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CANDLELIGHTING

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THE JEWISH VIEW

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HOLIDAYS

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JUDAISM 101

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{weblog_name} - A Visit to the Yishuv of Alon
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By Ruth M. Szykman Baltimore Hebrew Institute The western side of the Judean Hills are green.  Terraced and farmed for thousands of years.  You continue past Jerusalem and head east, the climate turns arid and you enter the Judean Desert.  Too sparse to cultivate, you now think of nomadic life.  This is where Abraham grazed his flocks.  This is where David ran away to hide from Saul. The hills meet in folds and you see sparse vegetation where the water collects and trickles into gulleys and gulleys into river beds.  The direction of flow of this rain would be east towards Jordan and the Dead Sea if there happened to be enough water. Here, halfway between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, some social visionaries decided to try a new social model.  In 1982 the ‘yishuv’ (village) of Alon (oak)… read more