over and killed his sheep. Security forces have told him that his winter home is illegal, and he must move. As with all West Bank Palestinians, his situation has worsened a hundredfold since October 7^th. A few weeks ago over 2000 dunam of his grazing lands were burned.

Although I have known this shepherd for many years, I hadn’t seen him for a while because he is not living in the area where Torat Tzedek has primary responsibility. But, the increasingly horrific stories of the violence against him and fellow human rights defenders left me no choice. I was part of the overnight protective presence team between Sunday night and Monday morning. Early Monday morning (4:00 am) he awoke and we had a heart-to-heart talk. He shared his despair with me. To feed his flock until he returns to his winter home (if it is still standing) he needs 300 kilograms of barley per day. That will come to about 40 metric tons. A ton costs about NIS 1,300. Do the math. I had to tell him that Torat Tzedek could provide a few tons and that we were appealing to international organizations for the needs of the myriad of displaced or endangered communities, but that I really didn’t know where to come up with the amount of money that he needs.

That was only the beginning of the day. Things were looking good. We were successfully accompanying his flock where there was still a bit to graze on, and we also accompanied his tractor to collect bales he hadn’t dared to collect.

Then settlers on motorcycles tore into his flock, scattering them and driving them towards a settlement, where they would disappear forever. We almost never manage to recover stolen flocks. My fellow human rights defenders chased after them and managed to begin to bring them back. The motorcycles came back and scattered them again. Then five more long-haired large kippah-wearing settlers with long peyot arrived in an all-terrain vehicle. I didn’t manage to block them with my car. They raced past the flock and I eventually caught up with them next to my friend’s home. They were even lounging on top of his water tank. I had broken our rules and confronted them alone. The others had to try to bring back the flock.

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Eventually, they fled. The army who arrived first detained additional human rights defenders who came to back us up, but hadn’t even been present. I managed to explain to them what had really happened. Impatiently they listened to the story and asked where the settlers had fled to. We got word and told them that the settlers had arrived in another community.

Do I think that any actual effort was made to find them, or bring them to justice? Will it help if we or the shepherd file a police complaint? Is there any chance that the area will be closed by order to settler presence?

“Only” 2 of the sheep didn’t come back. However, the fear in my friend’s heart is that in the next few days, the many pregnant sheep will suffer spontaneous miscarriages from having run around as they did.

More khurban.

He was counting on those baby sheep. Yet one more blow that leaves my friend wondering how he can continue as a shepherd, living with constant harassment and violence and economic ruin. That is the State’s goal. Furthermore, long-time settler strategist and convicted terrorist Zeev Hefer declared in February 2021 at a conference of the Amana organization (now sanctioned by Canada) that he heads that shepherding outposts is the best means at their disposal to take over and hold on to Palestinian land by forcing out Palestinian shepherds.

My friend agitatedly stamped his feet, raised his hands to the heavens and shouted time after time, “Allah Hu Akhbar, what will I do?” I tried to comfort him, promising that he was not and would not be alone. We would find the financial resources I had said at 4:00 am we didn’t have. “You are a good man, and neither we nor God will abandon you.” He couldn’t hear it, and felt that even God had abandoned him.

Khurban. As the organizer of a Tisha B’Av discussion last night at which I spoke with a group of people from the national religious camp said in his introduction, this is also the khurban of Judaism.

If there is to be the redemption that we began to allow ourselves to imagine during our Tisha B’Av mincha prayers it certainly will require God to return to Zion and inspire or force us all to act with rakhamim (mercy) and khesed (loving kindness). It will also be dependent on us.