There Is A Kippah In The Rubble

By Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman on April 15, 2003 - י"ג ניסן תשס"ג

There Is A Kippah In The RubbleRabbi Arik Ascherman wrote the following just after his arrest in early April, 2003. Click here for coverage of his trial

I was arrested last Wednesday. Again. Many of you know that we are experiencing a new wave of demolitions for lack of building permit in and around Jerusalem. On Wednesday the Municipality came to demolish four homes. The families had exhausted their legal options although they thought they had an agreement allowing them additional time to rezone their land. They didn’t. (In any case they didn’t have much of a chance.

All four homes are located in a part of the Issawiya which the government refuses to recognize as a part of the village, let alone zone them for building.) By the time another activist and I had reached Issawiya, two homes were already lost. However, we knew which other homes were scheduled for demolition and managed to reach the homes before the police sealed them off. They fired teargas when they saw us approaching, but that did not deter us.

The families were hysterical. The grandmother was wailing while the father of the family was clutching at his heart and others were begging us to do something. It was simply heartbreaking.

The [Israeli] police quickly arrived, but backed off — either because the families’ lawyer was in court trying to get a stay or because they agreed to give the families time to get their belongings out of the houses. Friends and family set out to act as quickly as possible, even chipping away to remove the iron bars on the windows.

We received word that the lawyer had not been able to receive an injunction. I was determined to stay with the family in the home, hoping that would buy time for something to happen. However, the head of the local council had seen the violence which had taken place at the first two houses and persuaded the family to leave. He told me that adults were free to do what they wanted - after the children and elderly were safely out of the way.

We watched helplessly as the pneumatic drills tore into the final remaining home. To officer after officer I read off chapter and verse from various international conventions which Israel is a party to. Commanders ordered their people not to listen or take the paper.

I have to be careful in describing what happened next, as this may come to trial. The charge sheet against me claims that I ran in front of the bulldozers, interfering with the work of security forces and endangering myself.

I can say that I lost my kippah in the ensuing moments. There isn’t much in the rubble of those houses, as the families succeeded in removing most of their belongings. It is not like some of the demolitions where we find children’s toys, clothes and schoolbooks among the rubble. However, there is a kippah and I feel that it means something. Perhaps it symbolizes the trampling and burial of the Jewish Values I grew up believing in. Perhaps it means the opposite. Perhaps it symbolizes the fact that their were Jews who stood against this injustice in the name of Torah.

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