The Maggid of Bergenfield: Brothers

The following story is based on a picture from the front page of the New York Times on August 8, 2007. The caption reads: Israel riot police met resistance yesterday as they removed Jewish settlers from illegal residences in the West bank city of Hebron. As one settler was carried off near the market, an officer rushed to pick up the man’s glasses from the ground.

Vayikrah: 19: 18

It was not a pretty scene.

They had been warned in advance that the mishtarah, the police, were coming. They knew what was going to happen, and they were ready. Shmulik had been through forced removals by the authorities before. He had been in Neve Dekalim, in Gaza, the day of the expulsion. He had been pulled from Homesh, twice. Now they were coming to pull him from his own home, in Hevron. Shmulik did not plan to go without a struggle.

Reuven had been with the mishtarah for three years, serving as a traffic officer in Tel Aviv, then on general duty near Ashdod. He had never been involved in a settler eviction before, but he knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant. To the settlers, he was the enemy. Politically, he was relatively neutral on the issue, perhaps leaning a little to the left on the whole peace initiative with the Palestinians, but he had a job to do. And if they put up significant resistance, he was trained to deal with that, by force if necessary.

Shmulik grew up in Pompton Plains, New Jersey (then Steven Applebaum). He had been a zionist from an early age and had participated in the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, but he had become observant through his local N.C.S.Y. chapter. He attended Yeshiva University for college, making aliyah to Kiryat Arba after graduating. He had been working in computers for a few years and moved to Hebron only nine months earlier. This city of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was his home, his true, authentic place in the world. He had a wife, Sarah Leah, and two children, Ruchama and Benzion. He had a long, well groomed brown beard (though his wife would beg to differ), and he tucked his peyot behind his ears.

Reuven Abramovich had been born in Moscow, and although his father was a well known refusenik, he never imagined he would actually make it to Israel until he boarded an Aeroflot TU-124 bound for Vienna a few weeks after the Berlin Wall fell. Three days later he was on an El Al 747 to Tel Aviv, and since then Bat Yam had been his family’s home. He joined the mishtarah straight out of the army, and envisioned a long career with the national police, followed by a generous pension. He was saving up for a larger apartment for his wife Riva and his daughter Sofia. Reuven was tall and muscular. He wore his hair in a crew cut that was thinning subtly at the temples.

The market in Hevron suddenly became quiet, and Shmulik knew that meant the police had arrived in their buses and vans. The officers came into the market in their blue uniforms and began to engage the settlers. Shmulik watched in horror as a few of the many protestors threw stones and bottles at the policemen in riot gear. He just knew that the next day, that would be the only picture most people would see in the newspaper of everything that happened in Hevron during the expulsion. Most of the strewn projectiles missed their intended targets, but a few hit their mark. Shmulik was raised in the U.S., where violent protests were not unheard of, but passive resistance was an art form. As a child, he had watched the television coverage of the Vietnam War protests and the civil rights demonstrations of the sixties, and he had seen his share of protestors being removed by the police. He had watched his own parents dragged off by New York’s Finest from the Russian Embassy and the United Nations in support of Russian prisoners of conscience. One officer had held his mother’s arms and another her legs as she lay limp between them like a sack of potatoes. He would not lift a stone in protest.

Reuven approached the first apartment in the Hevron market with the other policemen. The area was already cordoned off; all that remained was the eviction. A few rocks and bottles rained down on them from the surrounding buildings, but that stopped after a few minutes. As a group, the settlers were not generally a violent bunch. One of his colleagues took a rock to the shoulder and had to go for first aid. They had to break open the door to get to the settlers. Most went peacefully, though certainly not willingly. A few of his fellow officers offered a quick kick or the sharp thrust of a baton to a protester if he didn’t cooperate as quickly as expected, but Reuven kept his peace. He tried not to watch if a policeman overstepped his or her bounds. Better not to know.

Inside the first apartment off the Hevron market Reuven and six of his fellow officers entered in riot helmets with their visors down. Shmulik and two of his friends were in the living room, waiting for them. Yonatan hid behind the couch, and Yitzchak tried to hold onto an exposed pipe to prevent his removal. But the officers were quick and nimble, trained to handle just such a situation. They pried them loose and lifted them up from their perches. Yitzchak tried to kick at them, so one officer bound his legs. Yonatan went peacefully, with two officers gently holding his arms.

Shmulik laid limply on the couch, waiting to be carried off. He was despondent, pulled from his home in the town of the patriarchs and matriarchs. His middle name was Jacob, like Yakov Avinu who was buried just a few hundred yards away. Why wouldn’t these policeman understand? He was lifted by his arms and legs and carried from the apartment.

Reuven was the only one not carrying a settler. He walked with the other officers and their charges, watching for any sign of trouble. He was not a violent man, but he had his orders.

It was a hot day in Hevron, and Shmulik was sweating profusely. Hanging between his two escorts, his glasses slid from his nose and fell to the ground. Without them, he was mostly blind. The policemen kept walking.

"Wait," Reuven said. The son of the refusenik scooped up the glasses and carried them over to the son of the Soviet Jewry demonstrators. One of the officers released Shmulik's hand long enough for him to take his spectacles.

Shmulik half smiled at Reuven. Reuven raised his eyebrows in return and gave a small nod. No words passed between them. Reuven handed Shmulik the glasses, and each returned to his roll in the withdrawal.