A Yeshiva-Ranch in the Judean Hills
As the sun rises over the Judean Hills, Rabbi Mordechai Minster, a burly shepherd, picks up one of his sheep who was recently attacked by a dog and examines a gaping wound in her neck. “She’ll probably die soon,” he says with disappointment. Despite medicating her and treating her wound against infection, the wounded sheep wanders off on her own, unable to keep up with the flock.
Minster, who moved to Eitam Hill (Givat Eitam in Hebrew) in 2020, spent a year convincing the local government to allow him to establish a ranch on that land. As a rabbi and Zionist Jew, Rabbi Minster says his goal in settling Eitam Hill is strategic: to prevent local Arabs from expanding from Bethlehem to eastern Gush Etzion.
Early life
Born in Jerusalem in 1980, Rabbi Mordechai Minster’s parents left Israel for Brooklyn, New York, when he was just three years old for financial reasons. Minster spent his formative years in the Big Apple, attending an ultra-orthodox school that places a heavy emphasis on studying the Torah’s oral law, such as the Talmud and Mishnah.
Unlike Modern Orthodox Jews, ultra-orthodox Jews, also known as Haredim, are often opposed to or apathetic to the State of Israel as a symbol of Jewish nationalism. “My parents were not great Zionists. They were anti-Zionists,” Rabbi Minster recalls.
But when their son became a Judean farmer, they had a change of heart. “At first, they disapproved, but now they’re quite supportive,” Rabbi Minster said.
In 1999, when he turned 18, Rabbi Minster made Aliyah and returned to Israel. Upon his arrival in the Promised Land, he realized he was where he belonged. “I knew I would never leave,” he said.
Over the next several years, Minster studied at a Jewish seminary known as a Yeshiva, served in the Israel Defense Forces and studied at a rabbinical school in Mevaseret Zion, where he was ordained.
Following his ordination, Rabbi Minster worked as a rabbi for three years and then returned to the US to serve as a Jewish emissary (shaliach) in his old stomping grounds – Brooklyn. There, he promoted the ideals of Zionism to the borough’s Jewish community. But despite seeing success in New York, he returned to Israel in 2014 for what he describes as “the same reason I went in the first place – I always wanted to be in Israel.”
The Return
On returning to Israel, Minster entered the real estate and construction business. To this day, he continues to work full-time managing a construction company in Jerusalem. But before work, he gets up at the crack of dawn to tend to his sheep and chickens on Eitam Hill.
Minster initially lived with his family in Kiryat Malachi. Rabbi Minster recalls being accosted by soldiers when going to the grocery store during COVID lockdowns. Frustrated by having to explain his grocery shopping trip to the authorities, he realized that he needed to get away from there.
But it was more than that. Seeing his kids on their phones and tablets all day during the lockdowns compelled the father of four to seek a healthier lifestyle for his family – a life of connecting with nature and the land of the Bible instead of Youtube and Tik Tok. Fast forward to today, and Rabbi Minster’s children feel at home on his farm. Recently, his daughter heroically axed a dog to death that was trying to kill one of his sheep – an experience she couldn’t have imagined only a few years ago!
The Eitam Hill
It was then that he decided to move to the Eitam Hill – a barren hilltop north of the town of Efrat with a few dilapidated trailers. While homes in Efrat are among the most sought after in Israel, with real estate prices rising at one of the fastest rates in the country, Minster’s ranch just across the valley is completely off-grid. His only electric source is solar energy, giving him just a few hours of electricity in the winter. A truck delivers him water every week, which he also must ration for his livestock.
While he doesn’t have years of experience raising livestock, Rabbi Minster learned how to herd sheep from a course provided by Israel’s Agriculture Ministry, which was enough to get him started.
Building the Dream
Though building his ranch has been difficult enough, Rabbi Minster has greater aspirations.
He is building a yeshiva on the hilltop, and its future students are building it. Inspired by the example of Christian monks, the rabbi dreams of a yeshiva that resembles a monastery where the students facilitate self-sufficiency and service to the community and study the Bible in the same secluded facility. According to Rabbi Minster’s plan, the students who are building their future “monastic” yeshiva will tend to the flock of sheep, chickens, and other livestock before studying for their daily Bible classes.
He currently has just fifty sheep. “I need to have 400 to make it profitable,” he explains. The rabbi hopes his students will learn animal husbandry as well as all the commandments concerning raising livestock. These include the prohibition on neutering animals, how to slaughter according to Jewish law, and leaving a portion of each sheep for the Kohanim, the Jewish priests. One Biblical commandment that he admits to struggling with is the prohibition against eating until one’s entire livestock is fed.
Super-food for the sheep
But his vision doesn’t end there. Rabbi Minster hopes to be among the first farmers to plant mulberry trees in the region. The mulberry is a medium-sized deciduous tree that produces small, tasty, but messy fruits in summer. The rabbi calls them a “super-food” for the sheep. A grove of mulberry trees would allow him to rely less on purchasing feed which is becoming more and more expensive with inflation in Israel on the rise.
He also speaks of one day establishing a “living museum” on Eitam Hill, which will include a recreated ancient Israelite village and would also be the first of its kind in Israel.
Political hurdles
Establishing the farm was no easy task for the rabbi. Aside from its infrastructure challenges, politics among the previous inhabitants and the local government made his initiative far more complicated. The hilltop’s previous inhabitants would often engage in violent confrontations with neighboring Arabs, a headache for the police and soldiers who were repeatedly called to the scene to resolve the disputes.
The municipality feared that these confrontations could lead to a rejection of future plans for expanding Efrat to the Eitam Hill – an ambition Efrat’s mayor wasn’t ready to give up on. Following a year of determined requests, Rabbi Minster finally convinced the Efrat municipality to grant him legal access to Eitam Hill, but on one condition. He had to commit to keeping the peace with the local Arabs.
The hill has been at the center of a dispute that has made its way to the High Court of Justice. Local Arabs and Israeli NGO Peace Now have opposed the plan to allocate Eitam Hill for the expansion of Efrat.
Challenge Accepted
Keeping the peace is harder than it sounds. For a while, the rabbi slept in a tent next to his sheep so that he would be able to hear if any thieves arrive to take his flock away. “ Sheep get stolen a lot. It’s very common,” he warned.
Rabbi Minster takes his flock out to graze to protect that land from falling victim to an Arab takeover. However, unlike the hill’s previous inhabitants, he tries to avoid violent confrontations with competing shepherds from the nearby Arab villages. The rabbi sees the balancing act as a challenge he is ready to accept. He recalls a time when local Arabs threw stones at his property. One of the rocks shattered his solar panel, leaving him without electricity. Instead of calling the police, he responded by walking through the Arab village and going door-to-door, asking each village resident why the perpetrators threw stones at him. “I’m your neighbor; why would you attack me?” he recalls asking. Each person denied that the offenders came from their village. Whether or not they were telling the truth, the stone-throwing ceased following his on-foot inquiry.
“The Eitam Hill is a strategically important place. It is a hilltop between Efrat and Bethlehem. It prevents Bethlehem from expanding all the way to Tekoa,” he explains. Tekoa is an Israeli city in eastern Judea and is mentioned in the Bible in the Books of Samuel and Jeremiah as the home of Joab’s wise female agent. “My mission, besides living on a farm, is to hold the land that is constantly being encroached on by Arabs. Herding sheep is how you hold the land.”
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