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.