Kitat Kone’enut
By Joshua Andrews
Photos Kitat Konenut
Kitat Konenut is a new, New York based, Religious-Zionist organization of committed, young Jews who are devoted to defending their Jewish communities from antisemitic and terrorist attacks. The motto of the group is “Al ta’amod al dam re’echa” – Do not stand idly by while your brother’s blood is being spilled. Kitat Konenut in Hebrew means “readiness team”. That describes the nature of the group as all members are expected to be ready to be called up in case of an emergency at all times. Many of Kitat Konenut’s members are veterans of IDF combat units.
Kitat Konenut holds training camps in the summers where they teach things like Krav maga, Kung fu, Edged weapons training, Rifle training, Pistol training, Scoped Rifle and long range shooting. They also work on Endureance marches, Overnight wilderness hikes, Masa alunkot, 10-25 Kilometers, Histaarut, prat, kita and chulia, Identification of suspicious objects and how to deal with them. Kitat Konenut has held two successful training camps so far and this summer they plan to hold their third one and largest to date, since it’s membership has increased and activities have expanded. They claim that they now have an active Kita in Los Angeles and that other cities are in the planning stages.
This year’s training camp will include several new Mefakdim (commanders) who are all veterans of IDF combat units as well as several mid-level as well as higher ranked officers to provide lessons. The training this year will include urban warfare techniques, riot control, knife fighting, pepper spray, batons and other non lethal weapons use, fighting from a vehicle, counter terror techniques, identifying and dismantling IED’s, as well as intelligence techniques.
There will be 2 Shabbatons which will include shiurim from Rav Chayim Shimon Wharman and other visiting rabbis. There will also be a lecture by an intelligence analyst working with the FBI and NSA to track and monitor Muslim terrorist groups in the United States. There will be discussions on relevant topics such as Zionism, Yishuv Eretz Yisrael, antisemitism, terrorist threats to America, assimilation, intermarriage, kiruv, the second amendment and many other topics.
Any Jew, male or female who is over 18 years old, physically fit and mentally sound, with no criminal record is elligible. Most campers will be between ages 18 and 26, but Jews of all ages are welcome to join. This will be Kitat Konenut ‘s second coed year. Sleeping quarters will be separate but all training will be coed. As the camp is religious, but Zionist in nature, campers are expected to behave in a manner of tzniut.
The cost of camp will be $400 per person. This will include all food, accommodation, gear and ammunition. To register please contact Zerach, the Mefaked Kita at zerach@kitatkonenutnewyork.org.
For more information log on to our website at www.kitatkonenutnewyork.org
*Note. Mefakdim will be periodically filming the training sessions through out camp. This is for future reference, community relations, and advertising of the activities of the Kita as well as to compare before and after shots of the training to see how campers have improved their fighting skills. If you for any reason do not want us to use your photos for our public relations please let us know and we will digitally blot out your face from all photos before uploading them on our website, publishing them in a brochure or sending them to anyone. If for any reason you categorically refuse to have your picture taken at camp despite our respecting your wish to not advertise your picture online then please do not bother coming to camp. This has caused a disturbance in the past and we do not wish to waste our time arguing with people over which pictures of the training to take or not take.
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I met Klee and Benny in the winter of 2005 in downtown Toronto not too long after they released their first CD “Thugz of War” and their first video, and because I had also served as a lone soldier in the IDF, we immediately had a instant connection and have remained friends since.
Benny: I was born in Israel and lived in Jerusalem ’til like 5 years old, thats when we moved to Boston and we lived there for a while ’til I was a teenager basically. My parents divorced when i was young and my family life was fucked up ‘cuz my parents couldn’t get along. I was a drifter and pretty much a loner type for a while and I used to be into capoeira and martial arts and shit, but when I finished high school I decided to join the IDF and become a warrior.
Q: What do you guys have to say about the whole volunteering for the army choice now years later, would you have changed anything and do you have any advice to tell anyone else considering volunteering for the IDF? 
Q: Who were your musical influences then and are they the same now?
Q: Tell me about how Cold Blooded the LP came about? Was it easy? Who did the production? 
Q: What was the tour like?
Yoram Amir I met by accident. I heard about him from friends who said I just had to go see his work. I came to his studio and he showed me his pieces, accompanied by explanations on his world view – I was fascinated. About two weeks later, he invited to me to his exhibition opening at ?Rosa? (MW: tr. – a local bar in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Nachlaot). Yoram spun music that night at the bar – his photographs on the wall, some with explanatory texts, All the works have a common denominator, Amir photographs what bothers him in his so dearly beloved Jerusalem, what irritates his eye ‘both esthetically and philosophically. After that evening I knew that I wanted to hear what this guy has to say. I arranged to meet him in Nachlaot for an interview. I got to a little hole in the wall of a space on Nissim Bechar St. that he rented not long ago.
Before we sit, Amir gives me three darts and asks me to aim at the target. The target was a circular-shaped photo of his from a building on Agrippas St. The bottom of the building is old, with arch-shaped windows. The upper part, new, with square windows. ” Try to aim to the upper half of the building? he requests, “It’s what represents esthetic stupidity for me. Take for example the giant wall murals in the shuk (market), on Gerard Behar (Community Center on Bezalel St.) and beside the Clal building. The commonality between all these murals is the illusion. The drawing in the Shuk doesn’t represent our market at all. On Gerard Behar is drawn ?world peace? which is something that we are very far from, and beside the Clal building there are the drawings of the old-time photographs. What they are saying in that drawing is that it?s OK to destroy the beautiful and the real but let’s soften it by way of drawing the old. Aside from that, if you ask me, those murals are opening the way for giant commercial billboards. Those wall murals fit perfectly with the general approach – that the municipality must exploit all the public space – and this is against the esthetics of Jerusalem. The rape of the city, the digs, the accelerated building. It?s the way of the Western world. The establishment has big plans for Jerusalem. Thirty or forty towers that will change us to a kind of little Manhattan beside the Old City surrounded by giant chains of brand names, fast food, America. This mixed building is destroying creativity. That little place that I rented now is part of my protest. I am aiming to create alternative galleries. A kind of open house, something that can protect us from this whole process of Americanization.?
Urban Warfare
What is this base in your opinion?
Hey Everyone! First of all I apologize to all of you who are sending me emails or requests and not getting an answer. I have been up north for two weeks and my access to internet is very limited. I assure you that you will all get nice long answers when this blows over. I am currently in reserve duty with the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) spokesperson unit. I am back in uniform again and stationed up north (yes – where all the bombings are..yikes). In my position I am working with the foreign press who want to interview soldiers and commanders. Its very very interesting, I get to meet journalists from all over the world, even got to share a bomb shelter with CNN’s Anderson Cooper the other day…
There is not much you can do if you are out of the shelter and the rockets are launched, just look towards the sky to see where they are headed, and to silently pray that god/luck/fate will let you off the hook this time. Today for instance I was crossing the street in Metula when the siren came off. I dont know the area so I just went into the nearest building and hid behind a wall. In my pocket I happened to have a “Thhilim” prayer book that some “Habad” people gave out to all the soldiers yesterday, so I took it out and held it in my hand. You never know… I am working with a team of great reserve soldiers, most of them older and more experienced than me. In our group of spokespeople you can find communications professor, a former advisor to the British parliament, a CEO of a big investment company and even a LA based screenwriter. We all came together to try to improve Israels public image, a tough and rarely rewarding job as you can imagine. So here we are, all looking awkward in our uniforms, on a diet consisting mainly of grilled cheese sandwiches, briefing journalists and trying to look cool when we hear the occasional sound of a katyusha falling, or “a fall” for short. I am getting quite good at telling the difference between the sound of a katyusha and the sound of IDF fire. It’s amazing how fast you can adjust to the new situation. Although some of the pictures from Lebanon even G-d himself couldn’t explain, we still have occasional successes and days when we go to sleep knowing we’ve done something good. The other day we sat for a few hours with the new NY times correspondent to the area and had the opportunity to comfortably and elaborately explain our take on the conflict to the new guy on the block.
Hey everyone, I’m almost done with my reserve duty and soon it will be back to reality for me. The best word to describe the situation here the past few weeks is: surreal. On the beautiful hills of the Galilee, tanks are scattered randomly and blend in with the view in an eerie way. On each hillside you can spot a group of soldiers, their green uniform making them appear a natural part of the view. The few residents of the nearby villages that havent fled the area bake the soldiers cakes, offer to charge their cell-phone batteries, and even drive them sometimes to their homes so they can take a decent shower. I know for many people in the world a soldier is a meaningless word, something that is not quite human. In Israel, we are all soldiers and we all have brothers, sisters, sons and daughters in the army. There is rarely any sympathy around the world upon hearing of a soldiers death. Im sure for many people Hezbollah fighters and Israeli soldiers are more or less the same thing armed individuals using violence. But while one army is aimed for the destruction of a state and considers murder of innocent civilians a victory, the other is made out of students, lawyers, farmers, actors and what not, who are fighting for one sole purpose protecting the people of Israel from Hezbollahs deadly attacks. Most of you have probably already heard this phrase: If the radical Islamists laid down their weapons there will be peace, If Israel laid down its weapons it would not survive. The whole area is filled with 2 very different and equally interesting species:Soldiers and Journalists. Anyone else in his right mind would have already run away from the constant katyusha bombings that blindly target anyone in their way. Metula, for instance, a beautiful storybook town just on the Lebanese border, has become quite a strange sight. The green views and European style streets are fairly empty, and most of the residents have packed their things in a hurry and moved to a safer place. Driving through Metula at night is an amazing experience that is fascinating to anyone interested in media affairs – All is dark except for the lights of camera crews on every block like fireflies, and all is silent except for the sound of many correspondents reporting in different languages on the hills.
Streets where people usually live their normal daily lives have become a hotspot for the media. The quiet, sleepy town of Metula has become a little like a local Washington DC. The other day I was sitting in the lobby of a cozy boutique hotel ironically named House of Peace, enjoying the free coffee and internet access that the owner happily provides to the soldiers in the area. I sat on a leather couch for about an hour in the fancy lobby, watching news on a big screen TV and peeking over my shoulder at the famous NBC correspondent typing away on his computer. Only when the sirens came off every 20 minutes was I reminded that Im not in the plaza. As long as NBC isnt running to the shelter, neither will I. Have I already said surreal?? Speaking of journalists, someone has to take care of all these reporters and fulfill their needs and thats where the IDF spokesperson comes in. We get dozens of requests a day to interview soldiers, film tanks and of course every journalists wet dream be embedded with the troops in Lebanon. Every few nights we embed some lucky and brave reporter with the IDF combat soldiers going into battle. Basically, while Israeli soldiers are entering Lebanon with a heavy heart and wouldnt be there if their people werent under attack, journalists from all over the world are standing in line, kicking and screaming for us to get them in. Usually they have already been in places like Iraq and Kosovo, and Lebanon is another notch on the belt for them. The results for us have been very good. When someone spends time with the troops, gets to know the soldiers, see the dangers they face and the cruel enemy they are dealing with he can really learn to sympathize and understand the Israeli point of view. He can see firsthand how careful these young men and women of the IDF are, and how they try to minimize casualties on both sides. Its funny, while a lot of narrow-minded people are labeling us as human right violators; the only ones who truly believe that we are humane and sensitive are Hezbollah. Of course for them this insight is what makes them hide within civilian population centers and store weapons in schools and hospitals, because they know we wont target those places. Perhaps someone should consult the terrorists before writing up a report about the area, they seem to mock our value for human lives and take advantage of our strange western values of cherishing life rather than worshipping death. Anyway, hopefully this is my last blog on this subject, although we are all joking that well probably meet up here again next year, judging by hezbollahs motivation. People are slowly getting used to the ceasefire, starting to crawl out of the bomb shelters and carefully drive back to their homes in the north. A third species is joining the journalists and the soldiers today: regular people. They are returning to their homes, hoping to find them in one piece. Some one pointed out that its the first time in three weeks that he heard the sound of children playing.