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| Author Aliza BasMenachem |
Aliza, who currently lives in New York, spent many months prior to the 2005 destruction of 22 Gush Katif communities, in the largest of them, Neve Dekalim. She's a Chabadnik who has penned many articles and opinion pieces during her career, but this is the first time she's attempted fiction.
The author told interviewer Walter Bingham of Israel National News that she decided to use the historical fiction route in order to bring out the emotion and penetrate the thinking of the Gush Katif evictees she wanted to portray. "I write best when I'm angry," noted Aliza, and like many in the audience at the Museum, the eviction of thousands of Jews from their homes exactly six years ago caused her to be angry at those who devised and implemented the disastrous plan.
Before Aliza took the microphone, former Neve Dekalim resident Moshe Saperstein addressed the crowd. Moshe, well known to Jerusalem Diaries readers for his blow-by-blow account of the years leading up to the eviction and his anguished attempts to convey the pain and suffering of the evacuees in subsequent years, spoke in his usual frank and blunt manner.
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| Moshe Saperstein |
Moshe decried those observant Jews in Israel and abroad who showed no interest in the fate of their brethren about to be thrown out of their homes and deprived of their livelihoods. "I never lost my faith in God," he stated, "I was born and remain a religious Jew. But my faith in Jews was severely damaged," he continued. "Corruption I could understand, but how could we be suicidal? It simply has driven me crazy," he added.
People like Aliza, who tried to do everything to stop the implementation of the evacuations, have given him inspiration, Moshe said, as he closed his remarks by praising the people who never lost faith and urged them to continue to fight so that with God's help, the Jewish communities of Gush Katif will be renewed.
The book is a meaty 367-pages that took several years of research to complete. For many, revisiting the painful and turbulent period of the destruction of vibrant Jewish communities by other Jews will not be easy. But, as Aliza pointed out, if the book will in some way help shed light on this distressing episode of recent Jewish history and prevent similar plans from being carried out in the future--dayenu.
