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Tel Aviv.
As Israel grows
more nationalist,
Tel Aviv is the
last stronghold
of our nation’s liberals.
It is a supercool
cosmopolitan city
and the place I call home.
In 2016, I decided to
say goodbye to Tel Aviv
and spend the summer
with the Israelis
that I disagree with
the most: the settlers.
Since Israel’s ongoing
military occupation
of the West Bank
that started in 1967,
Jewish settlers have moved to
the Palestinian territories
into settlements
that are illegal,
according to the
international law.
As Israeli society
polarizes around views
of the occupation, I
found myself increasingly
curious about
Israelis my age who
grew up in those
settlements, who
were born into this reality.
I ended up in one of the
oldest Israeli settlements,
called Tekoa, which
was founded in 1977.
About an hour drive
from Tel Aviv,
it is a world apart,
isolated in the Judean hills
and surrounded by
Palestinian villages.
I rented a small apartment
on the corner of Hospitality
Road and Joy Street.
And I thought to myself,
these are two things
I’ll definitely need here.
After all, it’s not every day
that a liberal from Tel Aviv
moves to a settlement.
Once I settled in, to make
myself feel more at home,
I set up a small cafe
and waited for company.
Well, apparently coffee
is not in demand in Tekoa,
as well as a liberal
with three cameras.
For a while, it seemed
like the only locals
who visited my table were
flies, a cat, and my only
new friend in town, Matanya.
But being stubborn
eventually paid off.
Unlike Tekoa,
which is considered
a moderate settlement,
the Jewish settlement
in the Palestinian
city of Hebron
is the most extremist
of all, where
extreme settlers
live in the midst
of a large Palestinian city.
Moriya grew up there.
It seems like we grew up
in totally different worlds.
While I knew Palestinians come
in and out of the settlements
every day to work, building
more of the buildings
that they will never
be allowed to live in,
seeing them line up
to enter settlements
that represent their
oppression with my own eyes
was very unsettling.
Her uncensored lack of
political correctness
definitely shocked
me, but also
made me want to hear more.
Despite a peace and love and
the hippie vibe of Tekoa,
sometimes the complexity
of the tension
here slaps you in the face.
My next door
neighbor’s family was
attacked in the shooting
ambush, killing her father,
and leaving her mother
and two siblings wounded.
Her cry and weep
across our shared wall
when she first got the
message tore my heart apart.
In January 2016, a
Palestinian teenager
stabbed Tekoa resident
Michal Froman
at the local thrift shop.
She was four months
pregnant at the time.
Most of the people
my age I chatted with
were honest about the negative
effect of the settlements
on Palestinians,
who are repressed
as long as they are occupied.
I wondered how they still
choose to live here.
On my last day
in Tekoa, Matanya
stopped by for
a farewell chat.
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