Former long-time Gush Katif resident Rachel Hendel says the trauma of having one's life's work destroyed is not easily overcome. . The manager of the family's large agricultural business in the former Jewish community of Ganei Tal, Mrs. Hendel was speaking with Argaman, a religious women's publication handed out monthly in synagogues.
Though she has overcome the odds and started a new organic pepper farm, the wife of four-term Knesset Member and former Gaza Coast Regional Council chief Tzvi Hendel is still having a hard time of it.
Asked how she feels two years after, Mrs. Hendel said, "After the expulsion, I used to cry at everything; I was full of anger towards the government, towards the army and even towards the nation that allowed such a thing to happen. I felt humiliated and abused. But I began to understand that in order to continue with my life, to get up in the morning and run a house and smile at my children, I have to be cleansed from within. I went to all the psychological counseling and treatments that were offered to the expellees - treatment workshops, group meetings, and even personal psychological treatment."
Q. Why was the trauma so hard? Some people say it's the same as moving to a new apartment.
A. Before the expulsion, I thought to myself that if the decree really happens, we would definitely be able to overcome and recover - because after all, we are healthy, normative people. But to my surprise, I began to realize the enormity of the crisis. It's unbelievable how traumatic it was for us as a community, and even more as individuals. In a trampling show of force, they took away the center of our lives, the homes that we built, our jobs and sustenance, our honor... They trampled everything we believed in and overturned our world, adults and youth alike, into chaos."
The young Hendel family moved from Pardes Chana, in north-central Israel, to the sand dunes of the fledgling Gush Katif in 1978. "We were looking for a religious place, with values, that was good for raising children and for agriculture," she says. "There was an ad in Haaretz newspaper to the effect that [then-Prime Minister Yitzchak] Rabin and the Labor people were working to establish communities in Gaza. We went to see it, and when we saw the sea shore with the sand so clean and warm, and the beautiful palm trees, we just fell in love with the place."
Mrs. Hendel did not mention that the local Arabs were amazed that the Jews would want to try to take up the challenge of living in the area they called El G’erara, the "cursed land." Another former resident - Maayan Yadai, who converted to Judaism after growing up in Croatia, and later moved to Netzer Hazani in Gush Katif, from where she was evicted during the Disengagement - once said that the local Arabs "told me that nobody lived in this area from the time that the last Jews left, because there was not enough rain and nothing could grow properly. They were happy when the Jews returned because the rain started again, and the land began to produce.”
Yad Binyamin
Today, the Hendels and dozens of their long-time neighbors live in the temporary site of Yad Binyamin, with no knowledge of when their permanent homes in Chafetz Chaim, a ten-minute drive away, will be ready.
"I currently feel that I live in the Yad Binyamin Maabarah [Transient Camp]," Rachel Hendel says, with the pain clearly showing. "It's so non-permanent. I generally like to decorate my house and make it look beautiful, but now I find myself afraid to get used to my home. Transience is a terrible feeling, and especially when you see no sign of it ending."
"We lived in Ganei Tal for some 27 years," she recalls, "which is of course a very significant time period of life. We came to Ganei Tal as young families, and together we built a unified, quality community. We became one big family, celebrating britot (ritual circumcisions), Bar Mitzvahs and weddings together, and we were always there for one another."
Q. Did you believe that the Disengagement would never happen [as some said]?
A. "Until the day of the expulsion, I did not believe that it could happen. I didn't believe that the government would dare expel so many families. We lived so many years under the threat of mortar shells and other dangers, and I didn't want to think that everything had been for naught. I also still remembered the old Ariel Sharon, when he would come to us on Fridays with potential investors, trying to build more and more; I couldn't digest the huge change that came over him. I didn't pack at all before the expulsion; it was a matter of principle that nothing would happen, and that if my world was about to collapse, it wouldn't be saved by a hotel room."
Q. And when did you realize what was actually going on?
A. In the days before the expulsion, I still went to the greenhouses to water the plants, and I still prayed for the miracle. But on the day of the expulsion, when I saw all the soldiers with their black uniforms marching in endless rows along the paths of my beautiful town, that's when it dawned on me that the miracle was not going to happen. Within a few hours, we packed up a bunch of suitcases for the hotel, and left Ganei Tal.
The Father's Suffering
Mrs. Hendel's father Yaakov Freiman was another casualty of the expulsion. He lived in N'vei Dekalim for 20 years, was banished to a Jerusalem hotel for nine months, and then lived in the temporary site in Ein Tzurim, a 20-minute drive from Yad Binyamin.
Rachel remembers: "My father was an Etzel man [a member of the anti-British pre-cursor of the nationalist Likud party during pre-State days - ed.], born in Jerusalem to a seven-generation Land of Israel family. His whole life he taught us the value of settlement and giving to the country without limits, and then everything blew up in his face... He was full of faith and tried to strengthen himself; but after living in a large, organized house and then being shut up in a small room for a long period, without his regular routine and quiet corner, I saw him slowly deteriorate. He died less than a month ago."
A year ago, the Hendel family decided to once again work the land, and received a plot of land near Ashkelon. They built a greenhouse, and have now begun selling their organic peppers.
Q. Are you excited?
A. It's a good feeling to know that we have succeeded despite all the hardships, and to build something again. You have to start everything from scratch, and I must admit that I no longer have the necessary energies. Our son-in-law, with his youthful energies, has been the driving force behind everything."
Asked how the Disengagement affected her children, Rachel said, "Each one reacted differently. My 24-year-old son, for example, just burst out crying when he saw the soldiers coming in - and even today it is hard for him to put on an army uniform... Yes, it's our army, but there's tremendous anger at those who are in charge. I remember the top officer who came to remove us from our house, sitting opposite us with glassy eyes and repeating the usual mantras, 'I am just fulfilling an order,' etc. The Israel Defense Forces was not established in order to tear down and destroy, but rather to protect us. I felt they were too loyal; I expected more support for them, and even for some refusals."
"After all," asks Rachel Hendel, with no expectation of an answer to the question that still echoes thunderously today, "by what right do some people in this country decide that their houses are more important than mine?"
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