Dear Friends, Family, Friends of Israel,

We live north of Ramallah, a virulent hotbed of terrorism and do have Arab minute villages around us in the vicinity, the majority of the area around us is totally uninhabited waiting for our people to come home from 2000 years of exile. The views of the Biblical period mountain terracing and the rain chiselled valleys are breathtaking. I invite you to visit us in Beit El. We are celebrating this Shabbat- Shabbat Beit El as the ancient Beit El is first mentioned in the Tanach here.

A quick history:
Beit El is a community settlement on the border of the Judean and Samarian Hlls 4 km NE of Ramallah near the village of Beitin.

Beit El in is the Arab slur of the Biblical city that the Jordanians conquered in the 1948 War for Independence. Modern Beit El is located as close to Beitin (Biblical Beit El) as possible (as the government would allow) without impinging on it. Among the remains found at Beitin were pottery sherds indicating settlement in te Biblical, Israelite, Roman, Byzantine and Crusader periods- with no sign of settlement during the early or late Islamic conquest periods. Remains of a partly preserved Crusader basalt stone fort, monastery and church used to be in Beitin, but as the Arabs act violently to Jews- particularly after the "peace" process withdrawals- we have not been their to visit the archaeological site in a number of years.

Prior to Jewish settlement there, the place was known by the name Luz. Beit El is the place where Abraham, our forefather, built an altar. It is according to the "pshat"- the text of the Bible- where Jacob, our forefather, had his famous dream of the ladder with the angels. After Joshua's conquest of the land and the return of the Israelites to Israel after the harsh Egyptian bondage, Beit El served as the seat of the Judges. After the division of the United kingdom, Beit El was incorporated into the northern Kingdom of Israel as its southern border.

Beit El has throughout history served as a strategic location sitting on the junction of two ancient roads: the central north-south hill country road known as the Path of our forefathers as well as the east west road which leads to Jericho which has been called by the Biblical commentators as the key to the conquest of the land. It is understandable that when Rabin offered Arafat Gaza, Arafat asked for Jericho on the opposite edge of the country as well. Beit El has always served as a northern buffer protecting Jerusalem.

Jeroboam, the son of Nevat, who rebelled against King Solomon's son, Rehoboam, thus dividing the kingdom built here (and at Dan in the north) an altar with a golden calf to discourage the northern Kingdom's Jews from trying to worship at the Holy Temple built by King Solomon in Jerusalem. The golden calf temple was destroyed during the reign of King Yoshiahu. During the days of Elijah the Prophet, Elijah built a yeshiva there to train prophets. The city was resettled by the Jews that returned from the relatively brief 70 year Babylonian Exile and continuously occupied during the Second Temple pPeriod. At the beginning of the Hasmonean/Maccabbe revolt- the city was fortified by Syrian/Greek general Bacchides. During the Great Revolt against the mighty Romjan Empire, Roman General (later to be Emperor) Vespasian captured the city and garrisoned troops here and in Biblical Beerot, known today as Ramallah's sister city Al Bireh. After the gret destruction of the Second Temple and the mass slaughter by the Romans of the Jewish population, the city fell into decline. Modern and Biblical Beit El sits on the central watershed line of the country. Hiking around the modern Beit El one encounters its long history. The terraced countryside with its olive groves provide the same backdrop as it did 4000 years ago during the period of our forefathers. There are "gats" ancient wine press factories chiselled into the stone mountains in several places in and around the community. Along the mountain side are Biblical and Second Temple burial caves with its chiselled doorways. The pottery sherds that abound the eastern mountain, Artis, show the abundant ancient settlement of a wide spectrum of Jewish settlement.

Today Beit El provides the tops in Jewish education from nursery school through post graduate Torah studies. Beit El "B"'s chief rabbi, Rabbi Zalman Melamed is the head of the Post Graduate Beit El Yeshiva. His wife, Rebbitzin Melamed, is the leader and inspiration of Arutz 7, the offshore "pirate" radio station that is the only source of unbiased uncensored news from Israel and the web site/email news that reaches the world. Beit El "A"'s chief rabbi, Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, is the head of the Yeshiva Ateret Cohanim that is located in today's Moslem Quarter (the old Jewish Quarter.) Ateret Cohanim is also involved with the reclamation of Jewish property in Jerusalem's Old City, stolen by the Arabs after the British kicked out the Jews in the 1936 Arab riots "for their protection."

Beit El is a regional councel providing itself and the surrounding communities with a variety of educational and social services. There is also some private businesses, stores, restaurants and light industry in Beit El, one of the more famous is the Beit El Tefillin factory. Beit El boasts many sofrim and rabbis. It likes to be thought of as an observant bedroom community approximately equally distant from both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, though today's difficult times make the Tel Aviv drive a longer shlep. Come and see for yourslef why Jacob awoke and proclaimed "How awesome is this place, it is none other than the house of G-d and the gate to the heavens.

The modern settlement of Beit El was founded in 1977. Today Beit El has approximately 800 families with about 5000 people. The acts of kindness and the gmachs of Beit El show a great dedication to the Jewish people and the highest expression of love of one's fellow Jew. To live anywhere in Eretz Yisrael, particlarly Beit El, is both a mitzvah and a privilege.