Who is a Typical Settler in the Land of Israel?
An Interview with Sondra Baras

Who is a typical settler in the land of Israel? When you think of an Israeli settler do you think of a professor at a university in Tel Aviv who emigrated from New York City, or a Rabbi with a long, gray beard pouring over his beloved Torah in Jerusalem? Or do you picture a young, ambitious goat herder and olive grower eking out a living on a rocky hilltop with his new bride?

There is no typical settler and Sondra Oster Baras proved that when she made aliyah, or immigrated, to the Land of Israel. Sondra is an Orthodox Jew who was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. Sondra is a graduate of Columbia University's School of Law and has practiced law in both the US and Israel. However, she is best known for her public relations work in Israel today as an advocate and spokesperson for Israeli communities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

Sondra is also the director of the international headquarters of Christian Friends of Israeli Communities (CFOIC). Founded in 1995, CFOIC is a nonprofit organization with offices in Colorado Springs, Germany, and Holland, as well as Israel. CFOIC focuses on reaching out to churches to teach them about Jewish history and the importance of Jews living in biblical Israel. Churches can be matched to a settlement with the "Adopt-A-Settlement" program, receive news letters, and even visit "their" settlement in Israel while taking in other historical and biblical sites.

While visiting the US, to share her views with eager Christian and Jewish listeners, Sondra is often accompanied by Kim Troup, the director of the North American headquarters of CFOIC. Early in 2005, I had an opportunity to meet with both these determined women and to interview Sondra Baras. The following is a fascinating insight into the pioneering spirit of a Zionist woman.

Q: Sondra, how did you first decide to move to the land of Israel and how did that come about?
A: I think that I was probably either 13 or 14 years old when I first decided I had to move to Israel. It was a time that I was very interested in the history of Zionism, and in the Holocaust, and I was doing a lot of reading about both — about the holocaust and about the establishment of the state of Israel: the early Zionist pioneers in the beginning of the 20th century. I was just so taken by it all. I had a very firm grounding in the Bible. So the fact that the land of Israel belonged to the Jewish people, and the biblical aspects of it, was second nature to me. What excited me was the way things were coming to fruition in modern days. I just felt that as an Orthodox Jew, my Jewish identity was always more important to me than any other part of my identity. I just felt like this is where I wanted to be, this is where Jewish history was happening, and I wanted to be part of it. It started back when I was 13 or 14 years old.

Q: Did you have the support of your family behind you when you first came to this decision and expressed it? What did your parents think, because you were obviously very young?
A: Yes, I was very young. I remember actually before then when my parents made their first trip to Israel in 1968 and they came back and were so enthusiastic. I remember my father said there is no better place to raise a child. So I said, "OK, let's go," and that is really before I made my own personal decision to move, but I said, "Yeah, let's go" and my father said, "Well we have to be practical and it's too hard to make a living." So when I first started talking about making aliyah, on the one hand my parents were very proud because it was a further instance of Zionist ideals and Judaism that they had educated me with, but by the same token I think that they felt that it was probably impractical. They didn't believe that I would actually carry it through because I think that they saw Israel, on the one hand, as being a wonderful place for idealism, but on the other hand, a place where it is very hard to make a living. And it was much more difficult in the late 60s and early 70s, than it is today. But I think that coming from a different generation, it was hard for them to understand this idea of just leaving it all behind and going into an adventure that seemed like the right thing to do. So they were skeptical, and I don't think until we actually got on that plane that my parents really believed that we would go through with it — but they were supportive.

Q: You became an attorney in the United States. Did you practice in the United States and when you went to Israel did you practice over there?
A: I finished law school in the United States and then worked for about a year and a half. Then I had my second child. We had two babies when I moved to Israel. When I got to Israel, just a few months after arriving, I started the retraining process and I passed the bar in Israel and actually worked in Israel — on and off while I was having babies until about 1993. Then I started representing Jewish communities doing public relations, similar to what I am doing now. Once I started doing that, there was no turning back. This is really what I was meant to be.

Q: What have you found has been the most challenging? What has been the greatest challenge you have had to overcome by moving to Israel?
A: Well I have to say that our aliyah was really very easy. I don't know why. It is something that we always wanted to do. We were really blessed; things went smoothly. The hardest part about making aliyah was the two months before we came, because it was packing up, and it was finishing things that had to be done before we left the States. I had a three-month-old baby when we came here, so there was two months before with colic and my two-year-old was very rambunctious. When trying to pack up I remember saying, "Oh G-d, this is so bad, this is so hard," but once we got to Israel everything was easy. We were where we wanted to be. We met great people from the start. We started out in an absorption center that was full of families just like us, who had left the States to make aliyah, to move to Israel. It was just fine; it was great. It was hard to be far away from family, but I am very happy to say that I have two sisters and a brother and they all eventually followed and now we all live together in one community. We are a real clan. The four of us, the four families, we all have children and everyone always says we should run a candidate for mayor.

Q: What do you find to be the most fulfilling as a faithful Jew living in the land of Israel?
A: Well I think living in Israel is really the culmination of everything you read about in the Bible. There are a number of commandments, for example, which you can only do in Israel, such as all the agriculturally related laws. The fact that when we buy fruits and vegetables, and we have to take a piece off as a tithe, so to speak. Also, allowing the land to rest every seventh year. There are also all kinds of things that we are involved in that you can only do in Israel. I live in a community with a very large number of religious Jews, my neighborhood is all religious, and the streets are closed on Shabbat. On Shabbat we go outside and everybody is doing the same thing — we walk around and we spend time with family. Our whole life, our existence, revolves around Torah, around the Bible, and this is very, very special. I don't think that you can see that anywhere else in the world.

Q: How did you first get involved supporting and encouraging other faithful Jews, especially those that want to move to Judea and Samaria?
A: It began when I moved to Israel. We signed up for the community we live in now, Karnei Shomron, and this was an aliyah project. Soon after I signed up I joined the governing board. I was first involved in the building of the town; making sure the houses were getting built. This was a project that everyone who signed up had recently made aliyah. It began with that; helping them get their houses built and encouraging them. Once we were settled in our homes, I became involved in public relations for communities on a political level. The first Intifada had just broken out and reporters were interested in interviewing the typical settler to find out how they felt, and there I was in everybody's Rolodex overnight. I would get these interview requests and give interviews in my living room. This became a common thing, for a news reporter from some television station somewhere in the world, to come and set up their camera in my living room. I don't know exactly how I found myself there, but I did. Since then I have been advocating for the Jewish people in the communities of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. I encourage anyway that I can, whether it is to encourage people to move to Israel through contacts I have in the Jewish community abroad, or encouraging people to come and see what community life is like. Most recently of course, I have been dedicating myself to communicating our messages to Christians around the world. I see in the Christians a very important audience, people whom because of their affinity for the Bible, understand why we are there. I think this is a very important audience that I feel very privileged to have linked up with.

Q: What would you say to all faithful Jews, who are thinking of moving to Israel, to encourage them to make that trip because in the US we get such a different perspective of what Israel is like from the news?
A: First of all, people who are afraid, or think that it is more dangerous to live in Israel, should not be worried. Let me recall what happened while visiting in the US. Kim and I rented a car in Florida with a remote locking device. I was trying to unlock the door by clicking the button on the remote and it did not unlock the back door. I could not figure out why. I asked Kim and she said, "You have to click it twice to also unlock the back door. If you are in a dark parking lot, you only want to click it once to unlock the driver's side door to prevent someone from getting into the back door and kidnapping you or worse." I was amazed that here the car makers go out of their way to manufacture a device that not only unlocks car doors, but will only unlock the driver's side with one click, to ensure no one gets into the back of your car. I had never heard of such thinking! For people to think that it is dangerous to live in Israel, I have to tell you, that I go into dark parking lots all the time and it never occurred to me that someone might kidnap me there. I go out on my streets at night and walk around by myself, and so do my kids, and we are not nervous and we live in that place called the "Wild West Bank." Everybody thinks that everybody is dropping dead over there. My goodness, we have more freedom and safety there, I would venture to say, than in most of America. So the truth of the matter is, that things have not changed all that much from the time my father came back from Israel in 1968 and said there is no place better to raise a child. It is still absolutely true today — there is no better place to raise a child than in Israel.

Q: Lastly Sonda, I just wanted to ask you why it is important that faithful Jews be in the Land today, and specifically, why should they be in Judea and Samaria?
A: Well Judea and Samaria are biblical Israel. I don't think you have to be in Judea and Samaria, but it is a fantastic place to live — but you have to be in Israel. The communities built in Judea and Samaria are a model of community living. If you want to be in a place where people really care for one another, and you know your neighbor, and you are out there for your neighbor through thick and thin — that is what these communities are all about. It is not just about some political statement. It is about being there for one another and building a new place in Israel. It is really the epitome of Zionism. Anybody who believes that the land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people, I would say that certainly applies to anybody who is an Orthodox Jew, or a faithful Jew — don't just believe it, get in and do it, and follow your beliefs. Put action to your beliefs. I believe that there is nothing more rewarding, than in knowing that by just carrying out your everyday life, you are fulfilling your faith. It is a tremendous sense of accomplishment. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can come close to that sense of fulfillment. So give it a try, a little adventure never hurt anyone and I guarantee you will never regret it.

So I ask again, who is a typical settler in the land of Israel? Many are Jews who have left the former Soviet Union, or who are from New York City. But that would only represent some of the vast diversity of settlers that now call Israel home. They also traveled from everywhere imaginable on this globe, including Eastern and Western Europe, North, Central and South America, Ethiopia, South Africa, and even farther south from Australia and New Zealand. There is nothing typical or common about them, with the exception that they all have a strong desire to make Israel their home.

Sondra Oster Baras is one of these not so typical settlers. She currently resides in the Neve Aliza neighborhood of Karnei Shomron. She is a wife to her husband Edward, a computer programmer, and a mother to their five children, and a Zionist. To contact Sondra, or for more information on Christian Friends of Israeli Communities, visit their Web site at: http://www.cfoic.com

[ Published: April 4, 2005 ]