Moshe Moshkowitz's light blue eyes twinkle as they peer at you. In his modest Jerusalem office in Heichal Shlomo, the 89-year-old great-grandfather talks with contagious enthusiasm about his life's work of establishing Israeli communities. A man who has gone about his work quietly, Moshkowitz has had a hand in the establishment of 10 Jewish communities across Israel since before the establishment of the state. Moshkowitz, affectionately known as Moshko, pioneered two blocs of Israeli communities: Gush Etzion and the Shafir Regional Council in the south, where he served as council head for 27 years and established the Or Etzion Yeshiva High School. Gush Etzion, in particular, holds a special place in Moshkowitz's heart. He was involved with its early establishment, having been among the founders of the Masuot Yitzhak group that settled in Gush Etzion in 1945. The group founded the religious kibbutz Masuot Yitzhak, which was destroyed in 1948 by the Arab Legion, as were the rest of the Jewish communities in Gush Etzion, during the War of Independence. Moshkowitz and the surviving defenders re-established the kibbutz in Shafir by the same name, and he is still a member to this day. Following the Six Day War, Moshkowitz became instrumental in renewing the settlement of Gush Etzion. “Although I was in Gush Etzion for only two-and-a-half years before it fell on that terrible day, my connection to the hills and rocks here runs very deep,” Moshkowitz tells In Jerusalem in an exclusive interview. “The rocks of Gush Etzion have a magnetic power for me – they are the heritage of the Jewish nation. King David herded his flocks in the hills of Bethlehem. Abraham, Isaac and many of our prophets and kings traversed the region between Hebron and Jerusalem.This land is extremely significant to the people of Israel,” he explains. “For me, the return to these hills means the return to our history, to our roots.” Moshkowitz wasted no time in reconstructing Gush Etzion once it was liberated on the third day of the Six Day War, June 7, 1967. On that same day, he began filing plans for the reconstruction of Gush Etzion, which included plans for a yeshiva. Ten days later, he presented his proposals to Knesset members. The yeshiva that was eventually established, first in the barracks abandoned by the Jordanian Legion in Kfar Etzion and later on in Alon Shvut, was named Yeshivat Har Etzion (also known as the “Gush”). Founded by Moshkowitz and Rabbi Yehuda Amital, the hesder yeshiva became one of the largest of its kind in the country, with a student body of nearly 500. Moshkowitz has served on the board of its directorate since its founding. In addition, he established Alon Shvut in 1970, Israel's first community settlement, in place of the original Masuot Yitzhak community, with Yigal Allon as its central political supporter. “Political relations were more personal back then compared to today. I had very good relations with Haim Moshe Shapira [a key politician and minister] and even communicated with David Ben-Gurion regarding Gush Etzion,” says Moshkowitz. “We dreamed, we prayed to return to Gush Etzion but we never knew for certain if we would reach this moment – and then it happened,” he recalls. But Moshkowitz's biggest success in Gush Etzion was also the best-kept secret – Efrat. “There is a Jewish adage about doing a positive thing, a mitzva, that if you do it quietly, there will be a reward – not in this world but in the world to come,” he said. “You didn't hear about Efrat anywhere in the media – we didn't publicize or make any noise about it. Efrat is the only urban community that was successfully established by citizens and not as a government initiative,” says Moshkowitz. Efrat was established in 1983 in the heart of Gush Etzion, on the road from Jerusalem to Hebron, following the vision of Moshkowitz and Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, the city's rabbi. According to the Efrat Municipality's website, the late Yitzhak Rabin gave approval for plans to build the city in the mid-1970s, which today is home to 10,000 residents. Moshkowitz became Efrat's first mayor. “It was a privilege to be part of this period in history – to be part of the team that helped build up the land and people of Israel. I saw some of the most terrible and wonderful years that were filled with great destruction and great renewal of the Jewish people during the 89 years of my lifetime,” he says. Moshkowitz was born in Czechoslovakia in 1925. He made aliya with his parents when he was 10 years old, he said, explaining that “my father believed that Hitler was a serious danger.” He later studied at Israel's first agricultural school, Mikve Yisrael. Moshkowitz says his first significant Zionist activity took place when he was sent to Cyprus in 1947 to help prepare and educate Holocaust survivors for aliya. “The religious kibbutz movement sent me... to Cyprus for what ended up being an 18-month mission where I helped Holocaust survivors organize and prepare for their next move, to the Land of Israel.” Moshkowitz is a firm believer in education as a means to unite new immigrants, and brought his experience in Cyprus back to Shafir. “Because of my work as the head of the Shafir Regional Council, I developed close relations with officials in the Israeli government to help realize certain educational goals in our region,” he said. One of those goals was the outlining of services that a regional council should provide, which included not only municipal services but also a good education system during the early years of the Jewish state. “Education was the key to uniting all the different Jewish immigrants – from Morocco, Poland, Yemen, Tunisia, Hungary and Iran, and that was what we worked to do when I was council head – to provide the proper educational institutions for the children of these new immigrants,” explains Moshkowitz. “I didn't become a millionaire in my lifetime, I am a simple kibbutznik who served his nation. I am proud of what I and those of my generation were able to do together for this country. We were the Messiah's donkey, paving the path for the next chapter in Jewish history in the Land of Israel,” he Moshkowitz. Moshkowitz's Jerusalem office bears no documentation of his accomplishments – no recognition certificates or awards or even family photos. There are two pictures of men that he admires (Haim Moshe Shapira and Rabbi Yehuda Amital), a photo of Efrat, and a prayer written by Rabbi Nahman of Breslov. The father of three is optimistic about the future of the Jewish state. “For 2,000 years we waited to come back to our own homeland. There was never a Jewish state in that time like our own today, which has shown such strength – our own army, educational institutions, Torah scholars, universities, our living Hebrew language – these are all miracles,” he believes. Moshkowitz's 15 grandchildren and 38 great-grandchildren keep the proud Zionist busy. “Sometimes I give talks to the schools of my great-grandchildren, most recently to a second-grade class,” he says with a smile. “The kids looked at me and asked if I lived during the times of the Second Temple. I'm not that old!” Pointing to the last line of the Rabbi Nahman prayer that hangs in his office, which reads, “God who is peace, bless us with peace!” Moshkowitz explains that it contains a message that has guided him throughout life – and one that he imparts to his great-grandchildren today. “The most important thing we can do today is to work toward peace,” he says. “Peace within ourselves and with our families, peace between each other and then with our surroundings.”
