For the third year in a row, the youth of the town of Efrat in Judea and Samaria are at the very top of the IDF annual enlistment statistics, which also show that this town provides the highest share of officers per capita in the country. And so, according to Makor Rishon, this year, as in previous ones, the head of the local municipality Oded Ravivi was invited to participate last Wednesday—along with the rest of the heads of municipalities that are leaders in terms of their military recruits—in the annual ceremony conducted by HR Chief Maj.-General Orna Barbivai.

But, this year, Mayor Ravivi opted not to come to the ceremony: in his view, the current stats are a terrible injustice to young National Religious people who are serving their country.

“The IDF stats only include those who enlisted in the army. In Efrat the girls are also enlisting, but because most of our population is National Religious, most of our girls do National Service.”

Ravivi was enraged, saying, “It’s unacceptable that we’re the leaders in all the most important statistics, yet, in the end, we find ourselves in the 60th percentile because our young women prefer national service over the army. If the IDF does not appreciate our high number of officers and combatants, I prefer to stay away from this get together.”

Young Israelis of both sexes are able to choose, according to the law, between military service and national service—the latter including teaching in needy areas, work in hospitals and in EMT units.

According to the IDF HR enlistment statistics for 2012, 22.2 of Efrat’s recruits go on to make officers, while 80.4 of the town’s men serve as combat soldiers. About a quarter of the local girls also opt for military service, and out of those, 24% continue to officer school.

“We work hard to encourage doing a significant IDF service,” Ravivi told Makor Rishon. “Our youth are raised in an environment that stresses contributing to the nation. We offer pre-enlistment prep programs, so our young people learn how to arrive at those places.”

Rock-throwing Arabs hit a soldier in his eye Monday and then rioted when solders fired back, aiming at the lower parts to minimize injuries in what is the latest of dozens of weekly Arab attacks that have been so routine that they are rarely reported.

The only exception is if someone is serious injured or murdered, which was the unfortunate case last week. In what was a real-life cowboys and Indians scene, Israeli police chased after an Arab vehicle carrying Arab workers without permits to work outside of Judea and Samaria.

The Arab driver tried to escape by reckless driving, and he crossed the white line, crashing into a car driven by a 29-year-old resident of Susiya, located between Be’er Sheva and Hevron.

The young man, Yenon Levanon, was killed instantly, and the Arabs were wounded lightly.

Murderous driving, usually by Arabs, is routine on the roads in the Negev, heavily populated by Bedouin, and throughout highways in Judea and Samaria.

The dangers are two-fold. If a driver is lucky enough to travel in his car without begin hit by an Arab driver who passes another passing car on a curve uphill, he still has to deal with dozens of firebomb and rock-throwing attacks.

This is not the “Third Intifada” that the IDF has been warning about; it is the continuation of the First Intifada from the late 1980s, which took a break during the euphoria of the eve of what was supposed to be the culmination of the Peace Process in the last 1990s, when the so-called “Second Intifada” or Oslo War began.

The State Dept. is careful to relate to President Obama every shack Jews erect in Judea and Samaria.

It is doubtful how much information he gets on Arab terrorist attacks, if the Associated Press is any guide.

Reporting Monday on Arab riots in support of Palestinian Authority prisoners on a hunger strike in Israeli jails, the news agency referred to “demonstrations,” such as one in Bethlehem where  Israeli forces dispersed several dozen activists who blocked a road on Monday.  AP added, “There were no reports of injuries.”

After telling readers that one hunger striker reportedly is in critical condition, AP reported, “Israel is holding some 4,500 Palestinians for charges ranging from throwing stones to undertaking deadly militant attacks. Their incarceration is a sensitive issue for Palestinians, who see them as heroes of the Palestinian liberation struggle.”

That is the end of the report , but it is not the end of the story. AP did not report that in the past week alone, Arabs carried out 29 Molotov firebomb attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians, including one on a public bus, another on a Jewish women driving near Kedumim, east of Karnei and Ginot Shomron in Samaria, and two on Rachel’s Tomb (Kever Rachel).

The Palestinian Authority claims Kever Rachel actually is a Muslim holy site, even though Islam was founded more than 2,000 years after Rachel died. The site is not holy enough to dissuade PA Arabs from attacking Jewish worshipers there. Besides firebombs, PA terrorists also hurled two grenades last week.

If Obama were to keep a diary of security incidents in Israel in just one week, he would discover:

– Hevron Arabs threw rocks on children in a playground in the Avraham Aveinu neighborhood of Hevron;

– PA Arabs fired at Kibbutz Migdal Oz on erev Shabbat, apparently careful to wait until the Muslim day of rest was over on Friday;

–  Arab Knesset Members, as part of their public service to the country, joined Palestinian Authority Arabs for Prayers at the Ofer jail, near Jerusalem, to show solidarity for hunger strikers. After prayers, hundreds of Arabs threw rocks at soldiers, two of whom were lightly inured;

– PA Arabs rioted at Efrat, a “settlement” of several thousand families five miles south of Jerusalem, at Beit Haggai, which borders Hevron to the southwest, and at Beit El, another “settlement” of more than 1,500 families in Samaria;

– Rock-throwing Arabs, trying to cause fatal accidents, managed to wound an eight-year-old in the face at Beit El and a driver whose windshield was smashed at one of the terrorists’ favorite locations, the village of Azoon on the road between Kfar Saba, at the northern edge of metropolitan Tel Aviv, and the Jewish communities of Maaleh, Ginot and Karnei Shomron;

On Monday evening, a suspicious object was noticed on the road leading to the northern entrance of Efrat, in Gush Etzion.

Upon further investigation is was discovered that a fake bomb had been planted on the road.

On Friday evening, an 18 year old Arab from the village of Idhna (near Hebron) was caught infiltrating into the town of Efrat in Gush Etzion.

When he was caught by the town’s security personnel, he was carrying a Hamas flag and 3 lighters on his person.

During the interrogation he said he planned to commit a terror attack. There is speculation he was sent to test out the town’s security response.

On Saturday, the IDF arrested two Arabs in Hebron who threw stones at a Jewish boy, in Hebron’s Jewish Quarter.

A students at the Aseh Chayil School, in the town of Efrat, presents the oversize Sufgania he and his fellow students prepared from recycled materials.

For once, I’m stumped.

Residents of Efrat blocked a main access road from Bethlehem on Monday night.

The spontaneous protest came in response to an attack on an Efrat driver on that same road, which also leads to the northern entrance of Efrat.

The driver, a woman, was in shock after a massive rock was thrown at her car by Arabs in an oncoming car. The rock broke her windshield. Other than the shock, she was uninjured.

During the Friday funeral for Druze IDF soldier Majdi Halabi, Rabbi Professor Daniel Hershkowitz called Majdi Halabi “our brother.”

On the popular National-Religious site Serugim, a halachic question was posed to Rabbi Baruch Efrati, Rabbi of the Zayit Raanan shul in the town of Efrat, regarding the use of the term “brother” in reference to a non-Jew.

Rabbi Efrati responded that the Druze and Circassians (both are minority ethnic groups living in Israel) have chosen to share their destiny with the state of Israel. In return, Israel owes them a covenant of blood, which we do not violate it. Israel must be committed to their safety and welfare.

But the question was formulated in halachic terms, as to whether or not Jewish law permitted referring to them specifically as brothers, and according to Rabbi Efrati, the gemorah in tractate Sotah (41:) takes exception to using the word “brother” when referring to a non-Jew. The gemorah brings the case of King Agripas, who shed tears when he read the verse prohibiting making a non-Jew king of Israel. The sages then cried out to him: You are our brother, about which Rabbi Nathan said it was the cause for their annihilation, as flattery was substituted for the law.

So it would seem preferable not to use that term about the late Majdi Halabi.

Rabbi Efrati then expanded on the answer and said that since the Druze and Circassians are monotheists living in Israel and loyal to Israel, they have the halachic status of ‘Ger Toshav,’ a monotheistic resident, which might then allow the use of the “brother” reference, but again he concludes, based on an opinion of the Maharal of Prague, that the use of “Brother” would still be inappropriate.

Rabbi Efrati nevertheless concludes that Majdi Halabi died a ‘Holy Martyr,’ since he was serving in the IDF when he died and can be counted among the ‘Righteous of the Nations,’ and he is included in the “Av Harachamim” prayer in synagogue, and God will surely avenge his death.

But, while we are obligated to treat them with love, peace and friendship, the designation of “Brother” is not halachically prescribed, as he is not a Jew.

Some 30 years ago a certain well-known rabbi in Manhattan came to Israel and brought much of his congregation with him, to a barren ridge where our forefathers and foremothers traveled to and from Jerusalem and Hebron. The rabbi and his followers left the ravages of assimilation and headed to the unknown. The rabbi swiftly gathered in Jews from all over the world and all over Israel to the cozy town of Efrat.

My son’s Efrat high school class recently returned from a weeklong trip to Poland. We met them at dawn at the Kotel. How appropriate to have gone during the month of Elul.

In order to be thoroughly understood, this is a story that must be rewound and fast-forwarded. We move back and forth between Biblical times, times of bitterness, exile, enslavement, times of the Kings – so many yesterdays. At the Kotel we are rewarded by a scene featuring a group of the proudest Jewish souls on the planet who, until this time, never really experienced anti-Semitism. This is a story about 16- and 17-year-old “caped crusaders” who wore huge Israeli flags draped around their shoulders at the death camps, the remains of shtetls, the memorials. They are not afraid to dance and cry in public. They have returned from what they describe as a cemetery the size of an entire country.

We rewind several days to watch them recite Kaddish along the train tracks, where the generations of their grandparents, people with the same names, once tread for the last time. And now fast-forward again to the free Jews dancing at the Kotel. From what are they free? From the threat of intermarriage and the burdens of being in the minority. They are free from having to look over their shoulders both to the past and the future and wondering what others might think. They are free to proudly wear the mantle of Heaven.

What is the antonym of “cowering”? At the Kotel, after a week of first-hand testimony of slave labor, brutality, murder, loss and ovens the powerful antidote is this: the Jewish melting pot, on Jewish land. Here is where the children of Manhattan congregants gather together with the children of Jews who feared Arab marauders, together with grandchildren of Jews who were slaves all over the world, Jews who wandered and prayed in all manners of exile – out of fear.

With their arms around each other’s shoulders, the boys dance in a giant circle, in the plaza in front of the Kotel. They sing a new song, one their teacher originated with the words, “Wherever we go, we are going to the Land of Israel.” At this tearfully joyful reunion, the parents are laughing and crying as well.

We ignore the piercing wails of the muezzin calling Muslim followers to prayer. This is the meaning of the words about the children returning to the borders: “v’shavu banim ligvulam.”