The Shomron

Homesh (Hebrew: חומש‎) was a Jewish town in the northern Samarian Hills of the West Bank along Route 60. The village fell under the administrative jurisdiction of the Shomron Regional Council. In 2005, the town's Jewish community was evicted and their homes were razed.
The village was established in 1978 as a pioneer Nahal military outpost, and demilitarized when turned over to residential purposes in 1980 to non-Orthodox Jewish Israelis. During the al-Aqsa Intifada and a result of the Palestinian violence and increased threat to personal security, about half of the residents left. Shortly after though, dozens of Orthodox Jewish Israelis moved to the village in order to show support for the continued settlement of the area.

 

Eviction of Jewish Community

The residents of Homesh were forcefully evicted from their homes and their houses razed as part of Israel's disengagement of August 2005. Since that time, the former residents have revisited the ruins multiple times and are making efforts to return to the site and rebuild.

 

Yearning to return home to Homesh
By Nadav Shragai


Three years after the evacuation and destruction of Homesh, in the northern West Bank, during the disengagement, there is a continuous but not permanent Jewish civilian presence there. A small yeshiva, headed by Rabbi Elishama Cohen, a graduate of Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav Yeshiva who lives in the long-standing Harasha outpost, operates outdoors, in a small grove in Homesh. Dozens of people spend time there every week. People from Homesh First, an umbrella organization of right-wing groups whose goal is to rebuild Homesh and other northern West Bank settlements, arrange transportation to and from Homesh and even supply food and water to those staying there.

The students at the Homesh yeshiva - about 15 young men - come from area communities. "It's self-sacrifice," says Yisrael, a bachelor of around 26. "Sometimes we come by car and sometimes on foot. In the summer we find shade under the trees and in the winter we spread a few tarps. When the weather gets stormy we go into a cave."

This year, a shmita year, the seventh, sabbatical year, when the land is not worked, he says, "We learned the Talmudic Tractate Shvi'it, which discusses the connection between the Torah and the Land. Every day we study here for around nine hours. We're lucky because we can simultaneously fulfill two mitzvot, the mitzvah of settling the land and also the mitzvah of studying Torah, but it's not easy. These aren't conditions for pampered types," Yisrael says.