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| From 090707 Elon Moreh |
Elon Moreh represents the pioneer spirit of rebuilding the Land of Israel after 2000 years of exile. The community overlooks the city of Shechem. It was here that Avram settled after crossing the Jordan River. And it was here he had a divine revelation of Hashem and received the promise of the land. Genesis 12:6-7:
And Avram passed through the land until the place of Shechem, until ELON MOREH, and the Canaanite was then in the land. And God was revealed to Avram, and said, 'to your descendents I will give this land', and he built and altar there to God who was revealed to him.
The history of modern Elon Moreh started when Rabbi Menachem Felix and Benny Katzover organized the Garin Elon Moreh, a group of pioneer families, in order to found a settlement in the Shechem area. There has been an ongoing tenacious battle with the Israeli government, the Supreme Court, and the Peace Now organization since the mid-70s for Jews to be allowed to stay in the vicinity. Finally in 1980, after several court battles and a number of evictions from several dismantled sites, the current location was determined to be legal 'state lands' and eligible for Israeli settlement. NOTE: "This legal interpretation was disputed, the Peace Now lawyers arguing that it constituted abuse of the Ottoman Land Law, by which common village lands were deemed to be the Sultan's property…However, in this case the Supreme Court accepted the state and the settlers' position, and the placing of the Elon Moreh settlers in the new location was upheld."Elon Moreh became a precedent-setting case and the legal method of proclaiming the West Bank to be 'state lands' was used to create many other Jewish settlements on the Shomron.
The first residents settled on the Jewish holiday of Tu B'shat in 1980, and they now have a hesder yeshiva, called Birkay Yosef.
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| From 090707 Elon Moreh |
On the down side of their historical fight to possess the land: In 1988, Tirza Porat, a 15 year-old resident was shot dead in a nearby Arab village, during a confrontation between Jewish settlers and Arabs. She was the first Israeli civilian casualty during the first Intifada.
In 2002, an Arab terrorist infiltrated the village during Pesach, burst into the home of the Gavish family and opened fire. The terrorist managed to kill four of the residents before being killed himself. It was a painful tragic loss of three generations in one family.
