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.