Bunker Hill

Five years ago Meir Brettler was banned for six months from his home on a windswept Samarian hilltop — joining a list of 20 others thrown out of their communities in Judea and Samaria by administrative orders. At the time it didn’t stop him from sneaking back into the Yishuv HaDaat farm (population three families at the time) for his second child’s bris. Today the Brettlers still live on that lonely hilltop and Meir still infuriates Israel’s intelligence network.

Brettler 25 would never fit into Lakewood but he looks just like the other “hilltop youth” whom he mentors: a massive knit kippah covering his head a large beard wild peyos and tzitzis fluttering in the wind. And he has no qualms about doing things that the Israeli government and security forces feel will inflame the Middle East — as long as those actions help him achieve the goals that he believes in.

“We are the front line” he says. “There are two million dunams of land here and we will settle them. Our Zionist ancestors established their settlements in secret in the dead of night like thieves. We conduct our activities with pride in the open — we’re not embarrassed to say this land belongs to us. Or does it? We demanded an answer and when the leadership wasn’t willing to give it to us we provided it ourselves.”

Despite his young age Meir Brettler whose charisma has attracted dozens of young supporters who follow his lead unquestioningly has already succeeded in founding the Union of Hebrew Towns which stakes a Jewish claim to biblical cities in spite of current political realities. They often try to enter Jericho now under PA sovereignty in order to return to the ancient Shalom Al Yisrael synagogue. And they are regular visitors to Shechem unfazed by the Palestinian police who tail them.