Dozens of members from the Sovereignty Movement visited Lod, where they were exposed to details of the harsh events that the Jewish residents of the city experienced in the riots of 2021,arson, pogroms and firing on homes while the authorities remained indifferent.
The Sovereignty Movement is continuing its tours for lovers of Israel throughout the Land to learn about the challenges of governance and sovereignty in various areas of Israel.
The most recent tour, which the movement held for dozens of members and supporters, took place in the city of Lod.
The tour, led and guided by Benjamin Foris, a resident of Lod and member of the Torah nucleus in the city, which has existed for about the past ten years, began with the site of Khan al Hilu, which was built in the Ottoman era and throughout several periods of history served the travelers on the main road upon which the city is located.
At this point, Foris told of the city’s ancient past and how, in the period after the destruction of the Second Temple, it was considered second only to Jerusalem and where most of the sages of the period lived.
In this context, he mentioned Rabbi Akiva, who stopped the pairs of witnesses in Lod, who were making their way to Jerusalem to testify about the beginning of the month.
Similar activities of Rabbi Tarfon and others were also documented. Also in Lod, the ruling was made regarding the three sins for which a person could allow himself to be killed, rather than commit them. Apparently Lod was where a majority of the sages of Israel lived during that period.
He also spoke about archaeological excavations that were begun in the city these days in which findings from the Roman period were unearthed. This is besides the most magnificent mosaic in the country, which was found in Lod. It is a mosaic from the Byzantine period and will be displayed in the museum that will open in a few months after it has been displayed in leading sites throughout the world.
From there, the tour progressed to a meeting of three religions, the point where the riots in the city began last May.
The al Umri Mosque, which is estimated to be from 1200 CE, the Byzantine Church of Saint George and a synagogue surrounded by a fence and barbed wire are located there.
On Jerusalem Day, the members of the nucleus who were holding their own flag celebrations, got word of an Arab demonstration to bf held that day, but nothing that should have set the entire city on fire.
However, very quickly the demonstration got out of control, the Israeli flag was taken down and a PLO flag was hoisted in its stead.
The Police who arrived were pelted by stones from every direction and when they managed to disperse the demonstration, the Arab demonstrators scattered to the streets of the neighborhood and set Jewish cars on fire.
It was the neighbors of those Jews who knew which cars to set on fire and told the rioters.
Later, Foris continued, the rioters broke into the compound of the preparatory school, whose students were then in Jerusalem; they set it on fire and destroyed everything they saw.
The Jewish residents of the neighborhood found themselves besieged. Later on, they put out the fire by themselves.
Foris emphasized that the campaign against the Torah nuclei and presenting them as the cause of the tension, happened later, as was well orchestrated by leftist organizations.
This was after the first days of the riots when the entire chain of events became clear.
Foris explained to the participants of the tour the history of the city from the War of Liberation and its surrender within an hour to the jeeps led by Moshe Dayan.
The next day, Jordanian tanks entered the city, inciting an Arab uprising, which began with massive firing on Dayan’s soldiers and at the end of the battle, the city was emptied of its forty thousand Arab residents besides a few hundred that remained there.
Years later, the city was populated by veteran, hard-working people and immigrants and later, by Arab collaborators as well. The Jews who could do so, left the city and it became mired in a real socio-economic crisis.
The number of Arabs in the city rose and the Jewish flight continued. Foris presented examples of the practical ramifications as Jewish schools became Arab schools, synagogues were abandoned, etc.
The Jews that remained had to cope with the crime, drugs and shooting from the Arab neighborhoods, etc.
It was this reality that met the families of the Torah nucleus, which came to be among the largest of the nuclei in the country.
Today, it includes approximately eighty families and 150 students, who see it as a goal and mission, to restore the Jewish character to the city.
The tour continued to the compound of the military preparatory school, which was set on fire during the riots.
Foris told the story of the riots, in which the police station, among other things, was set afire, rocks were thrown and as part of the police response, one of the Arab rioters was killed by gunfire.
It was clear to the residents that there would be a follow-up to the response, and indeed, at the funeral that began at the meeting place of the religions, about two thousand demonstrators gathered, crying Hamas slogans, throwing stoning at the police, setting fire to security cameras and any sign of sovereignty that they came across.
The Jews of the mixed neighborhoods of the city found themselves besieged, while the police failed to respond, apparently out of a desire to avoid friction that might cause escalation of the atmosphere in the city.
In addition to launching missiles from the Gaza Strip toward the center of the country, electricity was cut off in the neighborhoods and there was a heavy sense of fear among the Jewish residents. Some began to leave but without any prior notice, a group of volunteers from Yitzhar arrived. The volunteers spread out in the neighborhood without any weapons, joined the neighborhood liaison group and were sent to carry out missions of support and be present in the houses that were abandoned after some of them had been set afire and looted.
On the third night of the riots, the Arabs of the neighborhood began to bring their illegal fire arms and shoot from the windows toward Jewish homes.
Miraculously, says Foris, only seven people were injured, and not severely. During this phase too, the police did not intervene. The shooting and rioting stopped at once only after a unit commanded by Border Police of Judea and Samaria was brought for reinforcement, after one of the rioters was shot and injured in the leg.
Later in the tour, the participants visited the Danin family in their home, which had been set on fire by the rioters, who were trying to break down the door and when they did not succeed, hit the wall with a 5-kilo hammer, making a hole in it, entered and burned out the entire apartment.
The family members, who were not at home at the time, have not returned to it even now.
From there, the tour continued to the Dosa Synagogue, which had been an abandoned house that was owned by Dosa Najah, a Jewish immigrant from Tunisia, who, after his children became ill, decided to turn part of his house into a synagogue.
Foris told the story of the synagogue, which was abandoned and then rebuilt by Dosa’s daughter, Mazal, whom the participants of the tour met at the place.
In the recent riots, Arabs from the city set fire to the synagogue and as a result, it was decided ,
to expand it.
A contractor, together with volunteers from Samaria, renovated, restored and expanded the synagogue in 48 hours of hard work.
Mazal told of the destruction of the ancient holy books owned by her late father, which the rioters tore into small pieces and scattered throughout the Arab neighborhood.
“What didn’t happen in Europe, happened in the center of the Land of Israel”.
The tour concluded with a meeting with the CEO of the City of Lod, Aharon Atiyas, who spoke of the complex challenges of daily work, which can at any moment be interrupted because of some such event.
A disagreement between Arab students might in a moment become a quarrel in which a member of one clan is killed by a member of a rival clan.
“The issue of security and violence is the background music of managing the city every single day, but it does not conquer us. These are our challenges.
The city of Lod is very fascinating”.
Atiyas, who established and managed the Torah nucleus before he became CEO of the city, views as a goal, improving the character of the city for all of its groups, so that life will not be lived under ideological dictates, but will be a routine of offering good city services, education and quality of life.
“We have a constant sense of challenge, which brings out the best in us. During the riots of 2021, I spoke with people from the Joint in the U.S. and I told them that in order to win, we have to know that we are not alone and that the Jews of the world are with us.
Also, I told them that we understand that we are the ones who must deal with what happens here but it is a wake-up call to the Jews of the entire world.
We are here in the name of world Jewry and not in the name of the city or the neighborhood.
Since Kristallnacht until the May riots, there had not been any event in which so many synagogues were harmed at one time.
In his remarks, Atiyas related to the fine line between criminal and nationalist crime and violence, events that spill over from one type into the other or that are given to various interpretations and need real solutions, but those that will cause more agitation in the city.
He also told of discussions with youths of the city, of the same age as the leaders of the riots, who claimed that the arson occurred because their Palestinian story is not taught in school, even as a parallel to the Israeli story. Even if their claim is true, a solution must be sought, like solutions for calm in the evenings and nights of the approaching month of Ramadan. These are all part of the sovereign responsibility of the representative of the authority, the representative of the Israeli government in city that presents such a challenge as Lod concluded Atiyas.
The co-chairwomen of the Sovereignty Movement, Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, summarize the fascinating visit by noting that along with understanding the complexity of managing a city with such a large Muslim population, our understanding is sharpened that the struggle for the future of Israel is not over.
“The first task that we must deal with is that of restoring the sense that the People of Israel belong to the Land of Israel. The youths and those who emerge from the educational system see Israel like all other countries and their sense of belonging to the Land of Israel is equal to that of the Muslims, the transient worker or foreigner who happens to live here. That is a great problem and danger. When historical justice is not clear to us and to our leaders, the weakness of our position is exposed and waves of terror and violence result.
Israeli sovereignty and governance are pushed into the background.
The residents of Lod and the other mixed cities have suffered the results of the authorities’ neglect, whose source is the continuing erosion of the People of Israel’s sense of the justice of our cause”.
The two women further note that the tour and the erudite remarks of those who guided the tours require deeper thought as to the correct, effective and principled way that the State of Israel can implement its governance and sovereignty.