Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

A chilly wind whistled into the microphone, through the pair of large speakers, and out into the crisp air around the playground. Most residents of the settlement and their guests were in attendance, a crowd of forty or so. The kids scampered among the swings and rides before being rounded up by their parents and placed in strollers or on the grass to listen to the speeches.

“Just a few years ago, not even five,” began MK Tsur, “there was nothing here but rocks, foxes, and thorny burnet shrubs.”

On the podium alongside the politician stood the donor, Sheldon Mamelstein, whose head was tilted toward Josh, formerly of Brooklyn, with his red hair and beard to match, who was serving as his simultaneous translator.

“But here we are now, in the Hebrew month of Shevat, 5769, marveling at your accomplishments, your inspiring tenacity, your good and hard work, your settlement pioneering values, and your uncompromising belief in the sanctity of this land. You, dear residents of Ma’aleh Hermesh C., have built a wonderful community…”

MK Tsur paused briefly. The wind whistled through the microphone and echoed off the hillside. Sheldon Mamelstein lifted his head and rubbed his neck. Pregnant women and teenagers shifted their weight from one leg to the other. The little kids asked if it was time now to go play on the slides and swings. Soon, said the parents. And Captain Omer thought, What’s with the Shevat, 5769? Why not simply say February 2009?

Tsur’s address was followed by a few more words of gratitude from a number of other functionaries, with Sheldon Mamelstein the last to take hold of the microphone. Josh translated his words into rudimentary and horribly accented Hebrew. His speech was met with modest applause.

Mamelstein unveiled a plaque engraved with his name and the date. He gracefully disregarded the spelling mistake in his name — an unnecessary h after the s in his surname, as per usual in Israel — and posed for a photograph with the MK, settlement residents, and a number of children. The ceremony came to a close. The kids reveled in the new playground to the sound of their parents crying, “Careful!” Women spoke to one another about pregnancies, shared recommendations for Sabbath wine, and discussed goings-on at the school in the mother settlement. Fathers chatted about Hilik’s doctorate and the Knesset member’s Volvo S80, and paying half price to replace a cylinder head at Farid’s in Kharmish. They’d be heading off slowly in a few minutes for late-afternoon and evening prayers in the makeshift synagogue farther below, alongside the traffic circle, two trailers that had been joined together and christened with a traffic circle sign. MK Tsur struck up a conversation with Sheldon Mamelstein and tried to set up a meeting with the American. Othniel offered the dignitaries a tour of the outpost. The MK looked at his watch and said, “Oh my God,” before shoving a Bluetooth earpiece into his ear, hastily exchanging handshakes, waving good-bye, and getting into his car. And after everyone was done watching the Volvo S80 drive off into the distance, they all turned their gazes in the opposite direction, toward the slopes of the ridge below them, and were surprised to see a huge truck off-loading a new trailer, accompanied by much noise, loud shouting, and carefully measured maneuvering. How did the truck get there? they wondered. And whose trailer was that? Why had it arrived today? But before they had a chance to ask him, the truck driver turned the vehicle around and headed off.

Still in his work shirt and shoes from the morning, Othniel Assis, the outpost’s longest-serving resident, led the tour, along with a spruced-up Hilik Yisraeli, wearing a checkered button-up shirt, his hair well combed, accompanied by Natan Eliav, the secretary of Ma’aleh Hermesh, the mother settlement. Red-haired Josh translated for the American millionaire and his companions. The section commander, Captain Omer, who had come to speak to Natan and Othniel about “something important,” walked along with them, Othniel assured him he would make time for him immediately after the promised tour for the honored guest from America. The Washington Post ’s Jeff McKinley tagged along too. No one paid him any attention: the residents assumed he was one of Mamelstein’s entourage; Mamelstein’s people assumed he was a local. A handful of bored children trailed behind.

The delegation made its way on foot through the vineyards, past the prickly pear shrubs and flower beds, the makeshift synagogue, the goat pen, and Othniel Assis’s organic fields. Junk lay strewn among the yards and residences — a bicycle missing both of its wheels, a treadmill tipped over onto its side, half of a Peugeot 104 that still boasted stickers reading BEGIN FOR PRIME MINISTER and GOD ALMIGHTY, WE LOVE YOU, sofas and refrigerators and rolled-up carpets. Above all, and omnipresent — the majestic landscape, the exalted landscape, the wild landscape that appeared to be crying out, and sometimes whispering, and also playing a melody: This is the desert. This is the Bible. This is Genesis.

“What wonderful fresh air!” said Sheldon Mamelstein, filling his lungs with a deep breath. The twilight had turned the landscape into a moonscape. Standing there, they could imagine the Creation, as if thus the universe was created, and thus it had remained. “Hats off to you,” Sheldon Mamelstein exhaled emotionally, and his entourage was struck silent by the splendor.

Mamelstein stopped suddenly and pointed in astonishment. “A camel!” he exclaimed.

“That’s a cow,” Othniel said, using the Hebrew term for a female camel, and Josh struggled a little with the translation.

“Does it belong to one of the families?”

“It’s Sasson’s,” Othniel responded, and left it at that. “Come,” he said instead, “we’ve reached my house. Let’s go inside for coffee.”

The Assis family residence consisted of the same basic mobile home that had been welded to the initial guard hut, with the subsequent addition of a shipping container and a wooden porch, the structure then partially covered in Jerusalem stone — a patchwork of assembled pieces making up some seventy square meters in area and serving as a crowded home to eight individuals: Othniel, his wife, Rachel, and their children, in descending order from the age of sixteen down to three — Gitit, the twins, Yakir and Dvora, Hananiya, Emunah, and Shuv-el, the little one. The inside of the home was dominated by the usual disarray of toys and children’s books, mismatched furniture collected over the years from charities and urban streets, and a bookcase of Jewish and Torah literature that stood on the warped, peeling floor. The large windows and porch looked out over the barren desert hills and a smattering of homes on the edge of the Arab village Kharmish.

The place was bursting at the seams. Rachel served coffee and cake. The sun had set, the cold seeped in through every small opening, and the electric heater was turned up to high. Loud whistles could be heard coming from the open space under the trailer, where the wind blew among the work tools and other stored equipment. The sections of the thin, dry wall that hadn’t been covered by stone offered scant acoustic protection or thermal insulation.

“Is this a legal outpost?” Mamelstein asked.

Othniel exchanged a glance with Hilik and smiled from within his beard. “All the settlements are legal,” he responded. “All were established with government knowledge and approval. We are a neighborhood of Ma’aleh Hermesh, within its jurisdiction.” He pointed in the general direction of the mother settlement. “Besides,” the longest-serving resident of the outpost continued, “Ma’aleh Hermesh C. cannot be illegal.”