Avri Ran

Avraham "Avri" Ran, known as the father of the “Hilltop Youth” movement, was born in 1955 in Nir Hen. He lives on the West Bank, is a noted entrepreneur and a guide for the radical settler movement.

Life

In the period of his service with the Israeli army (the IDF), he served in an elite operations unit, the Sayeret Matkal. He and his wife Sharona – who had immigrated to Israel from the United States when she was four years old – both grew up in secular Jewish homes. They later became strictly religious. The couple has ten children.

In 1993, Ran moved with his family to the Jewish community of Itamar, not far from Shechem. In 1997, he ventured beyond the community's borders and pitched his tent on an open, windswept hill more than four kilometers east of Itamar. In 1998, his wife Sharona and the children joined him and they formally named their new settlement Giv'ot Olam (Hills of Eternity).

At that time, some claimed he had trespassed both on land that Arabs from a village called Yanun claimed as their own and on Israeli state lands, and attacked any Arab who ventured on the property.[1] The sprawling farm complex they built produces and markets organic eggs, cheese and other locally grown foodstuffs sold under the logo “Giv'ot Olam”.

In March 1995, Ran was arrested and charged with assaulting an Arab farmer who plowed a tractor onto land Ran claimed he owned. He was ordered to be put in house arrest far from his home but soon disappeared, only later to be captured and jailed for five months until the case was closed without conviction. Months earlier, he had been convicted of attacking an Israeli-Arab and was sentenced to a six-month suspended sentence.[2] In January 2006, the judge – ruling that she could not establish Ran's claim to the land – instead acquitted him and two other defendants, saying that the Arab claimant's testimony was unreliable.[3]

Business interests

Ran has developed a flourishing organic agricultural business in organic farming that sells produce throughout Israel worth tens of millions of shekels. The quality of his natively grown and packaged foodstuffs are legendary. In 2013, some residents of the nearby town of Itamar, where Ran is recognized for his tireless work to settle the Land of Israel with Jewish Israeli citizens and revitalize the original agriculture of the local land, known for its fertility from accounts in the Bible, claimed he had taken over land, an 866 meter high hill, Mitzpeh Shloshet Hayamim, which they asserted belongs to Itamar. They stated that he had bulldozed it to expand the infrastructure of his own enterprise. The location of the hill in question is also under dispute. Some claim that it lies outside the official jurisdiction of the regional governing authority, the Samaria Regional Council.[1]

Criminal Convictions

Notable remarks

'The Arabs are not afraid of me. They revere me. They are wary of me, yes. Have I set out regulations? Certainly. There is not one Arab in the Nablus region who dares to work contrary to my rules. Every Arab knows this. What does this say? This says that there is a Jew in town, a son of Abraham our father-that the ancient Jews have returned a little to the Land of Israel. And a Jew must be respected..'[4]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Chaim Levinson, Israeli 'hilltop youth' accuse their former hero of stealing settlers' land, at Haaretz, 31 January 2013.
  2. ↑ "Supreme Court: Defendant Motivated by "Ideological Fanaticism"". Arutz 7. 2005-04-04. Retrieved 2011-03-30.
  3. ↑ Zvi Bar'el (2006-01-17). "Hilltop youth leader Avri Ran acquitted". Haaretz. Retrieved 2011-03-30.
  4. ↑ Lela Gilbert , Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner, Encounter Books 2013 p.91.

External links