Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

One day, with the bright sun beating down hard from a sparsely clouded sky, two officials from the Civil Administration’s inspection unit arrived on the hilltop. They looked like brothers — thin, awkward, and sharp-nosed. Resting on the head of one was a crocheted skullcap. They spent some time wandering around the outpost and focused primarily on its northeastern corner, which, following the visit and findings of the previous land inspection team, turned out to be a part of the Hermesh Stream Nature Reserve. There stood a partially built wooden structure, known on the hilltop as Gabi’s Cabin, where construction had progressed at an impressive pace and which now boasted half of a sloped wooden roof. The two visitors circled the structure and cast their eyes over the basin that had been installed outside the front door and the toilet that was fixed to the cabin at the back, and then, coming to the end of a small path, they suddenly halted.

“I’ve been around the territories for quite a while,” said awkward man number one, “but this is a first for me. What’s with the bathtub here?” He approached the tub, which lay embedded in a large rock near the edge of the cliff.

“You’re welcome to give it a try,” said Gabi, who had rushed over the moment the two began poking around his construction site. “Never again will you have the chance to take a bath in such beautiful surroundings.”

“I’m sure,” chuckled the Civil Administration official.

“But what the hell is this?” asked the second inspector, motioning with his chin in the direction of the unfinished cabin.

“It’s the Hermesh Stream Nature Reserve visitors’ center,” Othniel replied, and winked at Gabi, who smiled. The mood was a pleasant one. The rustic, pretty cabin on the edge of the cliff gleamed in the sunshine. Surprisingly, the inspectors refrained from issuing an order to suspend construction of the cabin. They said they would look into it and then went on their way.

Visitors continued to arrive from time to time, escorted for the most part by the sector’s company commander, Captain Omer, but sometimes by the battalion or division commander, and once or twice by the head of the IDF Central Command himself. There were also officials from the Civil Administration, the Settlement Division, and the Defense Ministry, Knesset members from the left and the right, and, of course, officials from the Fence Administration, contractors armed with notebooks, land surveyors with their surveying instruments, levelers and their tools. A constant and somewhat slow trickle of professionals and concerned parties over a period of several weeks.

The pre-Passover High Sabbath came and went, and the High Court of Justice debate drew nearer. Leavened foodstuffs were burned, and Seder night passed by with the hilltop residents celebrating the transfer from Egypt, the wanderings, the transient nature of Jewish dwelling places through the ages, and their shared consciousness of an exiled people yearning for their homeland. The High Court hearing began, and the High Court hearing ended, and the council’s petition was rejected, with the court ruling that the military demarcation order would take effect when the Defense Ministry deemed it appropriate.

“Now,” said Othniel at a meeting of the outpost’s Absorption Committee, “we need to cross our fingers and pray to God that the appropriate time isn’t found over the next two years — be it due to the heat, the cold, snow, rain, political sensitivity, a no-confidence motion in the Knesset, the toppling of the government, the days of grace of a new government, an economic crisis — until the order expires.”

* * *

The sector’s company commander, Omer Levkovich, arrived to tell Othniel that he had paid a visit to Majdal Tur. The mukhtar had assured him that a small handful of children were responsible for the stone-throwing incident and that he would personally intervene to ensure things remained quiet.

Othniel protested. “It’s always only children,” he said. “And the sheikh always promises to keep the peace. And then there’s another stone, and another Molotov cocktail, and it’ll end one day, God forbid, with more than just a smashed windshield. And what will you have to say then?” Othniel’s neighbor Hilik, the victim of the attack, who had spotted the company commander’s jeep parked outside his neighbor’s home and had come inside to join them, nodded and ran his fingers over his mustache.

Omer knew Othniel well. His gray-green eyes remained cool, facing the fiery stare of the settler. “It’s best for everyone if the mukhtar is up to speed and assures quiet and good relations, instead of us going in and imposing a shutdown and mobilizing a battalion to maintain it,” the IDF captain said. “Anyway, they’d just get pelted with rocks from the rooftops, and they’d be forced to busy themselves with bullshit.”

“So hit them hard and put an end to the bullshit,” Othniel responded. “We shouldn’t have to tolerate cars coming under attack by stone-throwers.”

“If you can’t tolerate it, you don’t have to. That’s my decision, and it’s final. We’re not going to hit them hard or do anything of the sort.”

“Whatever,” Othniel said, his nostrils flaring. “Just don’t be surprised afterward.”

“Hold your threats, and I’d like to see anyone dare to take action.”

“Okay, okay, let’s all take it easy,” Hilik said in an effort to cool the mood. “Okay, Omer, thanks for coming. Another coffee, perhaps?” Standing off to the side, Othniel was still spitting fire. “No, thanks,” Omer said, and stood up to leave.

He returned just moments later. A flat tire. “Oy, my friend, you should have been more careful there in Majdal Tur,” Othniel said. “It’s full of ninja road stars over there.” Omer wasn’t amused. The clip-clop sound of Killer the horse walking nearby filtered through the air. The tire was changed and the jeep departed. Later that evening, the windshields of two vehicles in Majdal Tur were smashed, and a tire on one of the cars was set ablaze. Captain Omer’s patrol was dispatched to the scene, and after surveying the damage in frustration, he relayed a report by radio to the command center.

When Gabi-Gavriel-Kupper-Nehushtan first turned up at Ma’aleh Hermesh C. and offered his help with anything and everything, Othniel Assis took him on as a shepherd. All Gabi had to offer was good and pure Jewish manual labor, and that’s exactly what Othniel believed in and was hoping to find for his developing farming enterprise. Gabi would take the goats out into the wilderness, sit with them on top of a hill, under a tree or alongside a spring, and then return them hours later to their pen, well fed and satisfied. He enjoyed reading religious literature, the writings of Rabbi Nachman, praying and conversing with the Almighty. After a while, however, boredom set in. How much more of it could he handle, of being alone with his thoughts, even in such beautiful surroundings? A shepherd is like a monk, secluding himself, hearing nothing but the sound of the wind and the bleating of the goats and the tinkling of the bells around their necks, seeing nothing but hilltops. At some point, he came to the conclusion that he’d be better off spending his work hours in a real job, doing physical work, using his muscles, talking to people. More important, he needed to give a rest to his wounded spirit, his intense yearnings and guilt-ridden thoughts about Mickey, his young son.

With Othniel’s consent, Gabi went from being a shepherd to a worker of the land, and off he went to labor in the ever-expanding fields of the Assis farming enterprise, which provided much work sowing and weeding, harvesting, loading, and packing. Because he had some experience with field crops — he had worked on the kibbutz for a short while in the tomato fields, which he detested, and then in the banana groves, which he quite liked — he had a long talk with Othniel about his career change.