Thursday, July 27, 2006

pikiin is rocking

I just got a call from a lady in Pikiin who is trying to find a place to stay with her 6 children. Apparantly, the katyushas have been falling all around her house. One of them was so close that her son screamed shema yisrael and prepared to meet his creator. While Pikiin has not been in the news at all, that is because it is a small village and it gets included when they say a bunch hit open fields.

I amy have a place for them, I am going to call a lady who volunteered an empty apartment as soon as it is morning there.

Pikiin has a very rich jewish history, there has been a continuous Jewish presence there since the time of the second bais hamikdash (temple). Recently one of my co-workers fathers passed away and she told me that he was from the pikiin families. Recently, there has been only one Jewish lady living there and there has been a large effort to try and rebuild the community. A number of families from our village have bought houses and moved in. The population of the city is mostly Druze, and they are very friendly to the Jewish people.

A local legend is that the cave that R. Shimon Bar Yochai lived in when he was hiding from the romans is in Pikiin and people go there and light candles on a regular basis.

2 comments:

tafka PP said...

I thought it was Arab Christian? A good friend of mine is from there...

rockofgalilee said...

The sign when you enter the city says that it is 90% Druze, 10 % Arab christian and one Jewish family or something along those lines.