The Hilltop Read online

  The WZO’s Settlement Division took to the idea of the farm. After all, who could say no to fresh asparagus and mushrooms, and fine goat-milk cheese, too, not to mention the true pioneering spirit of old? Settlement Division officials thus retroactively approved the expansion of Ma’aleh Hermesh B. and even included the farm in the Outposts Agreement—in which it was recorded under the name of “the South Hermesh Goat Farm”—in return for the removal from the site of one of the trailers. A new family moved in, however, and the trailer, in fact, was never removed—despite that family’s departure a few weeks later.

  The Amidar housing company was then free to move additional trailers to the site.

  And the Postal Authority had a green light to set up a mail-distribution post.

  And the National Infrastructures Ministry could instruct the Public Works Department to make good use of days when Civil Administration officials weren’t patrolling the area, to lay down some asphalt.

  And the Agriculture Ministry was able to approve Othniel’s status as a farmer and his eligibility for water quotas at a reduced cost.

  And the deputy accountant general at the Finance Ministry could instruct Bank Tefahot to offer mortgages for housing units at the site—a move that brought automatic Housing Ministry authorization for infrastructure work and widened the Arab-free radius in one fell swoop.

  And Amana, the settlement division of the right-wing Gush Emunim organization, got in on the act, proposing initiatives and determining criteria for working the land.

  A combine harvester even turned up one day, courtesy of a German Christian organization sympathetic to the concept of a Greater Israel.

  An aerial photography exercise perpetrated by some left-wingers resulted in calls from the Defense Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the Housing Ministry, and the prime minister’s office: Whose decision was it to establish a new settlement in Israel? Who owned the land and/or the rights to the land? Was it state land, state-designated land, survey land, or perhaps private land appropriated for security reasons, or maybe private land purchased from Palestinians, or even Palestinian-owned land that wasn’t purchased? And if the land was privately owned by Palestinians, was it being used for agricultural purposes or not? Was the land on record anywhere, registered anywhere? Was it Mandate-era land? Who gave the go-ahead? Were any formal planning procedures carried out? Had architects submitted master plans to the relevant planning committees? And if such plans had been submitted, were they approved? What was the jurisdiction of the new settlement? What did the state budget director have to say about it? Was there any word from the custodian general? Had they discussed the matter with the coordinator of the government’s activities in the West Bank? And the brigade officers, what did they think? And had they spoken to anyone at the office of the IDF commander of the area?

  Endless questions!

  All the callers were politely informed that the so-called new settlement was nothing more than an agricultural enterprise within—at least for the most part—the judicial boundaries of Ma’aleh Hermesh, merely an expansion of the existing settlement that was not subject to government approval, as the establishment of a new settlement would be, and there was nothing to be concerned about. What was the big deal? All Othniel Assis had sought was to grow the very mushrooms, asparagus, and arugula that these bleeding-heart left-wingers themselves cut into their salads and served steamed alongside a slice of salmon at their Tel Aviv dinners. So, please, give me a break, okay? The outpost nevertheless made it into Peace Now’s Outpost Monitoring Report, and even found its way onto the interactive map on the Haaretz daily’s news website. Civil Administration officials then showed up with orders to cease all work related to the family residences.

  The move served only to prompt a flood of callers requesting to join the outpost.

  Followed closely by approval from the defense minister’s deputy on settlement affairs for the transportation to the site of two additional Amidar trailers.

  Then came assistance from the Housing Ministry’s Rural Construction Administration.

  Along with a budgetary allocation from the regional council.

  More families arrived, and young couples, and singles, too—some were lovers of the Land of Israel; others were lovers of serenity and nature; still others, lovers of low costs. Everything was out in the open—the minutes of the meetings dealing with the division of the land were posted on the synagogue notice board for all to see!—but no declarations were handed down. From time to time, threats of evacuation were voiced and scolding fingers were raised. But more babies were born on the hilltop, and thus, modern-day pioneering flourished, and Ma’aleh Hermesh C. grew and expanded.

  THREE CAME AT NOON

  FOUR YEARS LATER . . .

  The Convoy

  A hilltop. The earth light and still, almost barren: a brownish yellow, dotted with rocks and lonely olive trees, and, here and there, soft patches of green brought on by the rain. Cutting through the center of the hilltop ran a narrow and bumpy single-lane road. A trailer—a mobile home—attached to the back of a large truck slowly climbed and descended its winding path. A yellow Palestinian cab bearing a green license plate crawled along impatiently behind. And after the cab chugged an old and dusty white Renault Express, its rear window bearing stickers declaring MY GOLANI DOESN’T EXPEL JEWS; HEBRON—NOW AND FOREVER; and BRING THE OSLO CRIMINALS TO JUSTICE. Behind the wheel of the Renault sat Othniel Assis—bearded, wearing a large skullcap, just as dusty as his vehicle. Weeping miserably in a car seat in the back sat his youngest, three-year-old Shuv-el. He had dropped his packet of Bamba as they rounded one of the sharp bends, and neither he nor his father could pick it up off the floor of the car. Yellow crumbs from the peanut butter–flavored snack had stuck to one of the child’s sidelocks. The fourth vehicle in the impromptu convoy that day on the rough road through the Judean hills was a military jeep, a David, carrying the section commander, Captain Omer Levkovich, along with his crew.

  The road rose sharply. The truck shifted down a gear; its engine screamed and carried the vehicle up the incline, the same slow pace of the herd of goats that ambled indifferently along the side of the road. The cabdriver mumbled something in Arabic, blew his horn, and pulled off a dangerous passing maneuver. Seconds later, one of the cab’s tires blew—a dull thud, the sound of rubber being dragged across the tarmac, the car bouncing along the road, the driver’s curses. The cab came to a halt, blocking the road. Out stepped Jeff McKinley, the Washington Post’s Jerusalem correspondent, on his way to interview a high-ranking Israeli government minister who lived in a settlement some six kilometers from where they had stopped. McKinley looked at his watch and wiped a bead of sweat from his wide brow. The evening before, his father had told him about the snow that was falling in Virginia; here he was in February, already perspiring. He had ten minutes to get to the meeting at the minister’s home. He couldn’t wait for the flat to be fixed. McKinley handed the cabdriver a fifty-shekel note and walked off in the direction of the hitchhiking station he spotted a few dozen meters away.

  But, as if the perspiring, the time crunch, and his heavy breathing—a sign of his lack of fitness and an urgent need to diet—weren’t enough, someone had beaten him to the station and was first in line for a ride. Dressed in a finely tailored suit, the man stood there with his arms folded across his chest, a large suitcase at his feet, a broad white smile on his face, uttering words in Hebrew that McKinley didn’t understand.

  Before McKinley could reach the ride station, the dusty Renault signaled and pulled over.

  “Shalom, fellow Jews!” Othniel Assis called out.

  “Where are you headed?” the man with the suitcase asked the driver.

  “Ma’aleh Hermesh C.,” Othniel Assis replied, glancing at the blue suit, and then into the man’s eyes, which appeared weary.

  “For real? You’re a star, bro,” the man said, picking up his heavy suitcase from the faded tarmac.

  “Do me a favor, buddy,” the driv
er said. “Help the kid—his Bamba fell onto the floor.”

  Othniel then turned to the American. “What about you, dude?” he asked in Hebrew.

  “Can you get me anywhere near Yeshua, where Minister Kaufman lives?” McKinley responded in English.

  “What?” said Othniel.

  “Settlement?” McKinley said in an effort to simplify matters, after repeating his first question to no avail.

  “Settlement, settlement—yes!” Othniel smiled. “Please, please.”

  McKinley’s limited knowledge of the area didn’t include the fact that its hilltops were home not only to Ma’aleh Hermesh and its two outgrowths, B. and C., but also to Givat Esther and its offshoots, to Sdeh Gavriel, and to Yeshua, where the minister resided. He squeezed into the backseat alongside the child.

  The convoy—a trailer home on a truck, a company commander and his crew in a jeep, and a dusty pickup, carrying a settler and his child and two hitchhikers, an American and an Israeli—turned onto a second road. This road was even narrower, and steeper, too, and so, once again, the two smaller vehicles were doomed to crawl along at the snail’s pace dictated by the larger truck. Captain Omer’s gray-green eyes remained firmly planted on the rear of the trailer, displaying a touch of apprehension at the thought of the vehicle’s load detaching and crashing down on the jeep behind it. He glanced at his watch and then turned to gaze into the side mirror.

  “Tell me something, don’t I know you from somewhere?” Othniel asked his Hebrew-speaking passenger.

  The man stared for some time at the driver’s large head and at the wide skullcap that covered it.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “My brother lives here with you, but we don’t look alike at all.”

  Othniel cast a quick look over his shoulder at the man with the black hair and then turned to focus on the road again.

  His passenger offered some assistance. “Gabi Kupper. Do you know him?”

  The driver frowned. “We don’t have anyone by that name,” he said. “We have a Gavriel. Gavriel Nehushtan. A great guy. A real prince. He works with me on the farm.”

  “Nehushtan?” Roni Kupper replied, his turn to frown.

  The American journalist glanced impatiently at his watch.

  The slow climb up the hill ended at the entrance into Ma’aleh Hermesh A. The three vehicles drove through the gate, turned right at the traffic circle, and made their way through the well-established settlement with its stone homes, paved streets, and small commercial area comprising a winery, a horse ranch, and a carpentry workshop. They then headed across a desolate hilltop before reaching the trailers of the sister settlement Ma’aleh Hermesh B., beyond which the tarmac ended and a dirt road plunged steeply down into the wadi, traversed the dry riverbed, and began climbing up the other side.

  “All gone, Daddy!” Shuv-el announced, on finishing his Bamba.

  A sickly sweet stench filled the car.

  “Did you go, sweetie?” the father asked his son.

  “Holy crap!” hissed Roni Kupper. “What is this place?”

  Jeff McKinley did his utmost to refrain from retching.

  A yellow dust rose from the wheels of the vehicles into the crisp sky above and after snaking their way along for a while, they came to a water tower bearing a crudely drawn Star of David, followed immediately by an IDF guard tower, and finally the eleven trailers that made up the outpost, spread out along a circular road. Manning the guard post stood Yoni, the soldier, a rifle at an angle across his chest, his one hand on the butt, welcoming the arrivals in his Ray-Bans with a boyish smile on his face.

  An untamed landscape stretched out before them—the Judean Desert in all its splendor and beauty, with its arid hilltops and the Dead Sea tucked away at their feet, and beyond it, rising up on the horizon, the mountains of Moab and Edom. Occasional villages and settlements dotted the expanse of land, while farther in the distance stood the truncated summit of the Herodium and the homes of a large Palestinian town, some of which appeared wrapped in a giant gray concrete wall, like a gift that couldn’t be opened.

  A large improvised sign stood just beyond the entrance to the outpost, the handwriting almost like a child’s, in Hebrew and English, reading: “Welcome to Ma’aleh Hermesh C.”

  The Ceremony

  When Othniel Assis’s Renault Express reached its destination, Jeff McKinley asked, in English, to be pointed in the direction of the home of Minister Kaufman. Othniel gestured to him to wait just a moment, called out toward the house, “Rachel! Get all the kids together and come to the ceremony,” and then turned back to McKinley to say, “You come with us—we have American guy.”

  Jeff McKinley traipsed along with Othniel and Rachel Assis and their six children to Ma’aleh Hermesh C.’s new playground, abuzz with dignitaries and residents, where the promised American, Josh, explained to the reporter that Minister Kaufman lived in Yeshua, the settlement across the way, on the other side of the wadi. You can see his villa, the one with the tiled roof, Josh pointed out, less than a kilometer away from where they stood as the crow flies, but quite a few winding kilometers by road. McKinley looked at his watch again and then, realizing just how late he already was, pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and called the minister’s aide to explain his predicament and ask for a postponement, but his request was rejected, with the aide explaining that the minister was expected in Jerusalem in an hour and intensely disliked to be kept waiting. McKinley apologized profusely, and after hanging up, he cast his eyes over the crowd around him, stopping in surprise at a tall man with an impressive paunch and thick, meticulously groomed eyebrows. “Tell me”—he turned to Josh—“isn’t that Sheldon Mamelstein?”

  The playground appeared to have been lowered to the ground by a giant Monty Python–like hand of god, transplanted like the organ of a stylish New Yorker into the body of a wretched Bedouin nomad. There was a rectangular patch of grass the size of a basketball court; a pair of wooden swings that swayed with a quiet, well-oiled efficiency; an expansive system of slides; and three spring-mounted rides, one in the form of a seal, another a rooster, and the third—perhaps most appropriate, given the landscape—a camel.

  Laborers had worked for weeks installing the playground in the center of Ma’aleh Hermesh C.—preparing the ground, laying the strips of lawn, assembling the apparatus, and even installing trash bins and erecting signs as befitted the settlement’s new hub of social activity—and it had all culminated that day in the official dedication ceremony, in the presence of the donor, Mr. Sheldon Mamelstein of New Jersey, the settlement enterprise’s good friend, Member of Knesset Uriel Tsur, and various local dignitaries.

  A chilly wind whistled into the microphone, through the pair of large speakers, and out into the crisp air around the playground. Most residents of the settlement and their guests were in attendance, a crowd of forty or so. The kids scampered among the swings and rides before being rounded up by their parents and placed in strollers or on the grass to listen to the speeches.

  “Just a few years ago, not even five,” began MK Tsur, “there was nothing here but rocks, foxes, and thorny burnet shrubs.”

  On the podium alongside the politician stood the donor, Sheldon Mamelstein, whose head was tilted toward Josh, formerly of Brooklyn, with his red hair and beard to match, who was serving as his simultaneous translator.

  “But here we are now, in the Hebrew month of Shevat, 5769, marveling at your accomplishments, your inspiring tenacity, your good and hard work, your settlement pioneering values, and your uncompromising belief in the sanctity of this land. You, dear residents of Ma’aleh Hermesh C., have built a wonderful community . . .”

  MK Tsur paused briefly. The wind whistled through the microphone and echoed off the hillside. Sheldon Mamelstein lifted his head and rubbed his neck. Pregnant women and teenagers shifted their weight from one leg to the other. The little kids asked if it was time now to go play on the slides and swings. Soon, said the parents. And Captain Omer thought, What’s
with the Shevat, 5769? Why not simply say February 2009?

  Tsur’s address was followed by a few more words of gratitude from a number of other functionaries, with Sheldon Mamelstein the last to take hold of the microphone. Josh translated his words into rudimentary and horribly accented Hebrew. His speech was met with modest applause.

  Mamelstein unveiled a plaque engraved with his name and the date. He gracefully disregarded the spelling mistake in his name—an unnecessary h after the s in his surname, as per usual in Israel—and posed for a photograph with the MK, settlement residents, and a number of children. The ceremony came to a close. The kids reveled in the new playground to the sound of their parents crying, “Careful!” Women spoke to one another about pregnancies, shared recommendations for Sabbath wine, and discussed goings-on at the school in the mother settlement. Fathers chatted about Hilik’s doctorate and the Knesset member’s Volvo S80, and paying half price to replace a cylinder head at Farid’s in Kharmish. They’d be heading off slowly in a few minutes for late-afternoon and evening prayers in the makeshift synagogue farther below, alongside the traffic circle, two trailers that had been joined together and christened with a traffic circle sign. MK Tsur struck up a conversation with Sheldon Mamelstein and tried to set up a meeting with the American. Othniel offered the dignitaries a tour of the outpost. The MK looked at his watch and said, “Oh my God,” before shoving a Bluetooth earpiece into his ear, hastily exchanging handshakes, waving good-bye, and getting into his car. And after everyone was done watching the Volvo S80 drive off into the distance, they all turned their gazes in the opposite direction, toward the slopes of the ridge below them, and were surprised to see a huge truck off-loading a new trailer, accompanied by much noise, loud shouting, and carefully measured maneuvering. How did the truck get there? they wondered. And whose trailer was that? Why had it arrived today? But before they had a chance to ask him, the truck driver turned the vehicle around and headed off.