NITZAN, Israel – “Gush Katif no longer belongs only to those of us who lived there. It has become part of the legacy of the entire Jewish world,” Shifra Shomron, the 21-year-old author of Grains of Sand: The Fall of Neve Dekalim, wrote in her preface.

Grains of Sand is a work of fiction based on Shomron’s experiences as a young girl from the time of the second intifada in 2001 until almost a year after Israel’s Disengagement from Gaza, when she was among the approximately 8,000 Jewish residents evacuated from their homes in the summer of 2005.

Her detailed reminiscences from a young girl’s perspective, including recorded facts and dates, make the novel an important work for posterity. For instance, in describing events immediately preceding the evacuation, she acutely observed: “Neve Dekalim wasn’t to see its gates flooded with people sailing through to stop Disengagement. The 15,000 people never got past K’far Maimon. The police set up a fence around K’far Maimon and threatened to use live fire on anyone trying to break out from K’far Maimon towards Gush Katif. The police stopped buses from driving down south to K’far Maimon by confiscating the bus drivers’ licenses.…

“There had been a group who wanted to storm through the fence and reach Gush Katif, but the rabbis and the other people in charge there prevented them from doing so.

“And yet the rabbis and settler leaders tried to brand K’far Maimon as a success! All except for one Knesset member who was disgusted by the K’far Maimon episode….”

Although not a great work from a literary perspective (the author was a teenager), the novel succeeds very well in relating the trauma and pain inflicted upon hard-working residents of vibrant agricultural communities that contributed enormously to Israel. Shomron possesses a brilliant and remarkably mature understanding of Jewish history and politics, as demonstrated in the novel as well as during a recent conversation at her temporary home in Nitzan, a 90-square-metre sheet-metal caravilla just north of Ashkelon, where her family, including seven children and three dogs, lives among others that were expelled from their comfortable homes.

During the year preceding the disengagement, slogans and songs affirmed many of the residents’ convictions that Gush Katif would remain intact. Along with that faith was an innermost fear they would indeed be forced to abandon their beloved towns, as expressed in the book.

“At school, most of our classes were taken up discussing it because it was too difficult for many families to talk about it,” explained the American-born Shomron, who made aliyah with her family as a small child. “No matter what lesson was being taught, disengagement always came up.

“Some families split up,” she added. “Divorce isn’t the result of one event, but there’s no question the disengagement was very stressful. Even afterwards, the crowded, confined conditions, troubled teenagers, [unemployed] men around 24/7.”

The novel indicates anger on the part of the youth that resented so many strangers coming to help in the months preceding the disengagement.

“We had asked the people to come,” the author acknowledged. “Full-page advertisements were taken out in newspapers asking people to come, believing that the more people in Gush Katif, the harder it would be to dismantle it. Many families opened up their homes to them.

“I appreciated their efforts but I resented the fact that my community was turned into a demonstration. It was more a resentment of the situation itself. Many of them were very dedicated and they left behind their jobs and I salute them. But no one likes tourists taking over their hometown, no matter how necessary.

“I wrote the book at 18,” she added. “Most teenagers tend to be outspoken. Maybe today, at 21, I wouldn’t have written that, because it doesn’t represent the adult impression.”

A number of politicians have stated in retrospect that the disengagement was a mistake, she said. “I think the people of Gush Katif had been defamed in the Israeli media and in the years leading up to the disengagement. Settlers have a bad name in this country, whether their communities are slated for destruction or not. Although the settlers of Gush Katif had been encouraged by the government to build it, that doesn’t take away from the fact that we were settlers and we had a horn and a tail attached to us. When people went door to door [in an attempt to sway public opinion before the disengagement], many people were shocked at how nice and friendly the Gush Katif people were and how easily they could relate to them. We weren’t bearded fanatics.”

Shomron regrets that beforehand, “we tended to close ourselves in our community. After some soul searching, we began to realize the importance of connection to others, not to be isolated.”

Her faith in the destiny of the Jewish people and the future of Israel is unwavering.

“I believe its establishment was a huge miracle and a sanctification of God’s name,” she said. “In every decade we’re forced to fight a war for our existence and our victories have been nothing short of a miracle.

“We’ve developed the country magnificently over 60 years. We have a lot to contribute to the world. But you also get the feeling that people are searching for their identity. It’s difficult today to be a secular Zionist. It’s a confused generation.

“I think the solution has to come from the religious Zionist youth,” she declared. “They’re committed…. They have a Jewish Zionist identity.”