Stuart Honigman emerged from a synagogue on New York’s Long Island with a souvenir bag filled with information about buying land and homes in illegal settlements in Israel and the West Bank.
An Israeli real estate company had just held a seminar on how Jewish Americans can buy real estate quickly and easily.
“I thought we’d have to invest a lot of money right away, but we don’t have to,” said Mr. Honickman, director of business development at a New York photo shop. “And we also have a mortgage company here. So, you know…it’s very beautiful.”
The event in Lawrence Village, a majority-Jewish suburb about 15 miles southeast of Manhattan, is part of the “Come Home” tour of the U.S. and Canada, sponsored by Israeli real estate brokerage firm My Home in Israel. It was one of the destinations on the tour.
Event promoting Israeli real estate raises tensions in New York
Honickman, whose two sons and parents already live in Israel, said the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the ensuing war in Gaza “awoke dreams for many people and made them wonder how they could fit in there.” I’m starting to explore it,” he said. ? ”
He said last week’s real estate event, which had a heavy police presence as pro-Palestinian protesters gathered across the street, offered legal advice to Americans buying land in Israel, including lawyers, developers and insurance companies. He said that he was provided with financial advice.
This special event focused on Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and several other cities and communities, including Ma’ale Adumim, Neve Daniel, and Efrat (all settlements in the occupied West Bank).
Such settlements are considered illegal under international law. Israel has long disputed this, but the pace of development has only increased under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Last month, his far-right government approved plans to build around 3,500 new settler homes in Ma’ale Adumim, Efrat and Kedar, a move that several countries and groups, including the UAE and the United Nations, deplored. He said that such a plan would “come out of nowhere.” “The Face of International Law.”
Announcing the plan, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the move was aimed at “deepening our eternal control over all of Israel,” a inflammatory statement that critics called It was seen as a rebuke to US President Joe Biden’s administration, which has criticized the settlements. It has grown over the past few months.
Israel encourages American Jews to make aliyah, or immigrate to Israel, and Israeli real estate roadshows like the one in Lawrence are not new.
But critics say recent moves to raise awareness about real estate purchases are a sign that Israel, which sees settlement construction as a way to displace more Palestinians and ensure that a two-state solution can never materialize. It states that it is a reaction to October 7th by many people.
The National was barred from the latest event in Lawrence, and My Home in Israel representatives did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Honickman said the turnout was higher than similar events in the past.
“I think more people really want to know: Is this a viable option for us?” he said.
“Each individual needs to understand their own place in world history, but are they going to keep waiting and waiting and waiting? Or are they going to keep waiting and waiting? Are we going to stop to explore the opportunities that are available to us?”
Demonstrators at a real estate roadshow event.Ahmed Isawi / The National
In Israel, polls show that young people are most likely to hold ultranationalist views. This seemed to be borne out in Lawrence, where a youth-led rally was held outside the event.
People turned to music as the streets of the village, where the yeshiva (Jewish rabbinical learning center) is located, swelled with the sounds of pro-Israel chants, car horns and nationalist songs such as the viral war anthem “Harboo.” They blew, danced and waved Israeli flags. Darb.
The song includes lyrics that name Palestinian celebrities, including Bella Hadid, and states, “For all the IDF (Israeli military) forces to put harb darb (war and pain) on their heads. Lyrics such as “I’m coming for you” appear to be calling for the killing of Palestinians.
There was an atmosphere of jubilation on one side of the street, occasionally punctuated by mean-spirited expletives hurled at pro-Palestinian counter-protesters on the other side.
Some pro-Israel demonstrators shouted, “Who’s fasting?” Ramadan Mubarak! ” Counter-protesters shouted back, “How many babies will Israel kill today?”
One ultranationalist exclaimed: We have a thousand more people than you! ”
Avi Elefant, a young Jewish American demonstrator from Lawrence, said it is “completely wrong” to condemn the expansion of West Bank settlements and expansion.
“As Jews, we actually have the right to immigrate to the Land of Israel. This has nothing to do with political bias. I think it has everything to do with our rights.” he told The National along with other young protesters.
West Bank vs. Judea and Samaria
The population of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem, grew from 520,000 to more than 700,000 between 2012 and 2022, according to the United Nations.
“These settlers are illegally staying in 279 Israeli settlements across the occupied West Bank, including 14 settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, and the total population “At least 147 of these settlements were outposts and were illegal even under Israeli domestic law,” the world body said in a report last year.
All settlements are located in Area C, which is 60 percent of the West Bank and is securely controlled by Israel. Given that Israel has not annexed the West Bank, it does not consider Jewish settlements in the area to be under its full sovereignty.
Josh Vito, a Lawrence-based real estate broker who came to the demonstration “as a curious spectator,” said that in highly ultranationalist communities like this one, there is particular interest in buying land in the West Bank. He said he was there.
“The feeling of the majority of residents here is that Israel has a legitimate claim to the West Bank, or what we call Judea and Samaria, that the settlements are not illegal, and that the territory is part of Palestine. It’s not territory, it’s illegal. It’s disputed territory,” he said.
This new “awakening” for many Zionist Jews also served as a lightning rod for protests.
Rich Siegel, a Jewish-American activist near Teaneck, New Jersey, has long argued that real estate seminars and sales events like the one in Lawrence not only violate international law, but also violate U.S. domestic fair housing policy. I’ve been insisting. Only for Jews.
He said the Teaneck area saw an “amazing turnout” of protests when the real estate tour stopped at a local synagogue this month.
Siegel explained that his journey into Palestine and the anti-Israel movement came about by discovering his faith.
He grew up among “atheist Zionists, secular Jews who, instead of worshiping God and Judaism, truly worshiped the Jewish tribal identity and the state of Israel.”
A few miles away in New York City’s Brooklyn borough, another real estate event scheduled to take place the day after the Lawrence event was canceled at the last minute on police recommendation due to a planned protest.
Abby Stein, a founding member of the Ceasefire Rabbis and a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, author and activist, believes that any settlements being built in the West Bank are a potential path to justice and peace. He said it was a “positive step” away from the future.
“We Jews know this. For 2000 years people have tried to kill our hopes, rights and expectations, and they have failed,” she told The National newspaper. “One of my big problems with the State of Israel is that they don’t allow me to truly love and enjoy this land of my ancestors.”
“Cult Survivor”
Many nationalists equate “anti-Zionism” with anti-Semitism, but Siegel and Stein say this argument is “ahistorical.”
Ms. Stein argued that interpretations of Judaism that attribute some political or national ideology to Jews are flawed.
“If you look at the Torah, we started out as 12 tribes and we’re literally at war with each other all the time…They’re trying to blend Zionism and Judaism into one, and that just doesn’t work for me,” she said. Told. “That’s a contradiction. And you’re trying to say there’s only one way to be Jewish, but that’s probably the only wrong way to be Jewish.”
Mr. Siegel added: “I feel like I’m a survivor of a cult, and as I look at the people I left behind, I’m just appalled that they have no immunity to the suffering of Palestinians. Masu.”
He said those who support Israel during the war in Gaza are “shooting themselves in the foot.”
“The whole world is appalled by this situation, and Israel will never recover from this situation,” he predicted.
Many of Lawrence’s Zionists said they “sympathize with the Palestinians,” and some added, “Jews are Muslims’ brothers.”
To them, Israel is not responsible for the suffering of Palestinians, including the more than 31,800 people Gaza health officials say Israeli forces have killed in the enclave since October 7.
I would like to start a new organization called “PRO”, the Palestine Resettlement Organization.
Stuart Honigman encourages Jewish Americans to buy land in Israel and the West Bank at real estate event
“The Palestinians are supposed to want to live in peace with us, and we give them a lot of jobs. And Hamas is responsible for this because it is causing a lot of hatred. I think they are real people,” Elephant said.
Honickman added that he wants Palestinians to “live a beautiful life,” but his vision of what that means includes their displacement.
“I want to start a new organization called PRO (Palestinian Resettlement Organization) to truly meet their needs. If we don’t have a security partner, we have a problem. There are thugs in my basement. I don’t think anyone will ever live there.”
For Stein, that worldview is dangerous.
“Any act other than genocide would require recognition that Palestinians have a right to this land, a connection to it, and it cannot be destroyed or killed,” she said.
Activists held a rally in Brooklyn after the “Great Israeli Real Estate Event” held at a Midwood synagogue was canceled.Getty Images
Updated: March 23, 2024, 2:06 p.m.
