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A goodbye to Gaza

Settler from Brooklyn rages at being thrown from her beloved home

NY Daily News

I set the table with my best china. The guests were not invited, but I knew they were on their way.

When the Israeli Army soldiers showed up at my door Thursday, I told them I had cooked for them, expecting them to take seats and join my family.

But they had other plans. The soldiers led my family from the Gaza home we have known for 29 years straight to a bus, which delivered us to a tent city at the Western Wall.

So today, I am a refugee in my own country. As the 80 families of Netzer Hazani, Gaza Strip, approached the tent camp, we ripped our shirt collars as a sign of mourning.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s order to dismantle 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four small ones in the West Bank after a 38-year occupation has forced me to leave the home I have known since 1976.

The evacuation is immoral and unnecessary. I do not believe that it will bring peace.

Keeping Shabbat: Lessons from an evening of ritual observance

My San Antonio

As sunset approached Friday, we watched men dressed in black and wearing yarmulkes, symbols of humility, coming from all directions along Blanco Road in north San Antonio, a neighborhood that is home to many of the city’s Orthodox Jews.

Women walked alongside the men as the workweek ended and the seventh day, the day that for 3,000 years has been the Jewish day of rest, approached.

The area also is home to Chabad Lubavitch of South Texas, a place of faith and learning where Rabbi Chaim Block serves as executive director. Block was a member of the Express-News’ 2002 advisory board, and since then has remained a friend and one of many links connecting our newsroom and the city’s Jewish community.

Monika, my wife, and I were among three couples who arrived in vehicles at the gracious Block home, which the rabbi shares with his wife, Rivkie, and their eight daughters and one son. It becomes a home to many more each Friday night as the Blocks prepare to keep Shabbat with an extended meal that must take all day to prepare.