Why am I glad that Israel Railways carpets the floors of their train carriages?

Because it makes it a little more comfortable when there is an air raid siren and you have to lie on the floor and try to take cover under the seats.

People are usually very friendly in these situations, there is a certain camaraderie of lying on the floor on a moving train trying to figure out whether it's safe to get up yet when suddenly you meet all the people in the neighbouring seats to commiserate and make jokes about the bizarre circumstances we find ourselves in.

Like yesterday, the train was passing a usually quiet area, not far from Modiin when the sirens went off. The Arabic speaking mother and kids diagonally across the aisle from me were the fastest to react, instantly pulling down the shades on the windows, the smaller kids squeezing into the spaces between the seats which are meant for luggage, the rest of the family hitting the floor and covering their heads in a flash, clearly well drilled in air raid sirens, no panic, no fuss, just autopilot, while the rest of us were a few seconds slower, taking a moment to register what was happening.

Flat on the floor, half under the seats my eyes met those of my neighbour across the aisle, the mother shielding her kids and the woman on the next bench over and we all kinds of smiled sheepishly at each other, lying there with our hands over our heads trying to fit ourselves as much under the seats as possible.

"We made it all the way from Nahariya with no sirens, who would have believed it would happen here!" declared the mother ruefully. Turns out they were coming from a village in the much bombarded north of Israel (two people were killed yesterday in a direct hit on Nahariya) to get some respite in the relative quiet of central Israel.

I was coming home from a day volunteering on a kibbutz right on the Gaza border where yes, we had heard the chilling sounds of the fighting in Gaza, including at times the staccato of heavy machine gun fire, but it had all been in the distance, listening to a war that while only a few kilometres from us, did not directly endanger us, but rather the opposite, was mostly the sound of the IDF protecting us from the remaining ragtag Hamas gunmen attempting to regroup.

There have been very few sirens lately in the Gaza border area. I had to take the train from Ashkelon because the section of the line from Sderot towards Tel Aviv is still closed because it is very exposed to line of sight from Gaza, and the IDF thinks it is still at risk, though they are hoping it will be safe enough to start running again in a few weeks.

Ashkelon was thankfully quiet. Tel Aviv was thankfully quiet. But here, on the train so close to home, davka here, the air raids sirens wailed.

"At least the floor is carpeted" commented the young across the aisle woman brightly. "It might be filthy from all the people walking on it, but at least it's soft to lie on."

I've wanted to write about Yaakov and Bilhaa Yinon for so many months, almost a year now. Last October I translated and transcribed so many stories. Then I found myself by chance in Netiv Ha'asara standing in their garden by the charred remains of their burnt out home and I think I was just so overwhelmed by it for so long that I couldn't tell their story, I was literally standing at the place where they had been burnt to death just weeks after their murders (we didn't know yet for sure about Bilhaa). I didn't know them, have no connection to the family or moshav, but the surviving whimsical, vibrant, gloriously colourful art she made and the story of his agricultural work both touched me so deeply, people so devoted to life, love and tikkun olam butchered so horrifically. It wasn't until I saw the press release from Volcani that I felt able talk about them and hopefully do something to help honour their memory.

The legacy of wheat

Who was lost on October 7th? 1200 worlds and 1200 futures that could have done so much to make this world a better place.

Here is just one example. On my first trip to the Otef (Israel's Gaza border region) after October 7 I visited moshav Netiv Ha'asara which sits right along the border with Gaza, close to the northern Gaza towns of Bet Hanoun and Bet Lahia. On October 7 Hamas terrorists paraglided into the village and started on a murder spree of the moshav's residents. Yet more terrorists smashed through the nearby border fence in pickup trucks. In total about 35 heavily armed terrorists rampaged through the moshav while the small village emergency response team valiantly tried to mount a defence.

In total 21 Israelis from the moshav were murdered in their homes.

Among them were Yaakov "Yaacobi" and Bilhaa Yinon.

As long as I live I will not forget standing by the ruins of their burnt out home mere weeks after they were burnt alive inside it.

Bilhaa was an artist. In her beautiful garden, which was mostly intact, there were all kinds of whimsical ceramic sculptures and decorations, bright, vibrant, full of life as she had been, in stark contrast to the charred wreckage of their modest home. The parts of the garden closest to the fire bore the tell tale signs of the fierce heat from the flames, tips of plastic planters that had started to melt, blackened scorch marks on the ends of wooden railway sleepers. The fire burned so fiercely that Bilhaa's remains were only positively identified this August - from a few teeth that were all that was left of her.

The garden was a testament to Yaakov's life's work - agronomist, farmer, gardener, an agricultural mentor and guide to farms across the Negev. His specialty was field crops and he taught generations of agronomists and farmers across the Negev how to grow better yields, trained them in new techniques and pioneered farming suited to the harsh growing conditions of southern Israel.

He worked closely with the renowned Volcani Institute, Israel's premiere agricultural research centre founded in 1921 by agronomist Yitzhak Elazari Volcani. One of the prime goals of the Volcani centre has been literally making the desert bloom, adapting farming technology and developing new strains of crops suited to the arid climate to increase food security for all those living in similar environments.

For a hundred years the centre has not only engaged in research, but also trained local farmers. Agronomy students come from around the world to learn and engage in research while training programmes spread this vital knowledge to students from across the developing world, including from the Palestinian Authority.

Yaakov Yinon was deeply involved in all of this, passing on his knowledge to new generations, helping farmers around the Negev and around the world grow better and more abundant crops with limited water resources.

He participated in scores of Volcani research projects and in recent years advised researchers and supervised the field crops grown at the Volcani institute's research farm.

When Hamas murdered Yaakov in his home on October 7 they murdered an Israeli who's knowledge and research had helped to feed their own people in Gaza, a man who believed in coexistence and who was the father of a prominent Israeli peace activist. Maybe that was exactly the reason they murdered him. Maybe they had no idea who he was, they were just out to murder any and all Israelis.

In memory of Yaakov and his tremendous contribution to agriculture the Volcani Institute have named a new strain of wheat after him, Yaacobi wheat. This variety of wheat was developed jointly by Dr Ro'i Ben -David and Kamal Nashef to be a high yield bread wheat suitable for growing across the Negev desert region, able to provide a stable, quality yield even under challenging growing conditions.

In the wake of the 1973 Yom Kippur War when kibbutz Beit Hasheeta in the Jezreel Valley lost many of its young men in the fighting. Dorit Tzameret, a resident of the kibbutz, wrote a poignant poem, later put to music, about the seeming indifference of the natural world continuing the cycle of the seasons as the residents of the valley tried to come to terms with their terrible losses. At once a tragic song of grief and mourning it also came to symbolise resilience, the wheat will grow again, the promise of a future even in the face of such tragedy.

In the Gaza border area, another wheat growing region of Israel, this song has taken on extra meaning since October 7. The fields of wheat in the north-west Negev are here literally covering over the horrific scars of the Hamas invasion. I know that I'm not alone in feeling the tears well up this winter when I saw the fresh green shoots of wheat sprouting again, planted by farmers right after the invasion, a very physical sign of healing and also of defiance in the face of the Hamas assault.

And now Yaacobi wheat, wherever it grows, will continue Yaakov Yinon's lifelong mission to promote better agriculture and food security in the world's most arid regions. The wheat will grow and with it his memory.

May the memories of Yaakov and Bilhaa be blessed.

It's hard to hold 1200 people in your heart all at once. Here is just one of the Israeli families wiped out by Hamas on October 7 2023.

They weren't "collateral damage". They weren't killed by a stray shell or bullet. They weren't caught in a crossfire.

Hamas terrorists from Gaza willfully, intentionally, gleefully murdered them -

Father Yonatan Siman Tov, a farmer, man of the soil

Mother Tamar Kedem-Siman Tov, peace activist, aspiring community leader, running for office in the municipal elections

6 year old twins Shahar and Arbel

4 year old Omer.

A family of five from Kibbutz Nir Oz.

When the Hamas terrorists invaded their kibbutz they tried to break into the home safe room where the family were sheltering from the rockets Hamas were firing from Gaza. Yonatan barricaded the door.

Unable to break in the Hamas terrorists decided to smoke them out. They set fire to the house. As the family felt the fire closing in and it became harder to breath they realised they had to get out. Yonatan messaged his sister one last time “They’re here. They’re burning us. We’re suffocating.”

Yonatan and Tamar had no choice but to risk opening the heavy steel blast shutter to let in fresh air.

The terrorists were waiting outside for just such a move.

They shot the parents through the window.

Trapped in a burning house with terrorist snipers waiting outside the family were doomed.

The bullet riddled corpses of parents Tamar and Yonatan were found in the burnt out house along with those of their little children who had choked to death in the smoke.

Yonatan's mother who lived nearby on the kibbutz was also murdered, along with her pet dog.

And this story played out over and over again throughout Israel's border region, in Nir Oz, in Beeri, in Kfar Azza, in Nirim, in Sderot and Ofakim - over and over, family after family. Murdered in their homes, in their cars, in the fields and farms. Murdered because they were Jews, because they were Israelis.

Premeditated murder.

Symbols of hope and renewal

How to process this year's discordant mix of war and hostages still held captive and hope for the new year and gratitude for the good that we have experienced throughout all this and trepidation of what might yet be to come and prayers that we will yet know safety and peace?

It seems overwhelming and yet as Jews this has more often than not been our people's situation. Our Rosh Hashanah has never been about partying and celebration, but a rather tries to find a balance between the solemn and the joyous, facing the new year with open eyes all too aware of the fragility of human existence and yet ever optimistic that we can find a way to bring change for the good and fix what is broken to avert potential calamity in the coming year.

More than ever I find that our traditional simanim, symbolic foods eaten at the Rosh Hashanah eve dinner, fit with this year's painful reality.

This Jewish tradition is very much part of modern secular Israeli culture, our poetry and songs are steeped in this bittersweet wondering what terrible decree is round the corner and a firm belief that things can get better, that it is within our ability to repair a damaged world.

Maybe Naomi Shemer is the classic Israeli lyricist who best epitomised this duality, most famously in her hit "Al Kol Eleh" in which she prays "Please my good God, watch over these, the honey and the sting, the bitter and the sweet, do not uproot that which has been planted, don't forget the hope."

I find comfort in these traditions, in the connection with generations of our ancestors who endured and hoped and persevered. This Rosh Hashanah more than ever we are preparing our traditional siman foods and their blessings which more than ever feel immediate and relevant - May the Almighty quash all evil decrees, erase the plans of those who wish us ill, bless us with a sweet year, may we be as full of good deeds as the seeds of a pomegranate, end those who wish to destroy us, banish sorrow, plague and suffering, bless us that we merit to see the fruits of our labours...

Some of the simanim have added meanings for us this year:

Kiddush wine from the Dalton and Ben Zimra wineries in the north - a siman for all the people of northern Israel who are refugees, who have spent the past year under Hizballah bombardment. May Hashem bless the IDF with success in restoring security and peace to northern Israel and southern Lebanon and defeating the evil plans of Hizballah so that all those displaced can return home in safety. To honour all the vintners and farmers who have continued tending their crops and working the land under fire. In profound gratitude to all our sons and daughters, sisters and brothers who this holiday are in uniform defending us.

Pomegranate from a local farm - may Hashem bless Israel's struggling farmers with a fruitful year and bountiful rains at the right time. Hashem watch over all the farm workers and volunteers and keep them safe especially out in the open fields and orchards.

New fruit for Sheheiyanu blessing: pomelit (oroblanco, sweetie) that I picked this week in kibbutz Beeri and last week in kibbutz Re'im, across the road from the site of the Nova massacre. To remember the horror of a year ago and the many hostages still captive in Gaza, but also to give thanks for the resilience of our people and the sacrifice and acheivements of our IDF that have made it safe for thousands of displaced Israelis from the Gaza border to start returning home, and to work the citrus groves of these kibbutzim next to the Gaza border.

Honey from kibbutz Erez, near the Gaza border - to remember the honey and the sting: the pain suffered by the Gaza border communities last October, the bravery of those who defended them, including the manager of Erez Honey, who was seriously wounded in defence of his kibbutz during the Hamas attack last year, the strength and faith in the future of the people who have rebuilt, restored and returned to their homes.

Please Hashem, bless us this year with life and renewal in the face of those still seeking our destruction, with the hope and strength to continue rebuilding and restoring, that all those still in captivity will return home, with success and protection for our soldiers working so hard to protect us and most of all with peace for us and our neighbours and all of our troubled region.

The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, is a time for introspection, for reflection, for repentance, for seeking forgiveness, for examining one's behaviour over the past year and trying to fix wrongdoings or mistakes.

It makes the timing of tonight's Iranian onslaught all the more eerie.

The piercing call of the shofar traditionally blown every day in the month of Elul leading up to Rosh Hashanah was instead replaced tonight with the chilling wail of the air raid sirens.

Just as before Passover we felt that we had experienced a modern Pesah miracle, the hand of the destroyer literally passing over us, so now, this repeat Iranian missile attack and our salvation from it raises the hairs on one's nape, the plans of an enemy seeking our destruction ending instead once again with what to us feels like miraculous salvation.

Maybe it's a cliche to say that a brush with death can be a wake up call to do better, be better, but just because it's a cliche doesn't make it less real.

The call of the Elul shofar is a call to do teshuva, to repent, to make amends. All month long we've been hearing it at morning prayers, a deep, primal sound to stir the soul and the mind, to wake them from their everyday routine and realise their potential to be so much more, to do so much more in our world.

How much more so when that primal, natural, call is replaced by the mechanical shrieking of the sirens, a nation huddled in sealed shelters throughout the country awaiting its fate while the thuds and booms shatter the night overhead and everyone wonders which are impacts and which are interceptions and if his or her number could be up and what kind of world we will emerge to see when this is over.

To have experienced that massive assault once this year was enough, to go through it again on an even bigger scale, and to thank God emerge once again to find that the destroyer's plan was thwarted, and the hundreds of missiles were mostly intercepted or fell without causing injury, and for all this to have happened on the eve of Rosh Hashanah?

Of course we have tremendous gratitude to all the men and women who created Israel's impressive life saving missile defence system, I hope that goes without saying. And to our allies who played their part too. But being thankful for human success does not contradict the sense of having witnessed something greater at play.

Tonight our people were once again saved on a massive scale, we dodged this literal bullet. We need to reflect on that, take time to absorb the enormity of what we as individuals and as a nation just experienced.

Rosh Hashanah is also known by other names, Yom Hadin (The Day of Judgement) and Yom Hazikaron (The Day of Remembrance). Tomorrow evening we will usher in the New Year with communal prayers and meals that while festive also include sombre reminders that according to Jewish tradition our fate very much still hangs in the balance but we have the ability to make a difference.

Honey and remembrance

For many of us time seems to have stood still this year, stuck in the horror of Simhat Torah last year when our world came crashing down, a horror film made real, claiming the lives of so many. 

And yet somehow a whole year has gone by, the Tishrei holidays are once again upon us, in a few days time we will be sitting down at the traditional meal of blessings for the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah and still our country is at war. How do we balance all these conflicting emotions, the sorrow and pain of war, the hope for the coming year? How do we permit ourselves joy in the middle of war, at a time when over a 100 of our brothers and sisters are still held hostage, when so many of our family and friends are fighting on the frontlines? 

I don't know that I really have any clear answers, but these questions were all very much on my mind in the past week as I volunteered in three related areas, as always finding solace and optimism in doing, in following the teaching of the Esh Kodesh: in your time of trouble or sorrow, find a way to do good for someone else.

1) Helping a local ceramics artist to make ceramic anemone flowers for memorial sites around the Otef, including the site of the Nova festival. While volunteering on a farm I met a woman who since November has been using her art to create memorials for the murdered and fallen, and in doing so bring comfort to so many bereaved families. For many months now she and other ceramicists have been guiding hundreds of volunteers to help realise this huge undertaking.

2) Picking oroblanco (sweetie, pomelit) fruits in the citrus groves of kibbutz Re'im, right across the road from the Re'im woodland and picnic areas where the Nova festival took place.

Though I've volunteered in the kibbutz Re'im citrus orchards several time during this past year this is the first time the farmer warned us that we might find "things which are not citrus" among the trees, and to please not touch anything like that, to call him and keep people away should we find anything suspicious. My friend looked at me and I looked at her and our minds went to some very terrifying places. Maybe seeing the looks on our faces the farmer clarified that a recent group of volunteers came across spent Hamas RPG ordinance. During the Hamas massacre of the Nova festival goers many people fled to these orchards and were chased by terrorists through the trees. I'ed always found that thought in itself chilling, picking oranges or oroblanco fruits in these serene looking groves, wondering who might have sought cover here, who might have been fleeing for their lives, what horrors these trees must have witnessed, what the previous rainy season had to cleanse from the powdery soil.

3) On kibbutz Erez we once again volunteered in the apiary helping to pack orders of honey for Rosh Hashanah. Each time I've come I meet volunteers from around the country who've made the trip to help bring sweetness to all of Israel especially in these painful times. The kibbutz residents who run the apiary always welcome us so warmly and have always been a pleasure to work with, kind, patient, humorous, even when we make mistakes. As we worked we heard stories about the kibbutz. They and many of their neighbours lost massive amounts of beehives and honey bees to the arson balloons and incendiary laden kites Hamas has been sending over the border in to Israel for the last several years. Israel's "allies" pressured a succession of governments not to respond, because these were "just toys", "just balloons", "just kites", all the while these primitive but effective weapons (flying molotov cocktails) were setting fire to fields and woodlands, nature reserves and farms, and everywhere burning down the bee hives that are set up all over the area to pollinate the crops, as well as to produce honey. Maybe it seems petty to feel sad for the bees, but maybe because on October 7 those same Hamas terrorists were setting fire to people, I felt extra empathy for the thousands of bees torched by terrorists in their homes just as Hamas burnt so many Israeli people alive in theirs. Today as then the Israeli border communities are about life, growing, creating, developing, while the Hamas ideology remains mired in death and destruction. We heard about the kibbutz residents finally able to return home, but also about all the local kids suffering from such severe PTSD that they hardly eat, burst in to tears all the time, not just a function of October 7, but years of constant attrition from Hamas rockets and mortars, of living in this beautiful Israel kibbutz right by the border. Some children have learnt to take it in their stride, grown up with the stress and the danger, others have over the years become shattered by it. Throughout the Otef we've heard the same, a generation who've been born and grown up in the shadow of Hamas terror out of Gaza. A year after the Hamas invasion we've met many in the Otef who are finally daring to hope that maybe now something will have changed after so much of the Hamas war machine and terror infrastructure has been dismantled. On the way to the kibbutz cafeteria for lunch we met a beautiful dog with a luxurious fluffy coat. "You see that dog?" said our kibbutznik "boss". "That's one of hundreds of feral dogs that wandered in to the kibbutz after October 7, when the border fence was ripped to shreds." A few kibbutz members working in essential industries returned to the kibbutz at a time when it was considered too dangerous for the rest of the residents to come home. They found all these dogs, some in viscious packs who'd ransacked porch furniture and were a menace to livestock and wildlife, dogs gone so feral they were a danger. There were other sogs though who gravitated to people, who had made friends with soldiers stationed in the area. With love and patience they were able to rehabilitate many of these dogs, some of whom are now part of the kibbutz, adopted by its residents and given loving homes. "Maybe they are a sign that something good may yet come from this situation."

 

Scorched landscape after Hizballah fire into northern Israel

Suddenly the headlines are screaming "Israel's massive escalation", "Israel declares war on Lebanon",

People are always surprised and quizzical when I mention the over 8000 Hizballah rockets and missiles, the attack drones, the drone swarms, not to mention the odd projectile launched from Yemen or eastern Iraq or Syria, all into northern Israel since October 8, in support of the Hamas October 7 invasion of Israel. Somehow from Israel's perspective this isn't supposed to be an "escalation", that isn't "declaring war", Israel is just supposed to accept this as normal?

And then some idiot says "Well, it doesn't count, Israel has Iron Dome, it's just rain." Go and see the devastation of nearly a year of daily bombardment in northern Israel and tell me it's "just rain".

Iron Dome can't stop thousands of rockets and missiles.

Iron Dome can't stop thousands of anti-tank missiles fired line of sight from just over the border where the distance from Hizballah controlled southern Lebanon into the villages, towns and farms of northern Israel is so short that there is no time for air raid warnings to sound, the first sign of the missile is it's impact in Israel. But somehow that isn't "war" or "escalation" and no one is holding the Lebanese government responsible for these daily attacks on Israel that are launched from Lebanese soil.

Israel has had nearly a year of ever increasing daily bombardment from Hizballah killing and wounding Israelis, including children - Jews, Druze, Muslims, Christians - Hizballah doesn't discriminate, all Israelis are targets. Tens of thousands of Israelis had to flee their homes next to the Lebanon border.

In other northern villages and towns a few kilometres further from the border they try to live their lives under threat of daily attacks and air raid sirens, sometimes several times a day, sometimes in the middle of the night.

There have been direct hits on a football pitch where children were playing, schools, places of worship including an historic Galilee church, schools, farms, factories and this evening a Magen David Adom first aid station. Countless family homes have been destroyed.

There are Israeli villages in the northern Galilee where almost every single home has been damaged, either by direct hits or the powerful blast waves of exploding rockets and attack drones.

Vast tracts of farmland, nature reserves, forests and parkland have been burnt by fires sparked by rockets and drones.

Tonight for example Hizballah launched twenty heavy Falaq artillery rockets on the once idyllic Israeli border town of Metulla with its pretty houses surrounded by apple and cherry orchards. The damage was massive. A member of the local emergency response team was hurt trying to put out one of the fires. At least one neighbourhood burnt along with surrounding countryside.

Hizballah gloatingly posted reels and photos on social media of the smoke and flames, clearly visible across the border from southern Lebanon with the caption "They won't be returning to their homes".

This is not normal. As Israelis we should not be expected to accept this as normal.

Israel has the right to defend itself, but more than that our government and military have an obligation to defend Israelis, all Israelis, including the ones in the north who's lives have been turned upside down since October 8th.

Support northern Israeli vineyards under fire

Times like these we don't know who to support first, there are so many people, causes, communities.

So many people are overwhelmed, it's hard to know where to start and we all have limited time and resources, we can't help everyone all the time.

Maybe it's obvious but a simple way to start is just to try to include small ways to help frontline northern Israeli communities at the moment, like supporting local businesses struggling to keep going with the intensifying Hizballah attacks on the north.

For example this Shabbat and for the upcoming Tishrei haggim make a point of using wine from the north for kiddush in solidarity with the many wineries in the area which have faced Hizballah rockets and drones for almost a year now. Some, like the Dalton winery, have suffered direct hits or had their vineyards or winery facilities torched by blazes triggered by Hizballah attacks.

You can find moderately priced wines in the NIS20-40 range all the way up to very expensive ones. Some supermarkets have or will have specials on these wines coming up to the Tishrei holidays.

Some kosher wineries in the far north to look out for. Some have online shops if you want to purchase directly, many are available in national supermarket chains:

Ramat HaGolan (Gamla, Yarden and other labels)

Dalton

Adir (Kerem Ben Zimra)

Avivim

Bahat

Harei Galil

Tel Shifon

Bazelet

Har Odem

Matar (the kosher "sibling" of the non-kosher Palter winery in Ein Zivan)

Abouhav

Or Haganuz

Dishon

Meron

(note that to the best of my knowledge these wineries are all kosher, but if kashrut matters to you please be sure to always confirm the hekhsher, note also that some wineries are kosher but operate visitor centres that are open on Shabbat while there are some that do not have a hekhsher but are closed on Shabbat)

The sun will rise tomorrow

I go down to the Otef almost every week, sometimes a few times a week and I see the rebuilding and the replanting, the people returning home to the kibbutzim and the moshavim, the return of rush hour traffic to the roads around Netivot and the amazing people who come to volunteer and our amazing soldiers doing month after month of service and new olim who've chosen davka to move to the Otef or the people making the ceramic kalaniot to place at memorial sites. I always come home with renewed optimism and hope even after visiting some of the darkest of places. We live in horrific times but we are surrounded by a generation of incredible people.

You don't plant new vineyards if you don't believe you will be around to enjoy the grapes in another few years. You don't start making fancy wine that needs years of aging if you don't believe you will get to drink it. You don't rebuild if you don't believe in a future. You don't put all this energy into aliya and hinukh and everything else, you don't make babies, if you don't have faith in tomorrow.

 

ברוך מתיר אסורים 

Welcome home Qaid Farhan Al Qadi

 

היום קטפתי אבוקדו מזן "גליל", ראשון לעונת הסתו\שלהי הקיץ.

ראיתי את החצב הראשון שלי לעונה, בכוכב יאיר, ככה סתם בצד הכביש.

בדרכים כבר עוברים ליד פרדסי רימונים מלאים בעצים עמוסי פרי אדום.

שדות התירס לאט לאט נובלים אך בשדות הכותנה הפרחים עודם צהובים.

הבציר מתקדם בכרמי הענבים המתרוקנים מפירותיהם העסיסים

בכל הארץ הנוף זוחל דוהר לקראת אלול שאחריו מגיע תשרי.

רק עבור בני האדם תשרי עדיין לא פנה את מקומו משנה שעברה. רק עבור בני האדם תשרי עדיין לא פנה את מקומו משנה שעברה.

Grape season

Iran, the Houthis and Hizballah are threatening Armageddon (well that is a place in northern Israel you know, Har Megiddo), Hamas is still shooting rockets are way and it feels like we could write the textbook on "tense uncertainty" but nature doesn't wait for human foibles and the summer produce has ripened extra early in the heat and needs to be picked.

Braver friends than me have gone up north to do things like helping farmers harvest pears in the north-west Galilee or thin apples in the northern Golan not far from where a Hizballah rocket hit last week killing twelve local children and wounded many more.

More people I know are heading up tomorrow for a few days of volunteering on northern farms in areas that in these times are the riskiest in the country. Have extra respect for that little Jerusalem granny sitting next to you on the bus or in the queue at the supermarket, she might have just returned from harvesting lychees under rocket fire on the Lebanon border.

Me? I went to a farm about 15 minutes from my home to help with the grape harvest. I guess we all have our relative comfort zones. The vineyards are close to the houses of the moshav, so in theory we'd have enough warning about incoming from Iran or Lebanon to make it to shelter.

The grapes need to be picked and if all hell is going to break loose later in the week or month it was all the more imperative to go out and help bring in as much of the harvest as possible before that happens, right?

It's summer, kids are off from school and many were out with their parents and grandparents volunteering in the vineyards. I think we were a pretty effective group, kids included, and we managed to exceed the number of crates the farmer hoped to have picked and packed that day.

The grape harvest is happening now all over Israel. If you are able to go out and give a few hours it can make the world of difference to our super stressed farmers in super stressful times.

Grapes of hope

It's Rosh Hodesh Av, once again our nation and our land are assaulted on all sides by those who seek our destruction, waiting for the Iranian hammer to fall. It's an especially terrifying way to go in to the Nine Days mourning the destruction of the ancient Judean kingdom and both ancient Jerusalem Temples which symbolised ancient Jewish sovereignty in our homeland.

Always though I'm reminded of my mother's teaching from the writings of the Esh Kodesh, the Piaseczner Rebbe, rebbe of the Warsaw ghetto: when you are dealing with hardship go out and help someone else.

Today's volunteering project was helping a nearby farm bring in and pack their grape harvest. The farmer has been on miluim for over 180 days, he's out for a few weeks to supervise the harvest and then goes back for a third tour of reserve duty.

It's the height of the summer school holidays, many volunteers came with their children or grandchildren. The vineyards were lively with young people and happy Hebrew chatter, some children as young as 9 or 10, eagerly harvesting the grapes, packing crates, running back and forth with water, cutters and boxes to help those working at the vines.

We were in the lowlands of the Shfela but the scene could easily have been a similar vineyard anywhere in Israel this time of year, from the southern deserts to the northern mountains.

It's the first day of Av, the start of the Nine Days of mourning but my mind turned to the verses of Jeremiah that speak of comfort and restoration, not impending doom and destruction:

עוֹד תִּטְּעִי כְרָמִים, בְּהָרֵי שֹׁמְרוֹן; נָטְעוּ נֹטְעִים, וְחִלֵּלוּ.

"You will once more plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant, and will enjoy their fruit."

Planting vines is an investment in the future, something that takes time to bear fruit, something that requires faith in tomorrow and next month and next year and the next five years, ten years.

Grape vines symbolise fertility, prosperity and peace. They are beautifully eye catching in full fruit but they are also a crop that requires stability and peace, a farmer who has the confidence to plant knowing that he will only see its benefits in the years to come.

Looking at the group of us wielding our pruning shears as we worked at the vines I couldn't help but thinking of another verse of comfort, this time from Isaiah:

וְכִתְּתוּ חַרְבוֹתָם לְאִתִּים, וַחֲנִיתוֹתֵיהֶם לְמַזְמֵרוֹת--לֹא-יִשָּׂא גוֹי אֶל-גּוֹי חֶרֶב, וְלֹא-יִלְמְדוּ עוֹד מִלְחָמָה.

they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more

Like a bridge over troubled water

This painting hangs in the lounge of my flat, prominent on a wall where there might otherwise be a television screen. Instead we have this painting.

Over the years I've spent hours just looking at it, sitting in the armchair feeling the calm scene wash over me: the relaxing rushing and babbling of the stream, the cool shade of the trees in contrast to the bright cloudless sky, the gentle rustle of the leaves stirring in a languid breeze.

I imagine walking over the bridge, the better to soak up the delicious refreshing air over the water or strolling along the banks listening to bird song from the treetops and rushes. I can lose myself there for eons it seems, a little piece of the tranquil, serene northern Galilee countryside transported to my home. 

My mother took the photo it was based on. More than twenty years ago now, the last Passover we spent together. She said she'd never been to kibbutz guesthouse for the holidays, so she treated us to a few days in this gorgeous green corner of the Israeli countryside, kibbutz Hagoshrim, named for its streams and bridges,  exotic fare for a mostly arid country. 

People come to this guesthouse for the thrill of falling asleep and waking to the sound of lazily gurgling brooks beside the guestrooms and walks in the grounds that include a wooded nature reserve famous for its dense concentration of Great Horsetails, a fern-like plant that grows near water, the lone remnant of prehistoric species the reproduced via spores, like fungi. A rarity in Israel, Haghoshrim is the prime location to see this quirky native plant. 

DH's grandmother was a painter and whenever my mother went somewhere beautiful she would take a photo or buy a postcard of the view and send it to her, knowing how much she enjoyed painting landscapes.

DH's grandmother was so delighted with this photograph from Hagoshrim that she painted it in my mother's honour, dedicating it to her. My mother passed away before she could see the finished painting and so instead it hangs in our home in memory of two great ladies, the one who photographed it and the one who painted it. 

Uri Dimand also loves the view. A veteran member of kibbutz Hagoshrim and enthusiastic naturalist, educator and local guide, he was instrumental in founding and protecting this small nature reserve, writing the pamphlet and website about it and over the years guiding visitors to the kibbutz guesthouse, local school children and residents around the natural gems in Hagoshrim. 

He passed his love of the land and nature to his grandson, Nir. 28 year-old Nir was also a resident of Hagoshrim and worked as a manager at the popular nearby Kfar Blum Kayaks tourist attraction where visitors from around Israel and the world enjoyed refreshing water activities and camping out by the river. 

When Hamas invaded Israel's Gaza border on October 7 2023 Hizballah supported the assault from the north by firing missiles from Lebanon. Located close to the northern border, kibbutz Hagoshrim was one of the Israeli villages evacuated by the authorities because of the escalating Hizballah bombardment. 

Many essential workers however chose to stay behind, including Nir who understood how vital it was to maintain agriculture in this vital farming region and remained in Hagoshrim to work in agriculture. 

Hagoshrim is one of the communities that is so close to the Lebanese border that there is often not enough time between a launch being detected in Lebanon and the projectile falling in Israel. Sometimes the siren goes at the same time as the rocket impacts in Israel, sometimes the launch is in such close proximity to the Israeli border that there is no warning before something smashes in to an Israeli home or field or road. Sometimes Iron Dome intercepts the rocket. Sometimes it's an anti-tank missile who's trajectory makes it almost impossible to intercept. 

And so day after day, week after week, month after month, these northern kibbutzim, moshavim and other villages have been bombarded by Hizballah. All over the region homes, farms, factories, wineries and schools are pitted with holes, windows smashed, roofs or walls caved in, telltale craters mar fields and roads and vast tracts of forest and orchards have been charred black by fires sparked by falling missiles or shrapnel. 

All through this Nir stayed determinedly in Hagoshrim to work the land, tend the crops. Until this week when he was fatally wounded by shrapnel from a rocket which scored a direct hit on his home, one of many damaged in the fierce Hizballah barrage. The medics who rushed to the scene despite the risk were unable to save Nir. 

This week his grandfather Uri, the local guide and educator, eulogised his beloved grandson as he was laid to rest in the land he loved so much "My grandson Nir, a huge part of my world, was killed by a Hezbollah missile here at his home, my home, in HaGoshrim. There is no consolation."

Ariel Bibas turns five this week. He is still held hostage in Gaza.

This is a story about what should be just an ordinary family in rural Israel, one of many who make their livelihood from agriculture, 300 dunam of clementines and 100 of assorted vegetables.

It was told to me a few weeks ago when were volunteering on this family's farm in moshav Yesha in the southern Otef (Gaza border region).

Three hundred dunams of clementine trees needed pruning and since the war they have almost no one to do the work except for volunteers who come from all over Israel and overseas to help. 

Just another Israeli farmer on a small southern moshav struggling to balance bureaucracy, the rising cost of living and a keen love of working the land.

His grandparents, along with the rest of the Egyptian Jewish community, had been forced to leave Egypt in the 1950s following the Nasserist revolution there. Together with other Egyptian Jews they founded this moshav in the north-west Negev, near Israel's border with Egypt. The farmer's grandfather built the village synagogue. 

He married a woman from a nearby village who came to join him on his moshav. As the years passed by he took over more of the tasks of running the family farm. 

Friday night October 6th 2023, the eve of the Simhat Torah holiday, a young couple and their little red headed boys from kibbutz Nir Oz went to enjoy a festive dinner with the wife's sister on nearby moshav Yesha.

It was a lovely, happy, family gathering that finished on the late side. The moshav hosts suggested that perhaps their guests should stay the night as the little ones were so tired out, but they decided to return home to their kibbutz.


Just a few hours later Israel's Gaza border region was invaded by Hamas and kibbutz Nir Oz was overrun by murderous terrorists.


Heavily armed Hamas gunmen swarmed in to Israel on motorbikes and pick-ups mounted with machine guns.

They rampaged through moshav Yesha. Trying to mount a defence of his home as part of the village civil defence volunteers the young farmer witnessed the wounding and kidnapping of his own farm manager who was grabbed by Hamas terrorists. Outnumbered and outgunned there was nothing he could do to save the man.

Meanwhile up the road the family from kibbutz Nir Oz were kidnapped.

The mother's parents were murdered in their home on the kibbutz.

The image of a terrified mother desperately clutching her two little sons wrapped in a blanket, surrounded by Hamas gunmen became one of the most iconic images of that terrible Saturday.

Three hundred days later the Bibas family, Shiri, Yarden, Kfir, remain hostages in Gaza. No one knows for sure if they are alive or dead.

Kfir has now spent more of his life as a captive in Gaza than free in his home.

Kfir’s first birthday was as a hostage of Hamas.

This week is Ariel’s fifth birthday and he is still a hostage.

Everyone in Israel "knows" the Bibas family as though they were their own flesh and blood.

Their photos smile at us from hostage posters all over the country, a sweet innocent baby and kindergartner with their doting mother and father.

In Israel they are everyone's children and everyone's sibling or cousin.

We yearn for them to come home alive just as if they were our own children, brother or sister.

I want to thank everyone who's dropped me a note to see how we are doing, I greatly appreciate the kind words and support. For much of the last ten months, starting with a few days after the October 7th Hamas invasion, I've been volunteering in local agriculture, and there are still so many farms in desperate need. I don't even know where to begin. The attack itself was as much against local food production as against people, there was massive damage to farms, dairies, farm equipment, greenhouses, logistics centres, orchards, fields, livestock, and of course the many agricultural workers who were murdered, injured, taken hostage and displaced. This in a region which is responsible for at least 20% of the country's agricultural output, including something like 60-70% of staple crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and more. I'm not a farmer by any stretch of the imagination (even my gardening skills are somewhat borderline) but when there is a crisis like this you do what you can and thankfully I'm reasonably strong and healthy so along with tens of thousands of other ordinary civilians (including vast numbers of pensioners) we started going out to volunteer on farms to ensure the country's food security. Much of the work is picking and packaging produce for local supermarkets and green grocers, as well as for donations to refugees and others in need. And that's been a lot of what I've been doing for the last ten months. If I'm not out working in agriculture I'm trying to help coordinate volunteers to help farms in need and when possible there is no end of meals to cook and hallah to bake for families who need help, emergency services, displaced and so on. A lot of the volunteering is through Leket, Israel's national food rescue organisation. It was started years ago by someone who noticed the food waste on farms and from restaurants and started organising distribution of this surplus to people facing food insecurity all over the country. The name "Leket" comes from the biblical injunction to leave the corners of the field for those in need to collect. "Leket" means to collate, to collect. The project is a modern way for farmers to continue this tradition. The focus isn't just feeding people, but providing healthy, nutritious food, not junk. Over time they developed connections with nearly 1000 farms across the country who donated produce towards the project, as well as leftovers from wedding halls, employee cafeterias and more. All closely monitored to ensure the food was both healthy and safely stored. In addition Leket also runs nutrition education programmes in several languages, along with free healthy cookery workshops. After the devastating October 7th attacks and with damage caused by continuing rocket attacks also to Israel's northern border, another important agricultural region, Leket started getting requests for help from the farmers who for so many years had been donating produce to the Leket project. Instead of the farmers supporting Leket it was now necessary for Leket to use its organisational infrastructure to help provide assistance to these farms so that they could survive the crisis and keep the country fed. Every day buses leave from cities and towns around the country taking thousands volunteers to help work on farms and pack produce both for sale in regular shops and for donation to those in need. I'm regularly volunteering on farms down by the Gaza border and have seen first hand the devastation to the region, heard so many horrific accounts from local people about what happened to them and their communities. We harvested oranges at kibbutz Re'im right across from the park where just a few months earlier the Nova music festival massacre took place, some of those fleeing the carnage ran to the orchards to hide among the orange trees. On another farm to this day you can still see holes in the roof of the sorting barn from when rockets and RPGs fired during the October 7th invasion. Every time you go by the village of Tekuma you pass the giant "car graveyard" of vehicles torched and shot up in Hamas ambushes along these roads. Everywhere there are memorials and posters of those murdered and kidnapped. Some local farmers are still displaced, travelling to their farms from wherever they are being temporarily hosted each day to replant and tend to their crops, unable to return to their homes still because of the devastation and the security situation. Some have started to return, repairing and restoring their villages. There are yet more volunteers working to renovate and repair homes and infrastructure. There is still occasional rocket fire to the region, just the other week we were harvesting lychees on a kibbutz just a few metres from the border and right by the road there were impact craters from missiles that had hit a few days earlier. Iron Dome anti-missile defence covers populated areas but doesn't have the capacity to protect open fields, roads and nature reserves. Some areas have prefab shelters near barns or sorting sheds, but for the most part agricultural areas are wide open with no shelter. Down in the Gaza border region there are sometimes seconds' warning before a rocket strike, sometimes there is no warning before the impact. If the "Colour Red" warning goes off you lie down on the ground, keep as low as you can, put your hands over your head and pray. The biggest emergency is in the north, in the Upper Galilee on the border with Lebanon, where dozens, sometimes hundreds, of rockets and attack drones continue to rain down every day, often from such close range that there is little or no warning. They are literally taking their lives in their hands bringing in the harvest and tending to livestock and fields. It's a very precarious and volatile situation. We don't know what will be in the next few hours or the next day or the next week. Rebuilding, replanting, sowing for the next seasons are expressions of hope and faith that tomorrow will come and that maybe it will be better.