From Kansas City to Kiryat Arba

Judy (Simon) Kamm grew up in greater Kansas City, but today she lives near the ancient city of Hebron in the disputed territory known to most as the West Bank, but to many Jews as Judaea and Samaria.

Kamm lives in the Jewish suburb (or settlement, as some call it) known as Kiryat Arba with her Israeli husband, Menashe. Born in Kansas City, Mo., to Kehilath Israel Synagogue members, the late Alfred and Elfie Simon, Judy grew up in Kansas City and attended Southwest High School.

For her junior year, she went to the Hebrew Academy in Chicago, then on to the Chicago Teachers’ College. From there, in 1962, she went on hachshara (preparation) for a year to Kibbutz Yavne, but stayed another year to go to Machon Gold, a teachers’ training institute. While there, through mutual friends, she met Menashe Kamm. They married in 1964.

“It was so hard to live here. After we had our first child, I coerced Menashe into leaving, and we went to Kansas City in 1966.”

While living in Kansas, they both taught at Congregation Ohev Sholom, four more children were born, and they remained for seven years.

About that time, Rabbi Moshe Levinger, a leader of the post-’67 Jewish settler movement, who was a good friend of Menashe’s, began advertising for families to come join him in Hebron.

“He said we had to come to live in Kiryat Arba, so we came in 1973,” said Judy.

Menashe was a high school teacher and historian, and she was a housewife. Eventually, they built a house and planted 13 fruit trees.

Today, they are the parents of 10 children, ranging in age from 42 to 22, around 35 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.

Like everyone else
“My life is very much like everyone else’s,” Judy Kamm says, “being a housewife; home with the kids. All the girls but one went to sherut l’eumi (national service in lieu of the armed forces); one daughter went to the army. The boys went to the army, and one was a hero in the Lebanon War.”

Five out of the six girls are nurses, two are midwives. One of the girls was injured by a thrown bayonet when she was a 2-year-old. Today she’s a nurse in intensive care at Hadassah Medical Organization in Ein Kerem. One son is a lawyer, one is an engineer, one is in law school and one is learning electronics.

How does she feel having lived these 36 years surrounded by hostile Arabs? “When we lived here in 1973, there were 70,000 Arabs; today there are 400,000,” says Judy. “In 1973, we counted families; today there are thousands of Jews. I think Israel is surrounded by hostile Arabs. Every community is surrounded by hostile Arabs —Tel Aviv, Jerusalem. We’re on an island in a sea of hostility, but I feel comfortable. This is my home. I came here when I was 17; the situation is temporary. We will survive.”

Judy’s parents came to live in Kiryat Arba in 1989, but then her mother returned to the United States and passed away in 2002. Her father is buried in Hebron.

Last month, two Kiryat Arba women were stabbed at the local gas station; inspectors have been posting notices on partially finished buildings that the construction must be frozen; there are groups of soldiers stationed throughout the section of Hebron in which Jews are allowed to live and move about.

How does Judy feel about this situation?

She says that, in general, people are very optimistic, especially in Judea and Samaria (i.e., the West Bank).

“For 35 years, we’re hearing there will be sanctions, and we have to leave. The building freeze is ridiculous. Arabs are building without permission. Israel is growing and prospering. The goyim are trying to weaken us and take our land, but if they take the land, we’ll only be a people.”

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