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The Amanah Settlement Organization, helping to keep Israel's Biblical heartland Jewish, held a fair in a Teaneck synagogue recently. No fewer than 12 homes were sold at the one-day event, mostly in Karnei Shomron and Kiryat Arba. In addition, NY State Assemblyman Dov Hikind also announced that he plans to buy.
The houses are promoted as a way of "keeping the Zionist dream alive" and "leaving your thumbprint on the destiny of Israel."
Another fair held in a Queens synagogue the same day yielded two more sales - one in Kokhav HaShachar and another in Kiryat Arba. Other potential purchasers have shown interest, and are in contact with the organizers. More such fairs are planned for Chicago and elsewhere in the U.S.
Though Amanah encourages the purchasers to move to Israel and live in the homes, in most if not all cases, the homes will be rented out to Israeli families for a period of five years. Amanah will oversee the arrangements.
Hikind, an active and outspoken state legislator, has often shown his support for Israel in general and the residents Judea, Samaria and Gaza in particular. Before the Disengagement/expulsion from Gaza in 2005, he organized and led two solidarity missions to Gaza, explaining, "It's my obligation to support the Jews of Gaza. Israel is extremely important to me, as it should be for every Jew. No one would be concerned if a Puerto Rican congressman was involved in humanitarian matters in Puerto Rico, or if an African-American leader was concerned about Africa."
An assemblyman from Brooklyn for 25 years, Hikind has been involved in causes such as reverse discrimination, Syrian and Soviet Jewry, fighting Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic literature, subway safety, US Coast Guard policies regarding wearing yarmulkes, and more.
Most recently, just last month, Hikind called for the cancellation of the anti-Israel "Israeli Apartheid Week" forums hosted by university student organizations. "It is outrageous," Hikind wrote to university presidents, "that student clubs have aligned themselves with ISM [International Solidarity Movement] which cooperates with terror groups... It is unconscionable to use university funding – and a university site – to allow misinformation of this ilk to be disseminated while the United States is fighting terrorism. This is not an issue of hobbling freedom of speech, but rather one of not permitting a Trojan horse of pro-terrorism into our public universities, thus paving the way for recruitment of students into dangerous, pro-terrorist organizations."
Ironically, an Israeli-Arab Knesset Member was a keynote speaker at the anti-Israel events in several cities. His topic: "Debunking the Myth of Israeli Democracy."