In accordance with the upcoming Jubilee year, after 40 years the Dimona IDF soldiers of the K.O.Y are seeking land from the Israeli government.  As reported in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, a group of Black Hebrews from K.O.Y enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces with the intention of establishing a farming community in the southern Negev.  We first reported about them last year when the Lebanon war was going on and the first Israelites from the Dimona community had began to enlist in the IDF.  Also since the first member of the Israelite Community, Uriahu Butler, voluntarily enlisted in the IDF was inducted into the army July 29, 2004.  By March 2005, some 70 boys and girls from the community also enlisted.

Yisraelites have never been afraid to fight for what is right and sacrifice their lives for the greater good.  Case in point in January 2002 Aharon Ben-Ellis son of Prince Elkanan, from the K.O.Y in Dimona was shot protecting Jews when a Palestinian gunman charged into a Bat Mitzvah ceremony.  He was the first hero of this new generation of our people to be killed in a terrorist attack in Israel.   The event got worldwide attention and was published in the Chicago Sun-Times and several Israeli Newspapers.  He was the inspiration to the youth of the K.O.Y that felt it was their duty to stand up and do what was necessary to carry our community into the new millennium.   The mayor of Dimona, Gabi Laloush, said “I would let them become full Israeli citizens, draft them into the army, everything.”  After a long battle, the state finally issued the community’s 2,000 members Israeli identity cards as permanent residents in 2003 Yet that was just the beginning for these young men and women.  Some now have in mind to use Israeli military options to setup their own community outside of Ben Ammi’s control. The state has agreed to allocate land for the new community and help it get started, and the United Kibbutz Movement has given the group members a seminar to prepare them for their IDF service.  In additions to this the Israeli government is building for the K.O.Y people that have just become citizens’ homes to live in somewhere in Dimona.  But is Ben Ammi trying to keep complete control?  We at Yisrael Today heard of this development and decided to take a closer look. 

The Hebrews Israelites of the community, whose full name is the African Hebrew Israelite Nation of Jerusalem, first arrived from the United States in 1969 and settled mostly in Israeli cities of Arad, Dimona, and Mizpe Rimmon.  After a fire occurred in the K.O.Y compound of Dimona; in a Jerusalem Post article in July 5, 2002, the mayor of Dimona, Gabi Laloush, said “he’s going to serve eviction papers on the Black Hebrews (official name: African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem).”  The article referred to the block long compound as a fire hazard and moved to evict the K.O.Y community from out of the project styled structures.  The article continued by providing a descriptive view of the situation in the camp by stating: “Their bungalow compound may be the most overcrowded place in Israel.” And Ben Ammi himself stated “I feel that within a month, there is a good probability that we will have to abandon [the bungalows] and live in tents and mobile homes in the southern Negev.”

After hearing this report Howshua Amariel the director of Yisraelite Organization of Unity & Eri Abdiel of the Tabernacle Congregation of Prayer Yeshiva in lsrael, at that time (on the 22nd of September 2002), negotiated a Mekkadah land deal to establish a community for the Israelites willing to help built homes for themselves & the community. Yisraelite Today videos also available for purchase. The Mekkada document shown (click here). After hearing about the situation of the K.O.Y they informed them of the option for their community to obtain land, without charge, but they declined the offer.  So Mr. Amariel said “it was clear that when we offered the people a chance to receive their own land Ben Ammi and the leadership of the K.O.Y held them back.”

One article stated at an image of some 2,000 poor American blacks, with children forced to live like nomads in the sweltering desert was not something Israel want shown on CNN.  Thus, after the community received status in 2003 from the Israeli government they opted to build new homes for them all in an area in Dimona.  Each family that was made citizens of Israel would receive their own homes (in their own names).  According to recent reports from within the community there are conflicts between the people, Ben Ammi because he wishes to have all of the property signed over in his name.  Apparently the people of the K.O.Y community in Israel disagree because they feel as if this will prevent the independence and growth of the people outward. 

So young men and women have now used their new status as citizens to take advantage of army projects which offer land settlements for those who serve.  This was “the first time that a group made up of Black Hebrews has undertaken a Nahal project to build a new collective community close to the border.  The Nahal Brigade combines military service with agricultural or community work”, stated the Haaretz article.

The group’s original 10 men joined the Nahal brigade, while eight women were called up in mid—September of 2007.  After the men completed 18 months of combat training, the group would start setting up the new community.  The members planned to make a living from organic farming.  And though this may be the first official land that they will control and develop a kibbutz, it isn’t the only land they’ve farmed.  The community has been leased land around Dimona for organic farming since December 1993 before the Sabbath year. 

Yoel Marshak, head of the UKM’s assignments’ division, which is assisting the group, told Haaretz that three sites are being considered for the community, which is called a “kibbutz” or village.   Marshak said UKM members will help any community that adopts the kibbutz ideology.  The sites are in the area of the Halutza and Nitzana dunes.  Marshak said he believed the community will be set up some five kilometers east of Nitzana, on the site of the former Nahal-Shelah outpost.

However, some have also expressed interest in setting up settlements around the archaeological site of Tel Arad (House of Yahweh).  Howshua Amariel commended the group of Israelite brothers for serving and taking the opportunity to go out to possess the land on their own.  Nevertheless, the director of the Israel Y.O.U branch stressed his disappointment that most of the people have been offered opportunities to get land, yet instead of obtaining the good land around the House of Yahweh, which is up for grabs; they’ve chosen to accept barren land near a nuclear plant.  The Tabernacle Congregation of Prayer has long advocated that the Dimona community seek to obtain the land and establish a kibbutz in that area.  Especially, after 2005 when others during the Disengagement Plan sought to setup a community there for refugee Palestinians from the West Bank.  Brother Rishon, a person of the T.C.P Yeshiva, added to that by saying “If God brought them in around the house of Yahweh, then that is the area that the group should try to obtain.”    

And this thought hasn’t been ignored by some; But Prince Keshikiyahu Ben Israel the first of our people to enter the land and has in recent years been leading tours of Israelites to the House of Yahweh and more people from the K.O.Y have begun to be motivated to get a hold on the area.  The Yisrael Today News Team sat down with three Brothers from the Dimona community who believed that it was time to get a hold on the House of Yahweh.  In July of 2007 some from the K.O.Y even started to temporarily work for the Nature and Park Authority to assist in the reconstruction of the ancient site.   Yet none of them have attempted or been able to obtain the area not since 2002 when the T.C.P Yeshiva members controlled the site. 

In any case, whatever location the people choose to establish themselves upon; it seems that Ben Ammi is determined to keep control in his hands, but some stress that growth won’t be an easy thing to stop anymore.  “After being led around in the wilderness for 40 years, as the prophecy of Ezekiel 20:33-38 said, we have repeated again what happened before to Israel in the time of Moses.  So now in this Jubilee year it is time to come from the wilderness to possess the land.”

Back