Ir Emuna – The City of Faith – was founded immediately after the deportation by residents of the Gush Katif settlement of Atzmona. Actually, theirs was the second Atzmona. The first one was built on the Sinai Peninsula, near Yamit. After the peace treaty with Egypt was signed in 1982, Atzmona was destroyed and its residents relocated to Gaza. So for many people this is already a second exile.

Ir Emuna stands inside a skeleton of a huge warehouse in the middle of an empty space about 1.5 miles from the town of Netivot, in the Northern Negev





Michal Chubara, a mother of three daughters and eight sons, showed me around. Two of her older sons are married, and her youngest is 3 years old. They lived in Atzmona for 5 years. They got to Ir Emuna only a week and a half ago - her second son was getting married a few days after the deportation and they spent the time before and after the wedding with family in Jerusalem area.

Two of her older sons that are still at home didn’t move into the family’s’ caravan. One put up a tent a few feet away, another one prefers to sleep in a sleeping bag under the open skies. “They simply can’t breathe when it’s so crowded”, - says Michal. She’s worried about her 17 year old, the one that’s in his own tent. He became withdrawn and impossible to talk to. The only thing he’s thinking about is that in a few months he’ll be drafted into the army.

Right now Ir Emuna numbers about 60 families, which amounts to a few hundred people. Most of them are in tents,





some are in the recently arrived mobile homes, called “caravans”.



Just a month ago they lived in homes like this one, in the now destroyed Atzmona.


Caravans keep arriving, and all of them are in need of repairs. Some are in such wonderful condition, that at the place of origin they had to be labeled “not for destruction”. Probably to avoid confusion as to which ones go to the dump, and which ones to the settlers. For example, this one – meant to serve as one of the preschool/kindergarten buildings



or this one – home to a family with 5 small children.



Not long before the deportation a woman Michal didn’t even know called her house and interrogated her about what the settlers were planning to do with their pets. Michal was shocked: “I don’t even know where they’ll take me and my small children, and you want me to make plans for the animals??!!” Menahelet SELA, a government agency created to provide for the civilian aspects of the disengagement, was very worried about the cows on the dairy farm of Atzmona. They developed a plan for their gradual resettlement and acclimatization. A few prospective sites for the new farm were rejected because SELA didn’t think the conditions there were good enough. “It looks like the cows are way more important than us”, - smiles Michal.

The caravans and, naturally, the tents as well, are not hooked up to electricity, water, gas or sewage. A rented generator provides Ir Emuna with electricity and costs many thousands of shekels per week to operate. Portable toilets and public showers are located at the far end of the warehouse.



Next to them are the city’s two washing machines and two dryers.



Since there is a huge amount of laundry, it’s really important to streamline the process. Women buy tickets – a shekel per load, and stand guard over the washers so that there are no delays between the loads. There’s no hot water in the evenings, so Michal and her kids haven’t taken a shower there yet. They drive to Netivot and use the shower in their friends’ apartment. “My kids are so dirty all the time, I’m really embarrassed”, - she says. “But, on the other hand, what can we do? This is an open space, there’s ongoing construction here – you can clean all you want, but there’s only more and more dirt”. Besides dust and dirt from all the building, there’s a constant and at times deafening noise. There are also well dressed young men and women that every once in a while pass you by. At the mere site of a camera they start screaming “It’s forbidden to take pictures of us!!!”. They are from the Menahelet SELA.

It is truly amazing how people can make even this bare warehouse livable. Even in a tent or a dilapidated caravan there’s a feeling of home, of comfort – a sign with the family’s name, a plant, wind chimes at the entrance, a picture on the wall.







Or beautiful windows, painted on a tent wall.



Despite everything these people experienced, life goes on. The laundry is hanging out to dry



kids run around the playground



mothers are helping with homework




Last week they added “insides” to one of the warehouse walls. Now the first floor houses an office, a storage room, a playroom for the children



and kitchen.



The kitchen is not used for food preparation. All the equipment there was brought in from many different places and a lot of it is not appropriate for preparing industrial quantities of food. Besides, people are afraid that conditions in the warehouse are not sanitary. All that the kitchen is used for is storing food in fridges and preparing cold breakfasts and suppers. Sometimes they boil eggs or potatoes. Hot lunches are catered and paid for by the settlers themselves and donations that they receive. Every once in a while caterers or restaurants in the area do it for free. Dining room is also right there.



It also serves as an improvised community center, instead of this one



The second floor is occupied by the girls’ school and Talmud Tora for boys. Sunday night the stairs leading to the second floor were brought in, and their installation continued until 3 a.m.



The next morning school was opened.



(the sign says “This faith is impossible to stop. School for girls of Atzmona and Talmud Tora”)



The teachers are the same that taught in Atzmona schools. Some of them come to work from Jerusalem hotels where they are temporarily housed, about 1 ½ hours commute each way. Other students from neighboring settlements, that are now scattered all over the country, also came for the opening day. Even the kids of Katif settlement, that are now located 2 hours away in Kfar Pines, made the journey in a show support for their friends and classmates.


Atzmona had three preschools. The caravans that are meant to house them in Ir Emuna are not usable at the moment.



So kids are put into a building allocated to them by the neighboring village about 5 minutes by car from Ir Emuna. There are two large groups led by teenage volunteers from Atzmona. Preschool and kindergarten teachers that worked with the kids before the deportation are now scattered all over and cannot commute. The situation isn’t good – especially now, after everything these children have been through before, during and after the disengagement – they need small groups and professional attention more than ever. “Kids need routine, or they start to go nuts, - says Michal. “I see it on my own children, they don’t behave like they used to at home. I can’t even control what they eat, they can just go and take food in the dining room. Sometimes, when I take them to lunch or supper, I put my youngest one at the table and go look for the other ones. By the time we come back – he’s already ran off”.

Furniture from the synagogue of Atzmona is piled up separately.



“It’s better that it gathers dust here than to leave it to be trampled by Arabs”, - says Michal. When they heard on the radio that their synagogue was desecrated and burned by the Palestinians, the people of Ir Emuna again tore their clothes as a sign of mourning and recited a blessing of “Baruch dayan ha-emet” (Blessed are You, the Righteous Judge), normally recited at the news of someone’s’ passing. “This was very hard, but we will honorably withstand and this trial that befell us” – says Michal, biting her lip. “It happened that on the same day we heard about the synagogue, our school reopened. So we see that with every loss we are given more hope for the future”.

This is what Atzmona synagogue looked like on the outside



and on the inside



Now this caravan serves as a synagogue



Inside there is some furniture from the former synagogue. Besides prayers and community gatherings, it is used for the Atzmona kollel, numbering about 12 young men, who came to Ir Emuna with their families.



Three days after the deportation Ir Emuna held its first wedding. The daughter of the Rav of Atzmona was supposed to be married in Neve Dkalim, another Gush Katif settlement. Instead of postponing the wedding, the young couple decided to start their new life by getting married in Ir Emuna. The tent city was decorated as much as it was possible and its residents celebrated the happy occasion as well as Sheva Brachot (the week following the wedding)





Since the disengagement, there already were three weddings in Ir Emuna – that very first one, the one of Michal’s son, and a wedding of another young man. So the name of the city is very appropriate, and many signs hanging there testify to the effect. For example, this one, a quote from the prophet Jeremiah (31:2) “And I have loved you with an eternal love, therefore I have extended kindness to you. I shall yet rebuild you, and you shall be rebuilt, O Maiden of Israel”.



or this one – “the children of the eternal nation do not fear the long road”



And its very residents – they speak for themselves. Just look at this charming couple



or this very busy young man.



- If you were offered a nice private apartment somewhere else, would you take it?
- No, what are talking about? – Michal waves her hands. – Yes, the conditions here are very far from attractive. If I need to use the bathroom at night I have to walk through the entire camp. But we are together, we are constantly busy with something constructive, we again feel that we are in charge of our own destiny. I really feel sorry for the people cooped up in Jerusalem hotels. It’s twice as hard for them -not only to be in a tight confined space with large families, in a big city – I wouldn’t be able to spend even a day there with my kids – but to also face complete uncertainty about their future. Some of the Atzmona residents – the elderly, or those with family members who have special needs – rented small apartments in Netivot until they can move into caravans here. They really suffer, and come to spend all their time here with us.
- After the deportation we spent a few days with our friends in the Golan. We had everything we could ask for. And then we came here – to the heat, the dust, the noise. But after a few hours my children asked me “Mom, why haven’t we come here before????!”

Michal is right. Yes, the people from Jerusalem hotels are holding up beautifully. But only after seeing Ir Emuna I finally realized how exhausted and withdrawn they are compared to the people of Atzmona.

Most of Ir Emuna is jobless. People that led busy, productive lives doing what they loved most are suffering from inaction. Collective hothouses and nurseries of Atzmona were packed up and transferred. Planting is slowly starting in the ones that were already set up. All the private ones were left behind in Gush Katif. Their owners haven’t even received new plots of land. Atzmona was famous for its nurseries, which supplied a significant part of Israel’s’ flower export to Europe.







The nurseries and the hothouses were saved only because of selfless volunteers. People of all ages and religious backgrounds streamed into Atzmona in order to help the owners with the relocation. They had to obtain special army permits in order to get into Atzmona and worked in shifts. It was a race against time, with the army constantly threatening that each next day was the last one, and whatever was not packed up and shipped would be simply bulldozed over. Gush Katif hothouses are a high-tech agricultural enterprise that needs constant control and supervision. The owner and the workers cannot live many miles away, they have to be near the hothouses all the time.


Notwithstanding the many daily challenges, there is not a single sign of depression among the people of Ir Emuna. Right now they are busy with the work that has to be done in the city itself. And, of course, they remember



and hope, and believe that they’ll persevere – “the spirit of Gush Katif forever” –



and then – they’ll return. Especially, since the road home is still there



At the moment the plans for the future of Ir Emuna are as follows: to move every family into a caravan and hook them up to running water, sewage and electricity. If Menahelet SELA allows, to invite residents of other Gush Katif settlements to join them. Within the next two years the government has to allocate permanent plots of land for home construction and hothouse, nursery and farm relocation. There, the people of Gush Katif again will be able to do what they do best – build, plant, turn the Negev desert into flowering paradise, learn Tora, raise large and close-knit families.

In the meantime there are many needs, both short and long term, that are not met by the government. An American delegation that recently visited the deportees was shocked to find out that everything they heard from the Israeli government about their situation was a lie. You can read about it here: http://w115.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46311
There’s ongoing construction and repairs to the caravans, fuel bills for the electricity generator, purchases of food, clothing and other necessities, and many, many other things. For those of you located in Israel - if you can volunteer a day or two of your time and come down to Ir Emuna to physically help with construction and caravan repairs, it'd be wonderful. Please contact me if you are interested. If you'd like to visit Ir Emuna and bring something to the deportees, please contact Nitza, its resident-coordinator, at 052-869-3322.

If you would like to give a hand to our brothers in need, it will be greatly appreciated. The following is the bank account for Ir Emuna:

Bank Mizrahi
branch #491
account number: 437660
Please make sure to designate your donation to “ATZMONA”.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me, Katherine (Gita) Weiner at the following email address: izgnanie@yahoo.com

Thank you, and may you and your family have a sweet and happy New Year.