c. 2005 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) A year ago the Lipkin family boarded a plane for Israel, shipping their lives from Edison, N.J., to Beit Shemesh.
In this town of 60,000, the family of six enjoys the company of other Orthodox Jews, many of whom also relocated to Israel because they believe it is where God wants them.
The Lipkins moved last August with 221 other Jews from New Jersey and the help of Nefesh b’Nefesh, an organization that tries to increase Israel’s population through immigration, often paying moving costs. The group plans to move 1,800 North American Jews to Israel this summer and 3,200 by the end of the year.
Despite the trials involved in moving a family abroad, the Lipkins said they are confident they made the right decision.
“I love being able to say the sentence `Let’s go to Jerusalem tonight for dinner’ _ that, so casually, we could go to the holiest city in the world because we live here,” said Randi Lipkin, whose husband, Michael, initiated the move. “We’re citizens of this country (Israel). The specialness of that overwhelms me _ `Oh, we’re going to Jerusalem!’ _ whereas generations and generations before us did not have that opportunity.”
Since they arrived in the Jewish state, the Lipkins have helped their children adapt to new schools and reveled in the idea that they live in “the best place to raise Jewish children.” They have hiked in areas cited in the Bible.
On the flip side, they worried for each other after the news of a terrorist attack, and they had to keep many of their possessions in storage until their house became ready this spring.
The Lipkins begin their second year in Israel as the country faces one of the most emotionally charged events in its 57-year history: the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, scheduled to begin next week.
“It’s obviously a very polarizing issue,” said Michael Lipkin, 46, a software designer who grew up a Conservative Jew and became Orthodox in high school. “People definitely have strong feelings. I’m trying to be open in the sense that I want to understand both sides.”
On streets, Lipkin sees ribbons affixed to cars _ orange ribbons or blue ribbons to symbolize objection or support, respectively, for the withdrawal. He hears passionate testimonies at parties and barbecues. He reads about the disengagement online and in the Jerusalem Post, an English-language newspaper.
Orthodox Jews, who are a minority in Israel, generally oppose the disengagement, with many believing God wants Jews to live in the Gaza Strip and on the West Bank. Polls show the majority of Israelis favor the disengagement.
At such a polarized time, Michael Lipkin’s attempts to see both sides effectively pit him against people who feel strongly either way, he said.
“If you try to just be neutral, it’s almost like a negative,” Lipkin said in a recent telephone interview from Beit Shemesh, about a half-hour drive from Jerusalem. “I’ve said, `If I had a vote, I’d vote against the disengagement, but I’m also trying to understand the other side.’ That sets people off. They’re trying to convince me to be more against it, even though I said I’d vote against it.”
Many say the country’s future is at stake when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon tries to carry out his plan to end Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip, which it seized, along with the West Bank, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The Sharon plan involves removing 9,000 Jewish people, many of whom were once viewed by other Israelis as heroes for moving to Gaza after the war. The settlers, often guarded by Israeli soldiers, are a small minority amid 1.3 million Palestinians.
Advocates of the disengagement say it is now too hard for Israeli soldiers to control and defend Gaza and its 21 Jewish settlements. And Sharon hopes the withdrawal gives Israel more leverage in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority over Israel’s continued presence in the larger West Bank.
The Lipkins said they try to view the clash in terms of what is best for Israel and Israelis.
“I’ve been more sensitized to both sides,” Michael Lipkin said. “Here you’re close to people getting kicked out of their homes. But you’re also exposed to people who’ve had their children fight as soldiers in Gaza, who don’t want their children fighting there. … I have an understanding of what he (Sharon) is trying to do.”
Lipkin said he and his wife have tried to avoid political debate with friends, focusing instead on the mundane parts of acclimating themselves and their children to life in Israel _ learning the language, waiting for furniture to arrive, adjusting to Celsius temperature readings instead of Fahrenheit _ amid the drama.
In this, they have been largely successful, he said. He has settled into his job with an American software company. Their eldest daughter, Etana, 19, took classes at a teachers college in Jerusalem, enrolling at Bar-Ilan University for this fall.
Their son, Raanan, 14, lives at a yeshiva and comes home once a week for the Sabbath. He likes to wear orange. Their youngest daughter, Meira, is 4. And 18-year-old Elisheva just arrived after spending her final year of high school in New Jersey.
Yet it can be hard to avoid discussion of the disengagement. Beit Shemesh has a general Internet listserv, a group e-mail geared for entries for carpools and selling baby equipment, but entries debating the disengagement grew so heated that the moderator spun the political discussion to a different listserv.
In Israel, heated political debate is a way of life, and in religious neighborhoods these days, that translates into orange ribbons and banners.
“In Beit Shemesh you don’t really see much blue,” said Elie Hochhauser, a former Elizabeth, N.J., resident who moved to Israel a year ago and attends the same shul, or synagogue, as the Lipkins, Beit Medrash Torani Leumi. “It’s a religious neighborhood, and in shul it’s an assumption that of course you’re anti-disengagement.”
Like the Lipkins, Hochhauser said he and his wife, Rechelle, have struggled to avoid being consumed by politics while they adapt to Israeli life.
“On a day-to-day basis, you see people standing on the side of the road, having small protests, handing out fliers or handing out orange ribbons, so it keeps it in your mind, prevents you from forgetting,” Hochhauser said. “We have trouble really grappling with what the right answer is.”
“I will walk away from a heated discussion about it,” Randi Lipkin said, “because I don’t think someone on either side who’s passionate is even able to listen to the other side. I want to stay very neutral. I want to support my country in what they’re doing. And … right now I don’t think we really have any choice.”
Yet she thinks about it often in private, she said.
“On a religious level and on a personal level, there are people being kicked out of their homes. I feel very bad. It’s very, very sad. I’m reading stories about people who are leaving their homes, who are leaving their children’s graves, children who died for living there.
“On the other hand, the numbers I see, there are only 8,000 to 10,000 of them, scattered in different communities. Israeli soldiers have died trying to protect them. So I understand this a very difficult aspect of it as well. But I really don’t like talking politics.”
MO/PH END DIAMANT
(Jeff Diamant is a staff writer for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.)
Editors: Search the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for photos of the Lipkins to accompany this story.
