Chabad mitzva tank memorializes mistaken identity tragedy victims

“God willing, a proud Jewish settlement will be built in this place,” said Baruch Ben-Yosef, who stood on a barren hilltop just south of Ma’aleh Hever near Hebron on Sunday.

About 100 people gathered on the wind-swept hill called Mitzpor Ziv, the scene of the accidental killings of Ben-Yosef’s son, Yehuda, and Yoav Doron.

Two years ago this Sunday, the two young men, just out of the army, were killed by soldiers who mistook them for terrorists. Ben-Yosef and Doron were guarding an outpost built on the hilltop.

The outpost has since been taken down and now only a memorial plaque is there.

In the background, the humming of a portable printing press emanated from a Chabad Mitzva tank.
One hundred copies of Tanya – the centerpiece of Chabad hassidic thought, written by the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi – were being printed.

This generation’s Lubavitcher Rebbe, the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, told his disciples that printing and learning Tanya in every place where there are Jews would hasten the messianic era and strengthen Jewish settlements.

Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh, the former head of Yeshivat Od Yosef Hai in Yitzhar, near Nablus, taught a chapter from the newly printed Tanya. He chose chapter 32, which is the gematria, or numerical equivalent, of the Hebrew word lev – heart. He spoke of the need for endless, selfless love for fellow Jews and the Land of Israel.

Ginsburgh spoke of the obligation to adhere to the Torah and its commandments – even if that meant disobeying military orders.

Under the makeshift canvas tent strapped to boulders, the Ben-Yosef and Doron families and their friends gathered to finish writing a Torah scroll. Men danced around the nearly completed Torah scroll, singing with guitar accompaniment.

A procession accompanied the Torah scroll and danced out of Mitzpor Ziv in the direction of Ma’aleh Hever.

Hundreds of settlers from the Hebron area gathered at Ma’aleh Hever to receive the Torah scroll, which was ensconced in the nearly built Ma’aleh Hever’s synagogue.

“This procession, here in this place, acquired with Jewish blood, will strengthen our hold on the land, it will lift up morale and transmit a message of strength,” said Rabbi Dov Lior, the chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba.