https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/my-wife-and-daughters-were-murdered-in-the-west-bank-but-i-dont-regret-moving-here-p69lrpkp5
in Leo Dee's words. I admit when the tragedy first happened, I was quite judgmental (did not understand why they couldn't just live in proper Israel like my family members who have far less money), but having read these interviews and talked to other Jewish friends, my viewpoint has become more nuanced.
'To answer these questions, on Thursday evening I visited Leo Dee at his home in Efrat, a large Jewish settlement in the West Bank, a mere nine miles from Jerusalem.
Dee, 51, has astonished the world with his reaction to losing his wife and two daughters. A rabbi by training, he has given a series of emotive, electric speeches at funerals and news conferences in the past fortnight. He insists that he feels “no hatred” for the perpetrators, but has also demanded that the world treat these murders with moral clarity; as an evil deed, not a two-sided political act.
Dee welcomed me into his home, a large modern hillside apartment. He insisted I take a plate of sushi from the mounds of food brought in by neighbours. The official shiva mourning period is over, but three memorial candles for Maia, 20, Rina, 15, and Lucy, 48, still sat on the ledge, their wax consumed.
Dee was steady if bright-eyed. He wanted to talk. “This is like my therapy,” he said. His three remaining children, Tali, Yehuda and Keren, wandered in and out of the kitchen, seemingly numbed. A family of seven has become four.
And so they went to Israel, to live their Zionist dream. Unsurprisingly, given his intellect, Dee ended up taking his rabbinical exams at Brovender’s, described as the “Harvard” of religious colleges. The college was located in Efrat, in the occupied West Bank.
Established in 1983, Efrat is one of the most prominent Israeli settlements in the West Bank. It is affluent — a typical four- bedroom apartment costs around £600,000 — and has a population of around 12,000. It has shopping centres and schools and synagogues and is home to a diverse community of modern orthodox Jews, many of whom are from America, Britain or South Africa.
But Efrat is also a gated town in a fiercely contested land. The town itself is quite safe but travelling around the West Bank, particularly during times of strife, can be a hazardous affair.
Lucy felt trepidation when they first arrived, but she fell in love with the place. “This is the story of an ordinary English girl, the girl next door, not some kind of religious nutter,” said Ben Shaw, her brother. “She loved Efrat because it is a kind and empathetic community. And look what’s happened to her.”
After four years in Efrat, the couple came back to London where Dee took up posts as a rabbi, first in Hendon, then in Radlett, a plush appointment in a wealthy area of Hertfordshire.
But Jewish life in London seemed like a pale imitation of the real thing. It was not the place they wanted to raise their children, who had been born in both Israel and Britain. The idea of a purer existence called them back.
In 2014 they returned to Efrat for good, raising eyebrows among some in their Radlett community. Lucy became an English teacher, Dee launched a clean tech investment fund.
Why Efrat? Why the West Bank? Primarily it was the Brovenders connection that brought them back there. But there is also a dynamism to these settlements, a sense of purpose and possibility, building a Jewish future based on an ancient creed and a belief that this land is part of both biblical and therefore modern Israel. Efrat is a town full of children and playgrounds. “It’s just a lovely environment,” said Leo. “You never worry where your children are here.”
And yet according to international law, the Jewish presence here is illegal (something Israel disputes). Nearly three million Palestinians live in the West Bank, suspended angrily in a state of democratic infancy, their lives trammelled and intruded upon by the state of Israel, which has military control over the area, also home to a settler population of some 600,000. There is terror and resistance on one side, reprisal and control on the other. It is an angry stasis.'