TAKING MATTERS INTO HIS OWN HANDS

Under the blazing Golan sun,dry wind and flies whipping through the moshav,Yuval Matzliah sits at a handmade wooden picnic table and talks about the last two challenging years since being expelled from Gaza along with 8,500 other Jewish residents of the Gush Katif settlement bloc.“Life won’t return to what it was in Gush Katif,”he said.“But we will return there,hopefully in another year.I love this land more than I loved anything in my life.”
Matzliah lives in a 90 square-meter (968 square-foot)temporary house,called a caravilla, on this collective farm near the Syrian border.He hasn’t found employment or received a permit to build a permanent home.But Matzliah has taken matters into his own hands.The tables, ice cream hut and two wooden guesthouses on the moshav are his handiwork, an attempt to create jobs for both him and his neighbors.“I decided I had to put the past behind and take care of my children,”he said.“So I began to look for a way to make a living.The state wasn’t doing anything,so we had to look on our own and we were starting from zero.”Avnei Eitan, a religious community,took in 22 families from Gush Katif.The government built two rows of square orange houses,one floor each with no insulation.They remain undecorated and bleak.Breaking up the monotony are the large containers in backyards holding the families’ belongings.A year into his exile from Gaza, still living in a hotel with his wife and three daughters,Matzliah sank into depression.When their son was born-and nearly died due to complications-his wife urged him to snap out of his despair for the sake of the family.“I’m 32, I’m still young,” Matzliah said,“Imagine someone who is 50 years old, or sick or handicapped.How does he start over?I’m living well compared to most.”According to a report by the Gush Katif Committee,Matzliah is right.Thirty-seven percent of the settlers are still out of work,although Matzliah disputes that as too low a figure.Some 500 families are on welfare.And since many residents don’t have jobs,they are spending their compensation checks on daily needs rather than saving to build a home.Less than one percent of the settlers have started building permanent housing and most could be living in temporary accomodations for another five years...
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As in the days of Noah...