There’s No Place Like Homesh

AFSI is pleased to present Shmuel Wende, Homesh Yeshiva Executive Director. He will give us an update and inside report on the developments taking place in Homesh.

AFSI has a long relationship with the Homesh community. Homesh was the first stop on AFSI’s May 2023 Chizuk Mission to Israel. After a “10 minute” uphill walk, we visited with Wende and learned quite a bit about the community which, in 2005, was one of a handful in the Shomron that were evacuated along with Gush Katif in Gaza – the Expulsion of Jews.

It’s been almost a year that Jewish life has started to return to this mountain top town and right now it’s mostly makeshift structures (which they see as a 5 Star Hotel) powered by a couple of solar panels and inhabited by young Yeshiva students and IDF soldiers. It was only several days after our visit to Homesh that the US State Department and the EU condemned then, there have been reports of “Palestinians” marching towards the community and throwing stones and setting fires. Like so many others, this is a developing story with much of the media reporting in slanted if not flat-out erroneous ways. (By now they have moved down the hill to undisputed State lands.  There they have a Beit Midrash and four dormitories, electricity and running water.

Submit advance questions to [email protected]

Register on Zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIodO-rqTMiH9Hmld1rHhoBTuOPM2TR2rpX