Hey there kids! It's Lag B'Omer (was), wanna go for a tiyul? We'll pack up the barbecue and head up Highway 60, straight to Eilon Moreh, a nice Jewish town nestled atop a mountain with a beautiful view of the ancient city of Shechem, where our ancestor Joseph was buried.That's what my Sunday promised to be, and in the end, that's what it was. I showed up at eight in the morning and boarded the bullet-proof bus ("for precautions") and wondered why nobody was packing a gun. (I later was informed that settlers are a million times as scary as the IDF.)
I've never been so far into the West Bank. It was easy to go in and out, and from what I could see, nobody else was having any delay or problems at the crossings either. (I'm convinced there's a huge overstatement about checkpoints, I have yet to see anything but smooth sailing.)
We drove about an hour and a half north of J'lem, to a place on the map that bears the warning: "Because of changing circumstances, kindly check with the authorities before entering Judea and Sumeria." What a nice way to put it.
Our friendly settler guide, a rabbi to boot, met us at the bottom of the hiking trail and kindly explained his view on the Arab settlement of the traditionally Jewish city of Shechem, the first place the Jews entered after 39 years in the desert. It's deemed too dangerous for Jews to enter, even to see the grave of Joseph, which has been vandalized and burned time and time again, he explained. He told us that some 100 teenage boys, accompanied by one rabbi with chutzpah, sneaked into the town in the middle of the night to say a bracha at the grave. Apparently, the army caught word of it beforehand and showed up, surrounded the group with tanks and the whole lot, and saw to it that they left safely. This ain't your typical brand of Jews, folks.
We hiked to a sheep farm run by three or so families, where we barbecued and ate in one of the families' homes. (They weren't home, so that rabbi called them up and asked if we could take refuge inside their house. "Sure!" they told him. "What's ours is yours!") On the way home, I was more afraid of the bus tumbling over the guard rail to our deaths than the fact that we were driving through the heart of the West Bank.
