Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

Israel’s celebrated songstress and unofficial poet laureate, who authored the classic melody “Jerusalem of Gold,” the late Naomi Shemer, subsequently wrote a far more melancholy tune called “The Honey and the Thorn.” It describes the heartbreak of the Jewish settlers in the Israeli town of Yamit, on the Egyptian border, who (in 1982) were forcibly dragged from their homes by the Israel Defense Force, as part of the “land for peace” deal that brought about the formal recognition of the Jewish state by Anwar Sadat’s Egypt back in 1979. The homes themselves were then bulldozed...