Anya Antopolski
Posted on | November 13, 2008 | No Comments
Director of Meeting Point in Nokdim
I’ll tell you a story. About a year ago I was going through the checkpoint on my way home when I saw a very pretty Palestinian girl with a beautiful scarf covering her hair. She was standing next to the checkpoint holding a Palestinian flag and demonstrating against the security fence. I wanted to stand next to her holding an Israeli flag, because I’m also against the fence. If she’s against the fence, and I’m against the fence, then who is for it, really? That’s what I want to say.
You live in Nokdim, which is called a “settlement,” and you are called a “settler.” What does this mean to you?
It’s strange to hear that word, “settler.” Why? After I made aliyah from Russia ten years ago, I was introduced to this place and immediately felt it was where I want to live. This is the Land of Israel that I feel is ours. I don’t really differentiate between one place and another. All the places I’ve lived in after making aliyah, I just felt it was part of my country. I wanted to support it, to be a part of it.
My husband, children, and I traveled to Sanur before the disengagement from Gaza. Several communities in Samaria were handed over to the Arabs—Sanur, Homesh, and another few. It was a Jewish community and, now, unfortunately, Jews no longer live there. I sat and looked at the people, and suddenly I felt that all of the Land of Israel is my home. That was the starting point of the work I do today.
For three years I have worked to bring together Russian-speaking Jews, secular and religious. When we lived in Russia, all the Jews were together. It didn’t matter if you were secular or not. Here I see Jews who aren’t even acquainted with each other.
What makes you happy?
I’m the happiest when I’m with my family. In Moscow, I have a big family—aunts and uncles, cousins who got together on everyone’s birthday. I’ve missed that in Israel, and I’ve wanted the same thing for my children. To feel a family around you gives you a sense of security in your life. That’s very important.
Is peace possible?
Peace is possible only if we Jews finally feel that this is our country. That doesn’t mean no one else can live here. Heaven forbid! Anyone can live here. But the country is ours, and if that is what we feel, then everyone will understand it and we’ll live here together happily.
I wanted to tell you a story about something that occurred in Hebron. There, Jews built a synagogue on a site where they were told that Jews are not permitted to build. One day, some people from Peace Now arrived to protest against the building, and who did they meet in front of the synagogue who told them they must not touch it? It was an Arab sheikh from one of the big clans in Hebron. He stood up to them and said, “No. You will not do this. I will not let you destroy this synagogue. Because we Arabs and Jews can live together here in peace.” This led to a meeting between the sheikh and the head of the Kiryat Arba local council, and they started to talk.
So when you ask if peace is possible, I say yes, it’s possible. When Jews build structures that are destroyed, and they build them again and again, the Arabs learn that this is important to us. When will peace happen? The minute we show people that we won’t give up, and that we can live here together.
How does the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians affect you?
I live here and I see the Palestinians, the Arabs, who live next to us. My husband is a doctor and has gone to visit them and help them. I can’t say relations between us are good, but they are normal. I can understand if they think this is their country, they feel they have to do something to get it, right? They have a reason for wanting to be here. We have a reason for wanting to be here. We can talk.
But terrorist incidents really affect us. But I know how to cope with that. It is true that there are a lot of terrorists. If I’m riding in a bus there’s nothing I can do. But at least I understand what can be done. Three people from our community, Russian-speaking Jews, very good friends of ours, have been killed. I can certainly say that is frightening.
What are you proud of?
My children. The aliyah to Israel. What else? My grandfather and grandmother were born in America. My grandmother married my grandfather in New York. In the 1930s, my grandparents from both sides went to Moscow. At that time, there were many people in America, most of them Jewish, who traveled to Russia. Their lives there ended up being difficult, with the Second World War and Stalin’s camps. But they got through it unharmed. My family was completely secular, but sometimes my grandfather would sing songs in Yiddish. When I was 20, I found someone who taught Hebrew in Moscow during the refusnik period, when such things were possible. I learned Hebrew and started lighting Shabbat candles. And slowly but surely, I went through the process of becoming religious. Wanting to live here naturally grew out of that. Here, I am at home at last. My grandmother would have been very happy to know that I’m living in the Land of Israel.
What is courage?
To never give up on your path once you decide to do something that is important to you.
What makes you afraid?
Violence. When people all of a sudden and for no reason get into fights and start to beat each other. And also how widespread it is on the Internet. A person meets another person in the street and start beating him, and someone else takes pictures of it with his cell phone for no particular reason except to make a video and show it to people on the Internet. I’ve seen several instances of this recently. I don’t cry easily—I didn’t cry at the terrorist attack on our friends—but this made me break into tears.
What would you say to the women of the world?
The most important thing we can do is to pass on our family tradition to our children. It doesn’t matter who you are, everyone has their own culture and tradition—whether you are a Jew or an Arab or person from Africa. It’s important for every family to remember its roots, and to preserve them and pass them on to their children.
Antopolski, born in Moscow, immigrated to Israel ten years ago. She lives in Nokdim, a village near Bethlehem in the West Bank, where her parents recently joined her from Russia. An Orthodox Jew, Antopolski directs Nekudat Mifgash (Meeting Point), uniting secular and religious Jews in courses, seminars, and joint trips. Her grandfather’s imprisonment in a Stalin work camp is a model to her of strength under difficulties.
