The Bnei Akiva youth movement has given real meaning to the Sukkot holiday, write Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, co-leaders of the Women in Green grassroots movement which is “dedicated to safeguarding our God-given Biblical homeland”
According to the report, on Monday hundreds of Bnei Akiva youngsters came to the Oz veGaon preserve above the Gush Etzion Junction, where they embarked on an all day hike in Gush Etzion. The youths said they were inspired by the biblical verse (Joshua 1:3), “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.”
“We set up sukkot in Oz veGaon for public use,” write Katsover and Matar, “Come with family and friends and enjoy the rest of the holiday.”
The Oz veGaon preserve was established in memory of Gilad Shaer, Eyal Yifrah and Naftali Fraenkel, three Israeli teenagers who were kidnapped on 12 June 12, 2014, outside the Jewish settlement of Alon Shvut in Gush Etzion, in Judea, as they were hitchhiking to their homes. The three were murdered by the Hamas agents who kidnapped them, as was eventually revealed by the IDF Operation Brother’s Keeper. On September 23, 2014, after the IDF had killed two of the kidnappers in a shootout, IDF Chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz announced that Operation Brother’s Keeper “has come to an end.” On January 6, 2015, a third kidnapper was sentenced to three life terms in prison for the murders and a payment of $63,000 in compensation to the victims’ families.