A military camp known as Shdema, located along the main road between Gush Etzion and Jerusalem, has become a permanent community—an important step in settlement, security, and the realization of a long-held vision.
On Rosh Chodesh Shevat, the Shdema military camp officially became a recognized community, and its name in Israel is now “Yatziv.”
The camp is situated along the main route between Tekoa and Har Homa, connecting eastern Gush Etzion to Jerusalem, and holds great security and strategic importance. We had the privilege of participating in a festive ceremony marking the establishment of the community, held near the military camp. G-d willing, the community will grow from 11 families today to 400–500 families within a decade.
This is a dream fulfilled—a dream we worked on for many long years with persistence and determination: in winter and summer, in heat waves and frost, in mud and dust. And now, the dream has come true. The field arose and became a community.
The celebratory event, organized by the Gush Etzion Regional Council, included the affixing of a mezuzah to the public building and the planting of a tree. Those who participated and spoke included: Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Minister Orit Strook, Knesset Member Ze’ev Elkin, Rabbi Amiel Sternberg, Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Rimon, Head of the Gush Etzion Council Yaron Rosenthal, Ze’ev Hever (Zambish), and we, who initiated the battle for Shdema in 2007, were also asked to say a few words.
We Have translated our remarks in to English and put them in Writing: It is good to give thanks to God, and it is good to thank all those engaged in the important work of settlement and sovereignty over the Land of Israel.
First and foremost, thanks to Minister Bezalel Smotrich and to Minister Orit Strook. During your tenure, a true revolution is taking place in the Land of Israel.
The stability and security you are creating through the establishment in Judea and Samaria of dozens of new neighborhoods, hundreds of farms, the legalization of new communities, and construction in the E1 area are equivalent to several military divisions.
Our public has already become somewhat spoiled; it seems obvious to us that today one arrives at a new community and brand-new caravans are already waiting, along with electricity, water infrastructure, paved roads, and IDF protection.
But all of this could be overturned in an instant under a different government. God forbid, we could return to a full Oslo reality. This must be noted! We must not only rejoice—we must look ahead.
At this festive moment we say to you, Minister Smotrich and Minister Orit: continue with full strength. Continue together with determined and consistent work, together with Zambish, whom I have known for many, many years—every single day he deals only with the Land of Israel; I have never seen him occupied with anything else—together with Yehuda Eliyahu, the man of action, and Yaron Rosenthal, who seized the opportunity and pushed forward the establishment of this community.
Shdema is a small but highly strategic point in this blessed revolution. But the next level must be sovereignty, in order to truly shape and safeguard the entire settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria.
The new name of the community, “Yatziv” (Stable), is fitting and appropriate—“Blessed is He who establishes ("meitziv")the boundary of the widow.” During the years of exile, when Jewish settlement in the land was sparse, this blessing was not recited because settlement in the land was not stable. With the rise of the Hovevei Zion movement and the settelement of Jews beyond the walls of Jerusalem, this blessing began to be recited upon the building of new communities in the Land of Israel. We pray that even today, despite the lack of full sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, the community of Yatziv will indeed be stable—and serve as a kind of oath that we will not rest and will not be silent until full sovereignty is achieved over all the Land of Israel.
And to you, members of the pioneering settlement group—a huge expression of appreciation. We are confident that vibrant lives of Torah will flourish here: living Torah, the Torah of the Land of Israel; lives of kindness, lives of values, accompanied by the laughter of children and the joy of creativity.
Judea, Samaria, and Gaza will forever remain in the hands of the people of Israel—the voice of our matriarch Rachel from Bethlehem will grow stronger and prevail: “We will no longer go, Rachel, and you will no longer go from the fields of Bethlehem.”
But a vision does not arise on its own. Behind every great idea stand people who labored, struggled, believed, and did not give up.
And now is the time to say thank you. Thank you to all those who worked for years so that this moment could arrive:
Thank you to journalist Hagai Huberman, who called us end of 2007-beginning 2008-and said there is a problem here—get involved before Shdema falls into the hands of the Palestinian Authority.
Thanks to the Knesset lobby for a Jewish Shdema; to former Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan; to former Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad; to Orit Strook, before she was a minister; to Minister Ze’ev Elkin; to MK Rabbi Meir Porush; to former MK Otniel Schneller; to former MK Shuli Mualem; and to the late MK David Rotem.
Thanks to regional council heads Shaul Goldstein, Davidi Perl, Moshe Sawill, and Yaron Rosenthal, who pushed for transforming the military camp into a community connecting eastern Gush Etzion to Jerusalem.
Thanks to members of the committee for a Jewish Shdema : the late Ina Viniarski, the late Igor Bialski; may they live long lives—Rabbi Yaron Dorani, Orly Glauber, Elisheva Ginzburg, Rabbanit Ruti Wolfish, the Karazi family, Gedalia Friedman, Tsuri Butosh, Datya Yitzhaki, Eli Rodan, and Renee Margolis.
To “Machatei Etzion” (Gush etzion Commanders): Eran Makov, Yaniv Alalouf, Roman Gofman, Gal Ritz, and the late Sharon Asman.
To the many activists and supporters—we hope we have not forgotten anyone, there are many more: our teacher and friend the late Geula Cohen; the late Rabbi Gideon Perl; may they live long lives—Rabbi Itamar Cohen and the students of the Nokdim Mechina; the entire Bialski family; Aryeh Klein; Shlomo Piotrokovsky; Avraham Azulai; Tova Ben-Dahan; Shmuel Mushnik; Yehudit Tayar; Hanania Nachliel; Timna Katz; Eli Rodan; Nina Sapir; the Chalamish brothers; Wally Wolfstahl; Shmuel Durlachber; Gemma Blech; Rachi Eisner; Johan and Elisheva Rodhius; Claire Darmon; Michal Shofet; Aryeh Rotenberg; Eli Estricher; Shimon Cohen; Karen Stahl, and many others. Some even came from abroad like our dear AFSI friends, headed by our dear friend Helen Freedman obm.
Thanks to all the lecturers and artists who came to the weekly lectures and exhibitions at the Shdema Cultural Center—which once existed here inside before the place returned to be an army base, and now the soldier at the gate told us: : “Ma’am, this is a military base—what do you want to go in for?” not aware of our long battle for this place with our weekly events with great people like:
Caroline Glick, Moshe Arens, Adam Zertal, Karni Eldad, Philippe Karsenty, Uri Milstein, Elyakim Haetzni, Rabbi Hanan Porat, Rabbi Yaakov Medan, Rabbi Shlomo Kimchi, Odelia and Moussa Berlin, and Yaron Rosenthal—whose lecture we also remember.
Thanks to the people of Kiryat Arba–Hebron, to the people of Gush Etzion—west and east, to the people of Har Homa, and to the Women in Green members.
Thank you to ARUTZ 7 for accompanying the struggle for a Jewish Shdema throughout all these years.
Thanks to all the donors who enabled the struggle, and special thanks to the Moskovitz family—thanks to whom the buildings in the base were renovated—and to the Allan Jacobs family, who were also a significant part of this effort. Thanks to Meir Blisko, who donated a Torah scroll that has since been moved to Oz VeGaon.
We will conclude with a quote from the founding scroll of the central synagogue in Shdema, which we buried here in the ground—as you remember—in the year 5768 (2008), composed by Rabbi Yaron Dorani: “Judea and Samaria will forever remain in the hands of the people of Israel for generations upon generations. And the people of Israel will continue to expand in the Land of Israel. The sound of the weeping of our matriarch Rachel will overcome all the sounds of destruction and plunder by the enemies of Israel, and soon the verse will be fulfilled: ‘Thus said the Lord: Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for there is reward for your labor, says the Lord, and they shall return from the land of the enemy; and there is hope for your future, and your children shall return to their border.’”
And thanks to the Holy One, blessed be He, that we have all merited this.