Daniella Weiss on The Honor of Israel

The fiery 1979 letter of a resident of Elon Moreh, before it was moved by the Israeli government.

By: Yisrael Medad

Published: October 30th, 2012

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Daniella Weiss
Photo Credit: Nati Shohat/Flash90

A letter:

That was the last paragraph in a 5-page handwritten letter that was sent to Ariel Sharon 2 Kislev 5740, or November 22, 1979 by Daniella Weiss on stationery of the Kedumim-Elon Moreh group who were then battling a government decision, in the wake of the High Court of Justice decision that ordered them moved.A selection of documents were uploadedby Israel’s State Archives. Here is the excerpt about the letter above:

Gush Emunim saw the Elon Moreh petition as a test case in their struggle over the status of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, and tied it to the Camp David Accords and the peace treaty with Egypt, to which they were opposed. On the night of 21-22 November the heads of the movement, including Rabbis Zvi Yehuda Kook, Haim Druckman and Zvi Tau met with the leaders of Elon Moreh. Following that meeting Daniella Weiss, one of the leaders of Gush Emunim and head of the secretariat of the ‘Kedumim-Elon Moreh’ settlement, sent a formal letter to Agriculture Minister Sharon, demanding that he resign. She attached a personal letter, in which she outlined her personal views and the political reasons why Elon Moreh should not be moved from Rujeib to Mt. Kabir. Among other things, she claimed that moving it would be a victory for the PLO, and that the legal status of the settlements in the territories should be changed before Israel transferred the oil fields in Sinai to Egypt, according to the peace agreement…

I have translated the last paragraph since not only is its content emotional and quite representative of the feelings of the group but its conclusion for the future is remarkably prescient. Daniella and family were locate at the Kedumin site where a part of the original Elon Moreh group stayed after the Peres compromise:

…I hope with all my heart that the Government will yet come to its senses, and if not, I will ascend to Elon Moreh with my daughters in order to assist, together with many others, with our bodies, to prevent to uprooting of Jews from their community in Eretz-Yisrael. And I will instruct them that at a time when there is an attempt to rip a Jew from out of his home, that Jew must take a tight hold, even with his teeth and fingernails, in a most very physical fashion. And if, God forbid, we come to this moment, I will make every effort to impress upon my children the power apparent in the stick-to-it-ness to this land. And if we are forcibly removed, this tragedy will remain in the minds of my children in a very powerful way in order that they will dedicate their lives for the struggle to return to Elon Moreh, and to return the honor of Israel*.

The end?

From the site:

On 16 January the Elon Moreh residents decided by a majority vote to move to Mt. Kabir. The move was carried out on 29 January; a small group of four families and several single people remained on the previous site and were forcibly removed by the IDF on 3 February 1980.

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