Women in Green activities

Dear Friends,

Below please find a summary of our exciting Women in Green Eretz Yisrael this past Tuesday.

Secondly, yesterday we sent out an incomplete email about the lecture tour and bios. Below please find the corrected one.

With Love for Israel,

Nadia Matar

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1) ZIONIST PURIM SHOPPING IN YAD BINYAMIN this past Tuesday
Summary and pictures by Gemma Blech

Women in Green went on a pre-Purim shopping spree in Yad Binyamin, to support the Gush Katif 'refugees' who have been just dumped there in their paper-thin houses. However, as last year at the same time, some of the folks now have work, or were running shops and small businesses in this well established moshav.

So, Women in Green BOUGHT, as well as ate, pizza, coffee, dates and more, all as a way of encouraging the folk there! Bye the bye, the prices and quality of their goods was EXCELLENT and we would encourage others to support these folk who so appallingly lost all at the hands of the Israeli government.

For pictures (credit Gemma Blech): http://picasaweb.google.com/gemmablech/2009242WIGSupportShoppingVisitToYadBinyamin #

For the Arutz 7 report and youtube video on our Women in Green Zionist shopping in Yad Binyamin where you can see us "in action" shopping for Purim, and hear Women in Green Anita Finkelstein and Esty Naeh and two Gush Katif expellees talk (in Hebrew), please click on: http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/185978

After Yad Binyamin our Women in Green split in two groups. Some of us went to Shdema, and some of us went to hear Philip Karsenty.

A) Philip Karsenty- by Gemma Blech

From Yad Binyamin we went onto the Hebrew University to hear a lecture by Philippe Karsenty:

In 2000 French TV showed a film of the supposed killing of Muhammed Al Dura, Arab child in Netzarim, Gaza. This 'scene' became a poster for the Islamic anti-Israel hate-frenzy of recent years. It was soon exposed as a 'Palywood' staged fraud, a modern day blood libel against Israel and the Jews, but few in Israel took any action. It was Philippe Karsenty in France who has spent years exposing the whole film as a dangerous fraud. It is important to support him and help him spread the truth.
http://picasaweb.google.com/gemmablech/20092409PhilippeKARSENTYOfMediaRatingsExposesTheMohammedAlDuraScandal #

B) Tree planting in Shdema

As we mentioned, other Women in Green continued after Yad Binyamin to Shdema to greet two busloads of people from Raanana and Kfar Saba. Our dear friend and long time activist Ilan Hirshfeld from Raanana organizes for the past 15 years monthly Rosh Chodesh trips to Hebron. On his way from Raanana to Hebron, Ilan and his friends also visit different communities in Judea in order to show support. This time they came to Shdema. The Committee for a Jewish Shdema welcomed the guests with happy Eretz Yisrael music, dates, sweets, and drinks. After a few speeches by members of the committee for a Jewish Shdema about the importance of the struggle to keep Shdema in Jewish hands , we planted trees and bushes. The tree planting ceremony was very moving and uplifting . Tree planting symbolizes our planting roots in that place and our commitment to make sure Shdema, like every other place in Eretz Yisrael, will stay in our hands.

Tomorrow, Friday February 27th, we will go up to Shdema at 9:30am, as we do every Friday, to show a presence and hear a shiur.

Link to Rivka Rybacks pictures of our event in Shdema (please credit): http://www.yeshabulletin.com/FIGHT%20BACK/FightBack.htm


2) Final and corrected version of the lecture tour and bios


LECTURE TOUR
NADIA MATAR and YEHUDIT KATZOVER


Three years ago, after the expulsion from Gush Katif, two veteran Land of Israel activists joined together in an effort to reignite and reinvigorate the grassroots struggle against the post-Zionist expropriation of Israel. Most of the nationalist camp was exhausted and in despair, but they weren't. Together, Nadia Matar, leader of Women in Green, and Yehudit Katzover, leader and activist from Kiryat Arba-Hevron, initiated and led a host of new ventures to hold on to the Land of Israel and to strengthen Jewish Israelis’ innate understanding that the Land of Israel belongs to them.

Nadia and Yehudit will be in the States from March 12th through March 19th. The public is invited to come and hear them speak about the facts on the ground in Israel and why activism is so important for our future. They will speak in Los Angeles and in New York.

Women in Green would like to thank Alan Jacobs for helping to plan Nadia's and Yehudit's trip.

Los Angeles:

Shabbat, March 14: * Shabbat morning at the Beth Jacob Synagogue
* Seuda Shlishit at the Young Israel of Century City

Sunday, March 15, 2009 at 5:00 p.m.
Luxe Hotel Sunset Boulevard
11461 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90049

For reservations: Contact Doris Wise Montrose at: doris@cjhsla.org or call (818) 704-0523

New York:

Wednesday March 18th at 7:30pm
Safra Synagogue, Manhattan
11 East 63rd St., between 5th and Madison

Organized by Americans for a Safe Israel
Contact: afsi@rcn.com
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Bio-Nadia Matar

Born in Belgium, Nadia made aliyah at the age of 21. In 1987, Nadia married David Matar, pediatrician. Nadia and David live with their six children in Efrat, Gush Etzion.

In 1993, in response to the bombshell of Oslo, she founded Women in Green with her mother-in-law Ruth Matar.

Women in Green became one of the most visible and active grassroots groups on the Israeli scene. It spread its message about Jewish ownership of the Land of Israel and the danger of capitulation to the Arab enemy via fraudulent “peace agreements” by numerous means, including:

· Protests, demonstrations, and street theatre;

· Articles in newspapers and Internet media;

· Nadia’s popular radio show on Arutz 7;

· Solidarity trips to settlements and outposts in Yesha;

· Legal, monetary, and PR support for individuals facing political persecution by the government;

· Opposing the separation fence and other political decrees meant to harm and weaken the settlement enterprise;

· Creating and leading action committees in Judea as a force for localized grassroots activity.

· Actively fighting for keeping the Land of Israel: In 1995 Nadia, together with 9 other women from Gush Etzion, lead the struggle for the Dagan Hill in Efrat that was in danger of being given away to the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo 2 agreements. The women and their families, joined by hundreds of supporters, lived on the barren hill in difficult conditions, in the heat, with no water and no electricity. After two weeks, the authorities expelled them forcefully, but they came back ,again and again, and today, thank G-d, Dagan is a flourishing neighborhood of Efrat with tens of young couples. Nadia and fellow activists from Judea are now fighting for settling the hill of Eitam in Efrat.

In the spring before the expulsion from Gush Katif, Nadia moved with her husband and six children to Kfar Yam, together with other Women in Green activists, such as Anita Finkelstein and her family, and many others, including tens of youths. Together they helped lead the more activist wing of the struggle against the Expulsion.

Women in Green has galvanized politicians, public figures, and the public at large to these various causes and activities, and has faced political persecution along the way. Nadia has been arrested, beaten, and undergone numerous political trials, one of which is still pending.

Since the destruction of Gush Katif, Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katzover have undertaken a host of new projects and initiatives to empower the orange youth, reenergize a discouraged citizenry and increase the struggle for the Land of Israel. One such project is the struggle for a Jewish Shdema.

Bio ­ Yehudit Katzover

Born in Rumania in 1947,Yehudit made aliya with her parents and family at the age of 12.

Yehudit and her husband Tzvi were one of the founding families of Kiryat Arba and have taken a large part in its growth and development. Among other positions, Tzvi was mayor of Kiryat Arba for the past twenty years and Yehudit was vice-mayor from 1985 to 1990.

Yehudit was one of a group of women that opened Hebron to Jewish settlement despite an uncompromising governmental ban. In 1979, she and her three young children entered an abandoned Jewish building in Hebron together with nine other women and 37 other children. What followed was a standoff that lasted almost a year. No one was allowed into the building and the government declared that anyone that left would not be allowed back in. The women held out under shocking conditions for a year until the government finally capitulated and allowed for the renewal of the Jewish community of Hebron.

When not working at her “day job” as head of a teacher’s college in Kiryat Arba, Yehudit has worked tirelessly for Land of Israel causes.

In the early 80's Yehudit and her family moved to Yamit, to take part in the struggle against the abandonment of the Yamit region to Egypt.

In the 90's she absorbed the waves of immigration from the USSR as an ulpan teacher. Simultaneously, she led and participated in the different Land of Israel struggles like the struggle for the establishment of the Avraham Avinu synagogue in Hebron and the struggle for the establishment of the Hazon David outpost, destroyed by the authorities 34 times, and immediately rebuilt by Yehudit and her fellow activists.

In 2005, she led the very active Kiryat Arba-Hebron struggle against the Expulsion, and since the Expulsion has worked with Nadia on a host of local and national struggles and projects.

Such a project is the struggle for Shdema, a army camp abandoned by the government three years ago, 5 minutes away from Har Choma, overlooking the Jerusalem-Gush Etzion highway.

Arabs, helped, incited and funded by anti-Israel international organizations have been trying to take over Shdema.

Nadia and Yehudit have formed the Committee for a Jewish Shdema with members from Jerusalem, Kiryat Arba Hevron and Efrat Gush Etzion. Over the past year the Committee for Shdema has been very active. Every week activities are planned in Shdema. The purpose is to turn Shdema into a Cultural Educational Center teaching youth and adults the importance of the Land of Israel not only with lectures and cultural activities, but also with practical teachings of agriculture and how to build homes in order to go back to the value of Jewish labor.

Women in Green has been sponsoring and leading the activities in Shdema. The Gush Etzion local council has joined and is helping the Committee for Shdema too.

More details about the struggle for Shdema can be found at http://www.womeningreen.org/

To contact Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katzover and inquire about their speaking tour in the US please email nmatar@netvision.net.il

or call Nadia 050-5500834 or Yehudit 054-5866059


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Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:wfit2@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org