I know, I'm a broken record, but I can't say this often enough, go down to the Otef to volunteer or just to visit a community that's come home. It makes such a difference. Maybe I'm the crazy one, but I think I would not be in the same place emotionally if I hadn't been going to the Otef almost every week and keeping tabs on how the situation is changing, talking to people on the frontlines and seeing for myself the incredible rebuilding of the region, and especially in the last year, all the people coming home, kids playing again in the playgrounds of once evacuated yishuvim.

Week by week, month by month seeing the changes, people who had been haggard ghosts in winter 2023 slowly coming back to life, smiling and hopeful in winter 2024. The picture is so much more complete when you see it up close, it takes your mind to different places than when you are mostly fed by other sources. And doing something, however small, to help means that you are not just being flooded with news stories which can leave you helpless and overwhelmed, you have a chance to make a difference (however small) where it's needed.
I was in Nahal Oz yesterday picking avocados and the kibbutznik we were working with also took us briefly around the kibbutz afterwards.

Nearly half the residents came home this summer. It's one of the kibbutzim that was badly hit, one of the last where people are starting to come home. It's going to take time, but already families with young kids have made the choice to come back, there are young people there on shnat sherut. I saw the home of Omri Miran (hostage who came back on Hoshana Raba) renovated and waiting for him if he chooses to return to the kibbutz.

The neighbourhoods that were ravaged by Hamas on 7/10 are rebuilt/restored for the most part with some ongoing repairs and work on renovating roads and infrastructure. There is an air of renewal and fresh coats of paint, a bright freshly painted mural on the hadar okhel, shiny new farm equipment and tractors replacing what Hamas and their civilian supporters burnt and stole. The fields are ploughed and freshly planted, the lawns neat, gardens bright with flowers and flags.

And yes, we could definitely still hear stuff from just over the border in Azza (this is not over yet), and there were constantly drones and quite a few booms. Tzahal still has work to do in the zones it still controls, mostly dismantling tunnels and other terror infrastructure.

There are areas here and there where you can look directly into Gaza across the border and you can see how many more of the tall buildings have been levelled, so that they don't loom over the Israeli side anymore and be used by snipers or for gathering intelligence on Israel. Definitely a lot fewer tall buildings than when I was in the area few weeks ago.

And the southern part of the now infamous Route 232 ("Death Road" as yesterday's group leader helpfully called it) is now being widened to two lanes in each direction, scorched trees on the verges cut down and covered by asphalt. 

All along the drive down posters welcoming back the hostages "כמה טוב ששבתם הביתה" and the roadsides lined with flags so that the returning hostages would see.

 I'm thrilled that the hostages are home but I feel angry that so many people are like "well that's it", as though there aren't people in the Otef, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, who've been living with hell for years, and there seems precious little care for what they will go through if Hamas is allowed to reset everything to October 6th.

Like they took down the big concrete barrier which overshadowed Nahal Oz, because now Hamas has been taken care of, that's what our soldiers have been doing, avodat kodesh in destroying the vipers nest Hamas built in Gaza. But what happens next?

With all the hoopla over "The Deal" I don't hear people saying well what does this mean for people living in the Otef? What does it mean for Israel in general? With Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Qatari money and Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Turkish contractors, what safeguards that Hamas (or a clone) won't just rebuild and start the whole thing over again?

Because Tzahal hasn't had a chance to do everything that needed doing. Just the other week I was in the area and a local guy pointed out to me places where they knew there were still tunnels but he wasn't sure if due to the ceasefire Tzahal would still have the chance to blow them up. Officially part of Hamas disarming is also the dismantling of their terror infrastructure, including destroying remaining terror tunnels, weapons workshops and so on.

Can we rely on whomever is supposed to be enforcing the deal that this will actually happen? What does it mean for Israel if it doesn't? It's wonderful that most of the hostages have been released, but we also need to look at the bigger picture of the war and our country's security, if all the big words are not enforced then nothing has changed and the sacrifice of our soldiers has been squandered to invite Muslim Brotherhood states like Qatar and Turkey to restore the Hamas "balance of terror" threatening Israel.

I know it sounds terrible but I meet so many people in the Otef who feel forgotten. They are desperate for all the hostages to come home, but I've met too many who've said to me that the only thing people in the merkaz seem to care about is the hostages, not whether Hamas is no longer a threat and they still have to raise their children in fortified gannim (literally fortified gannim).

No one has been marching in the streets demanding safety and security for Netiv Haasara or Nirim and if you even dare to raise concerns that are not the hostages then no one wants to hear or they accuse you of being a heartless b@!ch who doesn't care about the hostages. It makes me angry because the writing is on the wall but most people do not want to see. This deal is only as good as the enforcement of the grand promises made to guarantee Israeli security.

All of the hostages, alive and dead, were supposed to be home by now according to the deal, there are still hostage bodies held in Gaza (as far as I know), while Hamas is flexing its muscles (and guns) everywhere that the IDF has withdrawn from. This is greatly concerning. That is what is on my mind.

 Today is Hoshana Rabba, the last day of Sukkot. According to Jewish tradition the date when God makes His final decision on how we will be judged for the coming year. The final date for appeals as it were for the verdicts reached on Rosh Hashanah (the Day of Judgement) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).

For traditional Jews the return of our twenty live hostages on this date is highly symbolic in so many ways. A sign that maybe God has received our fervent prayers for them to come home to their loved ones alive. A closing of the circle that started on Simhat Torah (the day after Hoshana Rabba) two years ago when our country was invaded and they were kidnapped.

And so we say farewell to the sukkah for another year.

And what a strange Sukkot it has been, between the commandment to be joyous on Sukkot, our nation collectively holding its breath over whether Hamas really would free the hostages and whether this peace deal would really happen, the agonising two year anniversary of the brutal Hamas invasion and gratitude for the miracles and rebirth we have witnessed in the wake of the barbaric Hamas attacks.

When I was a child I had a Shlomo Carlebach record I loved to listen to which included "The Song of Shabbes". As a child I used to ponder its meaning, listening to it over and over: we were slaves in Egypt but we sang the song of Shabbes, we saw the Holy Temple destroyed but we sang the song of Shabbes, the Romans sold us as slaves but we sang the song of Shabbes, we saw 6 million Jews murdered but we sang the song of Shabbes". What was this song of Shabbes that we kept on singing no matter what, no matter why?

Only in my late teens did I start to understand the concept, the symbol of Shabbat, Jewish heritage and tradition, our holidays, our Hebrew language, our culture and our beliefs which we held onto no matter the horrors our people suffered. Stripped of everything, even our homeland, we clung to the heritage that we could keep in our hearts, no matter where we were exiled, no matter how harsh our circumstances. Even in the death camps of Europe and being torched alive by the Inquisition our people continued to "sing the song of Shabbes" in whatever way they could, holding on to our eternal peoplehood so that a future generation would see a new day and let us thrive once again.

Finding joy in these last two years has often been that "singing the song of Shabbes" for so many Israelis. This Sukkot, coinciding as it did with the secular October 7th anniversary was difficult for so many Israelis and Jews around the world, but still they were joyous and celebrated life, our people's life, our survival, how despite the terrible pain we have persevered and beaten back enemies who wanted us dead and our heritage erased.

And this year perhaps on Simhat Torah we can shine brighter and celebrate with a fuller heart, knowing our living hostages are home and twenty more families can hopefully start to find comfort. Knowing that maybe, just maybe, there is finally some kind of peace deal that can bring hope, life and joy to our entire region.

We're still waiting to see if Hamas will truly honour the deal, if they will hand over the 24 dead Israeli hostages they are still holding, if they will disarm and clear the way for a new future for a peaceful Gaza. This deal will only work if it is truly enforced.

Maybe this Hoshana Raba there is hope that we will yet witness a new day in the Middle East, and even if it still looks uncertain, and even if we don't yet know that the war is really over, there is hope for finding a new way that wasn't there yesterday. Tonight, the eve of Simhat Torah we will dance again with a new song in our hearts.

If it was only about the hostages, if it was always about the hostages, then the people of the Otef go back to being screwed over and the clock resets to October 6th and the countdown to the next round of Hamas atrocities and hostage taking. It can't be just about the hostages because then we would have learnt absolutely nothing and to get the freedom of the last 48 held by Hamas the nation would have accepted the return of a Hamas terrorist state in Gaza rebuilding and preparing the next assault on the Israel.

This is the niggling fear I feel today alongside the joy of seeing our live hostages return to their families. Too many Israelis say, fine, that's it, peace, it's all over and the people living on our border, the people in the Otef who've suffered so much will be forgotten again, left to their fate, as though on October 7th Hamas wasn't halfway to Beer Sheva and their death squads weren't this close to rampaging through Ashkelon. I've met too many people in the Otef who've said as much to me, it was always about the hostages and never about truly restoring safety and security to their communities.

The hostages were a clever diversionary tactic by Hamas to stop us from being able to fight effectively in areas where the hostages were held, giving Hamas extra cover and distracting Israelis from the war aims of defending the thousands and thousands of Israelis, millions really, held hostage by Hamas' rockets and terror.

Hamas is already jubilant, murdering anyone they suspect of helping Israel, restoring their iron fist terror on the people of Gaza and with Qatari money and Turkish construction companies help, officially sanctioned by this deal, they pledge to rebuild their tunnels and bases and terror machine. It's like on the day Gilad Shalit was released, Israelis were euphoric with hope and relief but the other side was celebrating with gunfire the return of unrepentant terrorists, like Sinwar, already planning how to use their new freedom to kill more Israelis.

I know today is supposed to be all about joy, people are very angry at me for saying these things but I spend so much time in the Otef that I can't not see this bigger picture and all the red flags. The fear is that like Ahashverosh in the Purim story people will say well that's that then, all over, war aim accomplished, nothing to see here. And the people of the Otef will be screwed over again and Hamas, already striving to reassert its iron hold on Gaza, will be left to rebuilt and rearm (Qatari money, Turkish construction companies) counting down to the next Oct 7, the next round of hostage taking, the next invasion of Israel.

As though two years ago the Nuhba death squads weren't halfway to Beer Sheva and this close to rampaging through Ashkelon. The fact that Israel capitulated in the end to negotiating with Hamas, to freeing murderers, to giving hostile, Muslim Brotherhood affiliated states like Qatar and Turkey key roles in supposedly creating a future peaceful settlement in the region is very concerning and in Hamas quarters is seen as victory.

And yes, I'm beyond grateful to Hashem that the live hostages have been released, but I'm also beyond concerned that people are so glad they will forget the dead hostages still being held and worse, forget that Hamas and friends still want to finish the job they started on Oct 7 2023.

So yes, we can celebrate today but it has to be with the understanding that this isn't the end of the story and even if this deal creates some kind of ceasefire for now, Israel can't relax its guard, must remain vigilant against the multiple threats still looming, or else we are back to the Oct 6 mentality.

Refael Fahimi, 63, Netanel Maskalchi, 36 and Refael Meir Maskalchi, 12

The massive barrage of thousands of rockets fired by Hamas into Israel starting at 0629 on the morning of October 7 2023 was meant to be cover for the Hamas invasion, a distraction to keep Israelis confined to their shelters or otherwise seeking cover, easy targets for the marauding Hamas gunmen. The rockets were also cover for the Hamas destruction of the border fence, border cameras, sensors and other defensive measures on the Israeli side meant to prevent terrorist incursions into Israel.

So intense was the Hamas rocket fire that in mere minutes the Iron Dome anti-missile defense batteries ran out of ammunition. I heard from so many local Otef residents how the day started with the thud-explosion of interceptions, Iron Dome batteries valiantly trying to intercept the Hamas rockets, and then within minutes the sound changed to the thud thud thud of rockets striking Israel, having overpowered Iron Dome with the sheer intensity of the Hamas rocket barrage, over 3,500 fired on that first day.

With thousands of Hamas terrorists ambushing anything that moved on the roads and many forward bases either under siege, overrun or desperately fighting off the invaders, it was difficult for Iron Dome batteries to get fresh ammunition to continue fending off the Hamas rocket onslaught. At least one Iron Dome commander was killed by Hamas as she desperately took a jeep and attempted to make a dash for a nearby base to resupply her battery.

There was massive damage across the region, but one of the worst rocket strikes was on a house in the Otef town of Netivot, where three generations of one family were killed in their home by a Hamas rocket. Their story gets lost in the hundreds and hundreds of horrific stories of that day, but it brings home the many layers of Hamas terror unleashed upon Israeli civilians on October 7, just how many were murdered in their own homes, even in towns like Netivot which successfully held off the Hamas invasion but were still pummeled with deadly rockets.

Refael Fahimi, 63, Netanel Maskalchi, 36 and Refael Meir Maskalchi, 12, a grandfather, son-in-law and grandson had rushed home from the Simhat Torah prayer service at their synagogue on the morning of October 7th 2023 when a Hamas rocket hit their home, killing all three of them. Young Refael Meir was just a few weeks away from celebrating his bar mitzva.

Fahimi was the father-in-law of Netanel and the grandfather of young Refael Meir.

In one instant, Chana Maskalchi lost her father, her husband and her son. 

Being human

Mr Rogers said to look for the helpers, Kalonimus Kalman Szapiro, the rabbi of Piaseczno in pre-war Poland and the rabbi of the Warsaw Ghetto, said be the helper, take your own sorrow and troubles and use that negative energy to help someone else.

As we approach the two year anniversary of October 7th I feel more than ever that this is the story of Israel in the wake of this horrific pogrom invasion.

Yesterday a volunteer group leader stood up at the end of the morning's work and quoted the famous quote from Rabbi Hillel in Pirkei Avot "In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man" in reference to the way Israel has literally pulled itself up from the roots up, reborn from the depths of grief and pain by the common people who rose up and did what had to be done to repulse the Hamas invasion and the subsequent assaults on Israel from all sides, from the soldiers to the medics to the farmers to the most ordinary of people who found ways to help, feed, clothe, rebuild, drive and simply comfort.

Some say that it's a critique on the leadership, if there is no one to "be the man" then you must try to take on the role. But I see it differently, in a time of confusion and chaos and more than anything profound shock, don't wait for someone to come and take charge, to tell you what to do, be cognisant of the needs around you and do what you can, if it's feeding people or offering a kind word or jumping in your car to get people to safety or just calling on the elderly and mentally ill to make sure they are OK in turbulent, dangerous times.

More than anything this is what Israel exemplifies. How ironic that our people is so hated, excoriated and vilified today when more than anything our ethos teaches us to be the change for good in the world, to rescue, to help, to care for those in need, to be the first to help at home and abroad in times of natural disaster and tragedy, to run to offer assistance when everyone should rationally run from the danger. This is the ethos Israelis are raised on and which is ingrained in our culture. And it is the ethos which has enabled our nation to survive the attack of October 7th after millennia past of persecution and suffering.

Erev Yom Kippur a couple of the groups I volunteer with went down to a small religious moshav in southern Israel to help pack aravot (willow branches) for use the upcoming Sukkot holiday.

We were the usual very mixed group: a retired Hebrew grammar teacher and a paramedic who used to be the medic for one of Israel's leading football teams. A secular tour operator who's son and daughter-in-law miraculously survived the Nova massacre and a few hesder yeshiva students who were volunteering to honour the memory of so many fallen fellow hesdernikim. A retired Egged bus driver (who happily spent the time chatting to a current private bus driver as the two of them packed aravot). A retired biologist on the cusp of turning 90 and a young woman who's just made aliya and moved to a nearby kibbutz. The two bus drivers driving the volunteer mini-buses - one Jewish, a former kibbutznik now living in a big city, the other Muslim Arab. Religious Jews and secular Jews, non-Jews.

All volunteering their time to help a farmer pack his aravot for Sukkot. Because this is Israel, and as much as it can be a chaotic, turbulent place, it is also a nation with an incredibly high degree of mutual responsibility for one another, communal care, volunteering, charity and helping out neighbours. Not because we are perfect, but because as a nation we are doing our best to do better.

The work took place in a covered workspace behind the farmer's house, our groups working close together around tables, an atmosphere conducive to conversation. As we trimmed the branches to size, inspected them for imperfections and packed them in protective sleeves the farmer talked words of Torah, words of thanks and most of all uplifting words about Am Yisrael.

The significance of the well known explanation for the Four Species, the lulav (date palm) which has taste but not smell, the hadas (willow) which has smell but not taste, the etrog (citron) which has both taste and smell and the lowly aravot (willow) which has neither taste nor smell, but without whom the ritual Four Species are not complete.

In Jewish tradition they represent the purpose and need for every member of the Jewish people, those who have Torah learning but lack good deeds, those who do good but do not learn Torah, those who have both, those who have neither. A message of unity, but also a message of understanding for the complexity of any society, but especially our diverse society.

On Yom Kippur we pray together, as a community. As part of our communal prayers we together speak out loud the sins and transgressions of our entire people, anything anyone might have done. As a community we say out loud, we are permitted to pray with sinners, with transgressors.

Just like the Four Species that are part of our Sukkot ritual, so on Yom Kippur we emphasise community, all the different types of people, those who have done good, those who have not, but who are all still part of our nation and our congregation. And we pray together in public, not necessarily knowing who is who, what sins people may have committed or what incredible acts of kindness they may have done. We don't really know if the person praying next to us is Lamad Vavnik, one of the supremely righteous, or an evil person at heart. All we know is we are all part of the same people, standing together before our Creator, and He alone knows what is in our hearts, and He alone is the perfect being.

On October 7th Hamas showed as the depths of evil to which humanity is capable of sinking. But so many other people, Israelis of many ethnicities and faiths, and indeed people from all around the world, showed us the heights of kindness, courage and selflessness of which humanity is capable.

None of us is perfect, but in a place where there are no men, in a place in which Hamas has shown us such inhumanity, Rabbi Hillel tells us to strive to be human, to rise to the occasion instead of being dragged down.

This is my Israel, this is the Israel I see every day, soldiers and civilians, people with moral backbone and great care for their fellow humanity, striving for good.

Please God this Yom Kippur may these great merits of our people outweigh our failings and may Hashem judge us all for the Book of Life, for peace, for the safe return of all those who are missing, for the health and safety of all our soldiers, for the peace, wellbeing and happiness for all in our troubled region.

Gmar Hatima Tova

You are 16 years old and you have a big important exam tomorrow. You know that nerves will make it hard to sleep so you carefully plan your evening, light supper, some light revision with your books just to set your mind at ease, a little gentle exercise with music to help you relax and an early bedtime so you'll hopefully wake up refreshed and focused, ready for the big day.

And then at 1am the blasted Houthi thugs in Yemen launch yet another ballistic missile at Israel and you along with millions of other Israelis are jarringly jolted awake by the alarming staccato of the pre-siren alert (because the missile is coming all the way from Yemen there is more advanced warning that it's on the way).

Half asleep but thoroughly discombobulated you pile into the small home shelter with your family, groggy little ones vaguely grumbling in their sleep about not having enough space as they try to snuggle up with their blankets and cuddly animals. The gawky mid-teen awkwardly trying to find space for his newly longer rangy frame, all the while plugged in reassuringly to his headphones and technology podcast that during these middle of the night alerts offer comfort. While trying to get comfortable he accidentally steps on his older sister who is herself trying to curl up with her pillow and her phone.

When it's all over a sleepy little voice somewhere in the darkness asks "Imma, how did I get here?" and briefly climbs into my lap for a hug. Honestly I can't remember this time, did he sleepwalk in here as usually does when the siren goes or did DH go get him when the pre-alert went or was it one of the big kids? It's all such a blur I can't even recall. The point is that everyone even in the depth of deep sleep is by now so totally used to the expectation of being woken by a siren that they often as not don't even really wake up and can often turn up in the shelter with their eyes still closed, walking over on autopilot. Even dreams are not a safe haven from the reality of missiles.

By Israeli standards there is nothing exceptional about this scene, by now we've all done it so often we really can pretty much do it in our sleep. And we are so much luckier than the many other Israelis who live in older buildings without family shelters so that when the siren goes they have to run to the basement communal shelter with everyone in their building in their PJs, or outside to a public neighbourhood shelter or if there isn't time then just to the stairwell which offers somewhat better protection than other areas.

This should not be "normal".

Pomegranates

 

As last year this has been a busy and very meaningful agricultural season for me helping to package and pick autumn produce related to the Hebrew lunar New Year last week.

None is more emblematic of our hopes and prayers for this coming year than the pomegranate, a fruit that is central to our culture, one of the biblical seven species which hold a special status in Judaism.

Because of the ongoing crisis volunteers continue to be vital in helping local agriculture. The first farm I volunteered on after October 7th 2023 was a kibbutz near my home which has huge tracts of pomegranate orchards and suddenly had few hands available to pick them.

I went to help because they were in desperate need but also because pomegranates were something I knew how to pick. For years we've been going every autumn around Rosh Hashana to pick pomegranates at another local farm, not as a volunteer, but just for the simple joy of spending time in these beautiful orchards at the peak of their glory, and of course the pleasure of choosing our own supremely delicious pomegranates for the traditional autumn festive season fresh from the tree.

So I knew a bit about how to pick premium pomegranates and handle them with the care and respect such fruit requires, though hours of work picking many tonnes of them while worrying about possible rocket attack overhead was of course a very different experience.
Pomegranate thorns can also be brutal. It's one thing if you are just picking a few pomegranates for yourself, it's another when you have a whole tree to clear of fruit and you need to get into all the difficult branches, thorns and all. Long sleeves are a must, as with most citrus trees.

By last year that kibbutz where I volunteered on the pomegranate harvest of October 2023 had manage to organise enough help from pensioners and high schoolers in their immediate area to manage without more help but there were other pomegranate farms further afield who needed volunteers.

Particularly memorable was the adorably scatterbrained ritual scribe of Yemeni descent and his quaintly chaotic organic pomegranate orchard overgrown with thistles on a small village in the south. Somehow despite the apparent neglect of the orchard he produced amazingly sweet giant fruits, most of which he used for juicing. Our volunteer groups both harvested the fruits and did shifts in his ramshackle juicing shed behind the equally ramshackle family home. It was a race against time to harvest all the pomegranates before they burst from ripeness and juice them before they started to go bad. He had orders to fill for the holidays, but this was also an important harvest for the year ahead, with much of the juice frozen to last the whole year until the next harvest.

While we worked he extolled the health benefits of pomegranates in Jewish traditional medicine as handed down to him by his father and grandmother. The orchard was originally planted by his grandfather. He seemed constantly overwhelmed dividing his time between the pomegranates, other farming activities and his work as a scribe. We came home each time covered in sticky pomegranate juice, but also with giant pomegranates he had selected for us as a thank you for our work, symbols of blessing to serve at our holiday tables.

On a neighbouring village just down the road we volunteered to work the pomegranate harvest for another farmer who seemed the polar opposite of the scribe - meticulously organised and fastidious in everything from his clothing to his farm, his orchards in neat well weeded rows set up for the harvest with purpose built canvas baskets mounted on straps for each picker to wear to maximise efficiency, a tractor pulled trailer following us through the long rows of trees so that we could easily deposit our baskets when they were full. He was every bit as grateful and as warm as his more colourful neighbour though, and like him, it was all hands on deck from any family who could help with this big seasonal job.

The first fruits are the premium ones, regal with their crowns, stately elegance that required gentle handling. These were the ones that would go on sale carefully packaged in crates. As the season progressed the pomegranates became more full bodied and developed a deeper ruby colour, but they were also more likely to start to crack. These could be picked much faster as they went for juicing.

And this year? We're still only half way through the pomegranate season. The early varieties have mostly been harvested for Rosh Hashanah, but in October later ripening varieties like the Wonderful pomegranates will be harvested.

At one family farm we were picking pomegranates for donation to Leket, Israel's national food rescue organisation. The family had decided to donate a substantial part of their pomegranate harvest to those in need because this biblical fruit is such an important symbol of the holiday and there are so many families relying on donated food packages this year. At another family farm we picked enough fruit to fill last minute Rosh Hashanah orders and it was gratifying to see the crates of our freshly picked fruit being loaded up to go straight to market to provide people with this holiday staple.

I know I can ramble on a lot more about pomegranates and pomegranate harvests, they have always been one of my favourite fruits but having worked in so many pomegranate orchards in the last two years I love them even more now.

I know I end up spending most of my coffee breaks photographing instead of eating and drinking, they are just so gorgeous in every way, inside and out.

This time of year I can easily just sit down to a whole juicy pomegranate for breakfast or dinner, but it's also a fruit that goes in everything: in salads, desserts, sprinkled on tehina atop grilled vegetables or over desserts, used as syrupy molasses to create delicious fish and meat dishes, especially good with lamb and salmon. As a seasonal touch for festive jewelled rice, in addition to the usual raisins, almond and prunes.

It pairs beautifully with mint to create a light relish like salad or to coat fish. Pomegranate, finely chopped mint and honey are superb as a topping for ice-cream or over raw tehina or yoghurt, just eat with a spoon. A Persian Jewish relative taught me to make her family's Rosh Hashanah lamb-chestnut stew with pomegranate juice and pomegranate molasses, served garnished with pomegranate seeds.

Aside from being delicious and healthy it has such deep cultural meaning. It's an auspicious symbol of blessing, good deeds and fertility that appears in poetry and art since ancient times, from the tiny gold bell shaped pomegranate flowers and pomegranates that the bible describes adorning the High Priest's robe to the romantic descriptions in the Song of Songs and medieval Hebrew liturgical poetry. It can be seen on ancient Hebrew coins, in mosaics decorating ancient synagogues and in stained glass panels in modern ones.

It's traditionally eaten at the Jewish New Year, when we pray that our merits and good deeds may be as numerous as the seeds of a pomegranate so that God may judge the world favourably for a blessed year ahead, and most importantly, inscribe us all in the book of life and peace. If a fruit can also be hope and a prayer that fruit is the pomegranate.

What kind of real life moral and ethical dilemmas do our kids have to deal with on a daily basis?

It's Thursday night, and you are a 13 year-old Israeli starting off the local weekend by spending some quality time with your slightly frail, elderly uncle. You help him with some tidying up for Shabbat and take out his rubbish, and he suggests that going out for a light supper at a local cafe afterwards.

Just as you are sitting down to breakfast for dinner at a coffee shop in the nearby mall the pre-alert goes warning of incoming missile fire to your area. It's a big mall, there are safe areas, but they are a few minutes walk from where you are. You, an athletic, long-legged teen can easily get to shelter in time, especially with the pre-alert which often goes before the siren, extra warning time because the ballistic missile is coming all the way from far way Yemen.

But your elderly uncle? He has arthritic feet and legs plus issues with his back, so he walks at a snail's pace using a walking stick for support. There is no way he can get to shelter in time. Odds are the missile will be intercepted, but there is always a risk that chunks of shrapnel could come down in populated areas and sometimes even Israel's top anti-missile systems can miss, like earlier today when a Yemeni attack drone hit a building in Israel's southernmost city of Eilat.

What do you do? Run to protect your own life or stay with your elderly relative and do your best to help him find some kind of safer area (for example guiding him to an inner corridor away from windows). You can't carry him. Even with help from a kind waiter, you can't move him fast enough.

This was the call Jason and I had from our middle child this evening. "Imma, Abba, I can't just leave Uncle, but he's too slow to get to shelter in time, I don't know what to do, how do I help keep him safe when he's telling me to go save myself but I know he'll feel abandoned?"

How do you tell your child, go save yourself, leave our beloved elderly uncle and make sure you're safe?

This isn't the first time our kids have had to face such an ethical dilemma, caught outside the home when the siren goes, having to decide between running to save their own lives or stay with a slow moving older relative who can't get to shelter in time. Missiles and attack drones are fired at our country on a regular, often daily, basis. It's a fact of life. Our kids are learning these ethical questions as their real life lived experiences, not theoretical dilemmas in a class discussion.

 Do I really care about a restaurant review in London's Time Out magazine?

But it's symptomatic of a much wider, more sinister phenomenon. Israeli agricultural exports to the UK are down by around 20% since October 7. Anti-Israel activists are constantly working to portray anything grown in Israel as ill-gotten gains, "blood avocadoes" or "genocide grapes".

They don't care if these are grown by Jews, Druze or Arab citizens of Israel, I"ve met farmers from many different sectors of Israeli society who've had orders cancelled from Europe. Others have had their British and other European buyers grill them about whether they've served in the IDF or how many Gazan children they've killed or if their fruit was grown on stolen trees.

There is growing pressure on supermarkets not to sell products from Israel, while Palestine activists have taken to staging "actions" in which they raid supermarkets and stick anti-Israel stickers ("product of baby killers" for example) on anything they suspect of being from Israel or kosher. The Co-Op chain says that it will no longer stock Israeli products at all, while a London friend told me that her local green grocer now has a sign that the pomegranates he sells are imported from Iran, that great beacon of freedom and tolerance, not from Israel.

So this Middle Eastern restaurant review is just part of this wider picture. Israel and Jews viewed as irrevocably tainted, evil, immoral, but more than that, spreading the disgusting lie that Israel is a foreign colonial implant, rather than an ancient, intrinsic and authentic part of the Middle East.

Erasing Israel and Jews from a review of Middle East restaurants in London is part of a wider campaign to erase Israel and the Jewish people's origin as a Middle Eastern people and state, wipe out our roots and our historic identity, strip us of our heritage and plant a false myth of the Jew as European nomad.

It is all the more galling because the key component of Jewish identity, the Torah, whether you believe it is a divine sacred text or simply the Jewish people's national, ethnic saga, is entirely grounded in the Middle East. It only truly makes sense in the context of being Middle Eastern literature, from the metaphors based on distinctly Levantine geography and weather patterns to the descriptions of flora and fauna, to the central role of native agriculture and foods like wine and olive oil.

The Bible lists seven special species which have an added sacred connection to the Land of Israel: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. All are central to our ancient cuisine, the rites of the ancient Temple, foods and recipes described in the Tanakh and Talmud. From fig cakes to jujube fruits (sheizafin) to lighting the menorah with olive oil and the Talmud connecting the seed rich pomegranate with being full of good deeds.

This is a culinary culture steeped in the indigenous species and native agriculture of the ancient Middle East, not Europe or anywhere else. This is who we are, a people whom even when exiled far from the cradle of our heritage found solace in dried Middle Eastern fruits brought from their faraway ancient homeland all the while yearning to be home in Eretz Yisrael.

I think of this cultural and psychological war on the Jewish people every week when I'm out in the fields and orchards and greenhouses of modern Israel. The farmers, religious and secular, who maintain the ancient religious laws pertaining to agriculture that only apply to Jewish agriculture in the Land of Israel, the farmer growing pomegranates to donate to Leket so that even the poorest will have pomegranates for their Rosh Hashanah table, the vintner who takes pride in growing an old varietal of grapes used to make the kind of sweet kiddush wine that is much ridiculed today in our age of finer wines and chicer wine grapes.

It doesn't get more Middle Eastern than that. Take that Time Out. OPINION: Why were Israeli establishments left off Time Out's list of best Middle Eastern restaurants? - Jewish News

The last Jewish baby born in Hebron before the 1929 massacre and pogrom against Hebron's Jews

August 24th is the anniversary of the 1929 massacre of the Jews of Hebron by local Arab marauders. 
One of the farmers I volunteer with is the daughter of the last Jewish baby born in Hebron before the 1929 pogrom and massacre of the Jews by Hebron Arabs who'd been incited to violence by the anti-Jewish polemics of Haj Amin al-Hussein, the British appointed mufti (Islamic religious leader) of Jerusalem, and a prominent anti-Semite who later allied himself with Adolf Hitler and aided in the annihilation of Jews.

1929 was during the Palestine Mandate when the region was ruled by the British. Hebron, one of Judaism's most sacred cities, was home to a centuries old Jewish community centred around a core of Torah scholars and famous yeshivot.

Jews and Arabs both lived in Hebron, but the Tomb of the Patriarchs, one of Judaism's most sacred shrines, was controlled by Islamic religious authorities who had turned the site into a mosque and banned Jews from coming any closer than the 7th outside step, as a sign of humiliation instituted during the Mamluk period towards Jews (and other non-Muslims) for not converting to Islam. Some of the Arab clans in Hebron maintained this fiercely disdainful attitude toward Hebron's Jewish community while others had cordial relations with the town's Jews.

My farmer friend's mother was a tiny young baby in 1929. Her family only survived the massacre because their Arab neighbours were friendly to the Jewish community and came to warn them that they had heard other Hebron Arabs planning a massacre of Hebron's historic Jewish community. Their Arab neighbours dressed them in Arab style clothing and smuggled them out to Jerusalem on a wagon, escaping the horrific massacre.

Seventy Hebron Jews were murdered in the pogrom, many others were injured. A few brave Arab families from clans friendly towards the Jews protected their Jewish neighbours and hid them in their homes. The Jewish community was forced to flee Hebron, not just by the Arab violence against them, but because the British decided that the best way to "defuse" the "situation" was to remove all of Hebron's Jews from their homes and expel them. The British enforced similar expulsions of Jews in response to Arab anti-Jewish riots in parts of Jerusalem's Old City and elsewhere in mandatory Palestine.

My farmer friend's family ended up refugees bumping around to various places before finding a new home at the edge of Jaffa and the new city of Tel Aviv. As native Arabic speakers they soon made friends with both the local Jewish and Arab communities, engaging in commerce with both and establishing themselves as pillars of the local community.

One night, just a few months after they arrived in their new home, they heard a noise at the front door and found a baby wrapped in a blanket. One of the family thought they glimpsed an Arab man running away but they were unable to catch up with him. My farmer's friend grandmother picked up the baby and started to breastfeed him alongside her own baby, who would grow up to be my farmer friend's mother.

Just like that my friend's grandmother became a mother to "twins", despite the difference of several months between the two babies noone commented or seemed to notice, as luck would have it my farmer friend's mother was a small baby and the foundling left outside their door was on the larger side.

My farmer friend told me that to the best of her understanding the baby had been left with the Jewish family because he was born out of wedlock to an Arab couple from Jaffa who's parents did not approve of their union, and so marriage was not a choice for them. She told me that her mother's family worked out who the baby probably belonged to, a couple who would have been killed for "family honour" if the pregnancy had been discovered, but despite not being able to be together they wanted to save the baby they had created out of love for each other. The new Jewish family in the neighbourhood who already had a nursing baby seemed like their best option to give a good life to their illicit son.

The farmer's grandmother named the baby Abraham, because Jews and Arabs are both descended from Abraham. He grew up as one of her children, part of this Hebron refugee Jewish family. He married, had children and to my farmer friend was simply "Uncle Abraham" - she never learnt the story of his origins until after his death when her mother explained his history. "I, the last Jewish baby born in Hebron, was saved from an Arab massacre against the Jews by our friendly Arab neighbours. This is why God sent baby Abraham to us, so that we were able to save an Arab baby from an honour killing, the secret baby son of an Arab my father knew. Our lives were saved and we merited saving another life."

From destruction to rebith

"On a day of destruction we're working on restoration"

ביום חורבן עסקנו בתקומה

With these words today's volunteer group leader bid us farewell after a morning's work helping a farmer hard hit by the Hamas assault on Israel in October 2023. To this day there are still some huge pieces of Hamas rockets lying in the yard, remnants of the massive Hamas onslaught which caused such terrible damage to this large farm which grows so many vital staples. Since the war began about 60% of the farm work is done by volunteers.

Today was 17th Tammuz, a fast day of mourning for the destruction of ancient Jerusalem first by Babylon in 586 BCE and then again by Rome in 70 CE.

Symbolically the group I joined today was mostly coming from Jerusalem, the modern thriving rebuilt city representing the return of so many Jews from centuries of exile.

It's not easy to work in agriculture on a fast day, not only for the volunteers, but for the farmer and his family who as traditionally observant Jews were also fasting. We focused on indoor packing and sorting work, out of the searing summer sun.

Almost everywhere I volunteer I meet people from so many different places and backgrounds, there is no one rubric to define the people that go out to help on Israel's farm, no one defining characteristic other than a deep desire to help and a love of Israel.

Today I sorted and packed chili peppers, cherry tomatoes and cucumbers with:

a retired early reading specialist teacher from Jerusalem

a couple of kibbutznikim from a Dead Sea area kibbutz

a retired Jerusalem agronomist who still lectures at Israel's top universities

a nurse from Ashdod

a social worker and a retired post office worker

an elderly gentleman born and bred in Netanya who possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of Israeli archaeological sites

a professor of mathematics born and raised in St Petersburg (then Leningrad) who emigrated to Chicago after the fall of the USSR and regularly visits Israel to volunteer in agriculture

a tour guide from Abu Ghosh

a bus driver from Jerusalem

a receptionist from a Jerusalem area clinic

a young father working in hi tech and his adolescent son

a couple of teachers and a retire nursery school aide

Secular, religious, traditional, left, centre and right. Strangers brought together in common cause to do good.

We have a tradition that one of the causes of the fall of the Second Temple period Jewish kingdom to Rome was due to baseless hatred, internal Jewish feuds and rivalries which weakened the society and made it vulnerable.

Jewish culture centres around discussion and debate, the Talmud is full of people disagreeing with each other, creative thought is ingrained, two Jews three opinions. The question is how we understand this cultural inheritance, do we argue to understand each other or do we disagree on principle and shut ourselves off from hearing people who think differently. Have we learnt the lessons of the disasterous societal divisions that paved the way for the calamity that befell us at the hand of Titus' Rome?

In modern times a tradition has developed focusing on the three weeks of mourning between the fast of 17th Tammuz and the fast of 9th Av to reflect inwards, to encourage dialogue between different communities and ideas, to pay more attention to those we disagree with, to try to really hear.

Over hours of chili peppers and cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbages we talked and got to know one another. It's work that's conducive to conversation, groups of us gathered around long tables facing each other, cooperating on sorting the produce, comparing what was good and what needed to be discarded, organising the packing crates, the stronger insisting that they would do any heavy lifting, the more eagle eyed doing quality control to ensure we were truly helping the farm get the job done to the highest level.

In the year and a half I've been out on farms almost every week with so many volunteers I've seen this dynamic repeat itself so often. It isn't guaranteed. Sometimes you're in a big open field where the work is more individual, less conducive to conversation, in more difficult conditions. But more often than not the task at hand requires team work, helping each other learn a skill, divisions of labour that play to a diverse skill set of the more fit and the less fit, the taller and the shorter, the more observant and the less so.

And that builds communication and dialogue and ice that by mid-morning break down has been thoroughly broken. Strangers looking out for each other, that someone shouldn't lift a heavy crate alone, to watch out for sharp thorns or a particularly rocky field, to make sure to keep drinking lots of water in the heat of the greenhouse or sun scorched field.

By the end of the workday we part as old friends, we who were strangers to one another as we boarded the bus at the break of dawn that very same day.

It is the antithesis of sinat hinam, baseless hatred, the tragedy which led to the Roman destruction of ancient Judea and Jerusalem.

On this 17th Tammuz we remembered the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the horrors that befell our people, but we also actively did something construction to bring about the redemption and renaissance of our people from our painful history and present.

ביום חורבן עסקנו בתקומה

Tammuz 17th

 These days if you are an Israeli or a Jew you have it thrust in your face many times a day from ignorant and hateful people around the world that Jews "have no connection to the Middle East", that our people are colonisers, interlopers, thieves and charlatans.

As a Jew who prays three times a day facing Jerusalem and the ruins of its ancient Jewish Temple, who's annual calendar revolves around the rainy cycle of the Land of Israel an who to this day mourns the destruction of our homeland thousands of years ago, this canard is nothing short of ridiculous, a topsy turvy mirror universe accusation that denies the very meaning of Jewish ethnic, cultural and religious identity through the ages.

Today for example was the fast of the 17th of Tammuz, the day the walls of Jerusalem were breached during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 586 BCE and centuries later, again, during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Both sieges were two of the most cataclysmic tragedies to befall the Jewish people, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem, the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Judah (Judea), the killing of many and the exile of much of the Jewish people from our ancestral homeland, first to the Babylonian empire and Egypt, later also to Rome and elsewhere in Europe, the start of many centuries of constant persecution, pogroms, expulsions, spurious blood libels and scapegoating and worst of all the Holocaust.

Millenia later the fast of the 17th Tammuz marks the start of a Jewish period of mourning leading up to the 9th of Av, the date on which the ancient Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, in 586 BCE by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnetzer and in 70 CE by the Romans under Titus. The assault on the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was an attack on Jewish sovereignty and civilisation, not an accident of the siege of Jerusalem, but a prime target in the attempt of first Babylon and later Rome, to subjugate the Jews, humiliate them and punish them for challenging the might of the region's great empires.

That's right, here and now in the 21st century Jews in Israel and around the world are fasting and mourning the destruction of our ancient capital Jerusalem and its sacred Temple. It is flesh of our flesh, a wound that still bleeds as down the ages the terrible consequences of that terrible day continued to ripple down our agonising history.

On 9th of Av we will sit on the floor as a sign of mourning and read the painfully graphic descriptions in the biblical book of Lamentations, Eikhah, detailing the suffering of our people during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. We read Lamentations in its original Hebrew, the language clear and accessible to speakers of modern Hebrew today. The descriptions are not for the faint of heart, our ancestors agony our agony.

So painful is that memory that even in modern Jerusalem, today rebuilt and developed on a scale our biblical ancestors could not have imagined, we still feel those scars from the assaults by Babylon and Rome, not only as an almost genetic memory but physically in the heart of our ancient capital, where you can still see blackened, singed, huge blocks of stone where they fell from the ancient walls during the Roman sacking of the city two millennia ago.

It feels ridiculous to have to say these things which are so obvious, such a core part of the culture I grew up with, my parents grew up with, my grandparents grew up with, facts ingrained in our ancient Hebrew prayers, our calendar and our very consciousness. An unbroken chain that binds each generation to the one before in common memory.

And yet today I'm finding I have to explain this over and over and over, even to people who I once thought of as friends, who question why my country, my people, have any right to exist.

Yet another reason to fast and mourn this year.

Thousands of Israelis lost their homes to Iranian missiles but thousands more Israelis have mobilised to clear the rubble, fix smashed windows, supply essentials to those who lost everything, furnish temporary accommodations and cook meals for anyone who needs.

Almost a week after the ceasefire and you could get whiplash from the speed with which Israelis have gone back to their regular routines. Streets are clogged with traffic, beaches are crowded (despite the arrival of seasonal jellyfish in many places), kids finally had their end of year graduations, summer camps are gearing up for the end of the school year, plays and shows are back on at theatres and clubs and people are back to holding hostage vigils in public places that are once again crowded.

And here and there as you drive through certain Israeli cities you suddenly come across a damaged street or building, some hoardings with a bombed out building peaking out, some historic old buildings with shattered tile roofs or broken windows, repair work ongoing.

The Weizmann Institute lost its cancer research building to an Iranian missile but the campus has reopened and some of the world's most dedicated scientists and grad students are back to working on making life saving breakthroughs.

The war against Hamas continues. Down in fields and greenhouses near the border you can still hear it, the pursuit of gunmen who helped orchestrate the atrocities of October 7, the dismantling of yet more attack tunnels, weapons caches and booby trapped buildings. Despite the weakening of Hamas the work remains dangerous. In the last week alone more soldiers have fallen in the ongoing fight for Israel's safety. We are acutely aware of the price of freedom and security.

Tomorrow will be a better day

In the scheme of things while our country is at war this is a very minor issue, but for my daughter who has been passionate about Gilbert and Sullivan her whole life this is huge. She's probably one of the greatest G&S experts in Israel, she knows all their productions, the stories of the actors and singers who first performed them, the historical background to when and how they were staged, every detail about the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

She's always dreamt of being part of full production of G&S and this year she finally had the chance, singing in the chorus in one of her favourites, "Yeoman of the Guard". I hear her practicing each day, voice exercises, snippets of songs, accompanying herself on her guitar or piano, devoting

hours of her spare time to getting it just right. She's been so excited (and nervous) about opening night this week, glowing with enthusiasm.

It was already a wartime project, something to focus on away from the news and concern for all her friends currently serving in the military.

Then came this new war. What should have been a dress rehearsal became a remote zoom rehearsal and of course no one knows when they will be able to perform. Opening night should have been tonight.

It feels tone deaf to say any of this right now. People have lost their lives, their homes, been stranded overseas, been stuck for hours in shelters, received yet another emergency call up to the army leaving their families and lives on hold for who knows how long.

And this is sadly a very necessary existential war against a foe who has pledged time and time again to wipe out Israel. When someone keeps saying they want you destroyed and embarks on a programme to develop nuclear weapons and an extensive array of missiles you take that threat very seriously.

But that doesn't change the pang every parent feels at watching our kids' lives turned upside down yet again. These are the kids who's schooling, graduations, teen social lives and so much more were messed up by covid pandemic chaos. These are kids who've lived through so many wars, rockets, terrorism and then October 7th and the ensuing war. So much loss and trauma, so many interrupted and cancelled plans, so many times "normal" life has had to be put on hold.

Things that seem trivial or like frivolities, but really are the little (and often big) things life is made of, the chance to be in a play, an overseas trip, camping with friends, an internship, summer camps, going to see a show or a concert. Simply going out for a run or a bike ride without having to plan the route according to wear one can take cover. Playing in the park without first figuring out if it will be close enough to shelter in case of an air raid siren.

These ordinary and special things, experiences kids should have, but which get cancelled, postponed or adapted. And that last is the key. Because our kids haven't given up, they still plan and dream, they have their eyes on the future. They have learnt to adapt, to be all the more creative, to be resilient. With my own kids, but also when I'm out volunteering or in the park or wherever I meet youngsters so full of resolve, with a sense of purpose and a determination that they will create a better world and a brighter future, they will protect their country and care for those who need caring for. But they will also have fun and enjoy life and find ways to be happy in the now, however difficult that may seem.

So my daughter keeps rehearsing, practices her parts, does her voice exercises. She's going to do this, whether it's next week or next month, the show must go on and she's so looking forward.