Students at the Makor Chaim yeshiva, also known as the “Steinsaltz” yeshiva in Gush Etzion south of Jerusalem, turn into a “flash mob” every year before Purim to get everyone in the right mood for the holiday.

This year, they took over the upscale Mamilla Mall, opposite the Old City in Jerusalem, to stage their Purim dance.

Enjoy.

Palestinian Authority Arabs from the village of Al Aroob rioted and blocked the only road connecting Gush Etzion with Kiryat Arba-Hevron Thursday night and then attacked IDF soldiers with firebombs and rocks before they were dispersed with tear gas and rubber bullets.

None of the soldiers were injured, an IDF spokeswoman told The Jewish Press, but she could not confirm a report from Arab sources that the soldiers wounded one protester with a live bullet in the leg. Other rioters reportedly were hit by rubber bullets.

Al Aroob is a frequent spot villagers use to attack passing Israeli motorists with rocks, foreign objects and firebombs.

A recently-discovered letter sent to Hitler in 1939 offered him 100,000 Palestine lira in exchange for allowing Jews to buy land in Gush Etzion and move to Israel.

The proposal, which was sent in a letter dated April 9, 1939, but was not carried out.

Researchers at the Kfar Etzion Museum found a copy of the letter that is in the Yad VaShem Holocaust memorial Center and previously had been published only in an academic journal.

A man by the name of “S. Glazer,” whose first name is not known, sent the letter to Hitler, acting as representative of the El HaHar organization that bought land from Arabs and encouraged Jews to live in the area.

Glazer suggested that he meet Hitler in Berlin in May, 1939.

“I ask your permission to allow selling land to German Jews and let them leave Germany … In exchange, I have been  requested and authorized by the company [El HaHar] to deposit in a German bank 100,000 Palestine lira for purchasing” land.

Many of the pioneers in Gush Etzion move from Germany before it was too late and helped settled Kfar Etzion and nearby areas before the Arab League overran the area in the War for Independence in 1948. The area was restored to Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967.

The wife of Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein, Tatiana (Tania) Edelstein passed away on Thursday night at age 63.

The Edelsteins became religious while still living in the USSR, where Tatiana was a Hebrew teacher and promoted Aliyah until they were allowed to leave to Israel. While still in the USSR, Yuli was arrested, as Jewish activists often were, and Tatiana fought hard to get him freed.

Tatiana was buried in Gush Etzion, where the Edelsteins live.

On Saturday night, a Palestinian Authority terrorist shot towards the entrance of the town of Migdal Oz in Gush Etzion. The shooting was done with a homemade gun. Three shots were fired.

IDF forces captured the terrorist, and no one was injured in the attack.

A trailer full of milk, apparently having come from a nearby kibbutz, failed to negotiate a turn at the Alon Shvut junction in Gush Etzion and turned over on its side.

A security camera recorded the accident, which left the driver with light injuries but enough to be send him to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.

The video shows the trucker was driving too fast. As for the milk, there wasn’t much to do but cry.

We’ve decided to dedicate the bar mitzva of our second son to life in the communities of Judea and Samaria, with guests and family from Hebron, Itamar, Eli, Gush Etzion, Har Bracha. I have led a number of unforgettable Taglit-Birthright trips. They were inspirational, fun and historically comprehensive, except for one glaring omission. The young Americans never saw the burial place of Abraham in Hebron, the ancient ruins of the Tabernacle in Shiloh, the fantastic mausoleum ruins of Herodian, or the beautiful and picturesque winery at Psagot.

All these things and more, contained in the ancient biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria, are off-limits to Birthright trips and not one of its 25-odd providers crosses the Green Line.

That is, except when this policy is brazenly violated by every single Birthright trip when it visits the Old City of Jerusalem and the Western Wall – a contradiction which is conveniently overlooked.

This refusal to allow young Jewish Americans to witness the smiling children and inspired lives of these sunlit communities in the desert reinforces the fraudulent notion that they are mere settlements, lacking permanence, when many are highly developed and well-integrated towns, with every amenity, including very established educational institutions.

Our family is blessed with six daughters and three sons. We’ve had five bat mitzvot already, but this weekend will be only our second bar mitzva, that of our son Yosef Yitzchak, named after the sixth Rebbe of Lubavitch. And we’ve decided to dedicate the bar mitzva to highlighting Jewish life in the communities of Judea and Samaria, from visiting, with guests and family, Hebron, Itamar, Eli, Gush Etzion, Har Bracha and more. All these communities are beginning to feel the pressure of yet another “peace” deal, which puts them squarely in the cross-hairs as the principal obstacles to said peace.

US Secretary of State John Kerry travels to Israel on a near-weekly basis to foster an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. The principal focus of this deal is Israel’s retreat from the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria in the West Bank. Call it Gush Katif redux.

But just as the withdrawal of Gaza has led to war and eight years of rocket and terror attacks against civilians, Israel’s withdrawal from Judea and Samaria would have much more serious consequences.

Every obituary of Ariel Sharon, whose passing we mourn this week, must of necessity include two themes.

First, that he fought like a lion throughout his life to advance Israel’s security and second, that the final act of his life involved a massive retreat.

I vividly remember the communities of Gush Katif that he dismantled, having taken my children there twice just prior to their 2005 destruction.

Our children were among the last to plant trees in Gush Katif on the Jewish holiday of Tu Bishvat, and we did so amid great rejoicing – even though we knew they might be uprooted a few months hence.

The communities of Gush Katif were miraculous, growing green peppers out of the sand dunes of Gaza and sporting a well-stocked zoo to distract the children from the daily horrors that Jewish life in Gaza entailed.

Every tour given to us by a resident involved tragedy. There was hardly a family that had not had a member or friend murdered by Palestinian terrorists, who treated the Jewish residents of Gaza as target practice. To be sure, the IDF responded, and sometimes ferociously. But for all that, the people of Gush Katif, with their beautiful synagogues and scholarly yeshivot, accepted that they were sitting ducks, bringing a civilizing element, agriculture and budding industry to one of the most destitute areas in the world.

Approximately 30 Arabs and leftists blocked the entrance of the community of Elazar, between Efrat and Jerusalem, Monday morning until the IDF arrived to clear them away.

Accompanied by media to film the blockade, the protesters said they wanted to headline their claim that Jews are living on occupied Arab land.

They managed to block traffic for a few minutes and create a traffic jam. Three of the protesters were arrested.