With Blessings from Tel Hai

Our youth, this generation of victory that travels to Tel Hai and Biriya, expects more from us. Military victory is not enough. A sustainable military victory is not possible without settling the land.

Tel Hai is the symbol of Zionist settlement in modern times. Through understanding that “Out of the north the evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land,” as understood by the prophet Jeremiah thousands of years ago, pioneers and settlers stood up to the enemy and created facts on the ground to such an extent that the Jewish community believed that the Galilee panhandle was included within the borders of the State of Israel.

Aharon Sher was an early figure in Jewish self-defense efforts. He was born in the Russian Empire, fell in the Battle of Tel Hai in February 1920, and was one of the eight for whom Kiryat Shmona was named. Before his death, he wrote a long pamphlet in which he explained his attitude towards the situation in the north: “We do not need a combat army that lives by the sword to maintain our positions until the end of the bad days, but rather a camp of laborers, who also know how to use daggers… There is only one answer to the difficult and dangerous situation in the Galilee – to immediately increase the Jewish population in the north.”

The speed with which the State of Israel evacuated tens of thousands of residents from the northern border, emptied settlements, and neglected areas is a moral and educational failure.

In the hotels, at the beginning of the war, we met not only youth without a framework but also educators who sought hope and resilience in the face of a reality in which the routine of schooling was lost. The 11th of Adar, Tel Hai Day, reminds us that the value of settling the land must be the highest priority and that this is the way to hold on to territory because we can neither live by the sword forever nor abandon our mission.

Settling the land is the Zionist concept on which we founded the State of Israel. There are not many consensual days like the 11th of Adar celebrated by such diverse sectors – the Working and Studying Youth Movement, which goes up to Tel Hai every year since its establishment; the Betar Movement, named after Joseph Trumpeldor, which goes up to Tel Hai on the 11th of Adar, and the Maccabi Tza’ir and Bnei Akiva Movements, which also mark this day by going up to Biriya.

The pictures of people returning to their homes in the north are both moving and tragic. This symbolic area, fought for by many generations, was abandoned for over 500 days. When considering all the mistakes of this war, the failure to evacuate the north was pushed aside, but now, as the fighting subsidies and the guns fall silent, the time has come to talk about values. The government normalized the abandonment of the north, which had never happened before despite the severe wars the Galilee has experienced in the last 120 years.

Our youth, this victorious generation that goes up to Tel Hai and Biriya, expects more from us. A military victory is not enough. A sustainable military victory is impossible without settling the land. This generation is greater and deserves that which Berl Katznelson wrote in the book ‘Events of 1936’: “This generation is entitled to say to Yosef Trumpeldor and Aharon Sher, people of Tel Hai: We did not shame you. You did not walk for no reason. Wherever the battle found us, we accepted it and sanctified it. We did not support one Tel Hai; the whole land was Tel Hai. Talei Haim”.

The writer is a member of and content editor at Yesodot – The Center for Education, Torah, and Democracy.