Elon Moreh

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The two older neighbourhoods, looking south

Elon Moreh (Hebrew: אלון מורה‎), is an Israeli settlement located in the Samarian Hills of the West Bank northeast of Shechem/Nablus on the slopes of Mount Kabir ridge. Elon Moreh receives municipal services from the Shomron Regional Council and the closest neighboring settlements are Itamar, Har Bracha and Yitzhar. The name of the village comes from a passage in the Torah relating to the first location where Abraham settled after crossing the Jordan River,

And Avram passed through the land until the place of Shechem, until ELON MOREH, and the Cananite was then in the land. And God was revealed to Avram, and said: to your descendants I will give this land, and he built an altar there to God who was revealed to him. Genesis 12: 6-7.

Ark in Rahamei Tirtzah synoagogue

The modern history of Elon Moreh started in the mid-1970s when a group led by Rabbi Menachem Felix and Benny Katzover organized a pioneering group of dozens of families called Garin Elon Moreh in order to found a settlement in the Shechem area. Eight times, the group tried to choose a plot of land to settle but the Israeli government prevented these attempts. In 1975, after a controversial attempt to settle the area of Sebastia, the group was finally allowed to stay in the area by taking up residence on an army base called Kadum eleven kilometres west of Shechem, the families living in an abandoned prison. In 1979, the government allowed them to take up residence south of Shechem but a court order stopped the plan, ruling that that land belonged to local Arabs. The site was dismantled and the group moved to the current location in 1980. The army base called Kadum would later become the village of Kedumim, and the Arab lands of the last attempt were purchased and the village of Itamar was founded at that location.

The present location of Elon Moreh was first settled on the Jewish holiday of Tu B'shvat, February 1980. It was the first settlement to be established in Samaria after the Six-Day War. Over 1200 residents now live in the village.

The village's primary school 'Nahalat Tzvi' is named after Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook who had been the leader of Gush Emunim. Elon Moreh also has a hesder yeshiva, called Birkat Yosef, with a couple of hundred students. The rosh yeshiva of the yeshiva is Rabbi Eliyakim Lavnon who is also the chief rabbi of Elon Moreh.

On March 28, 2002, a Palestinian terrorist infiltrated the village, burst into the home of the Gavish family and opened fire. The lone terrorist managed to kill four residents before being killed himself. [1]