Nissim Srussi (not to be confused with the French Jewish singer!) is a pioneering agronomist and wine maker who has spent his life helping agriculture to thrive in Israel's arid south. He grew up on a moshav in the Negev, his family were among the founders of Gush Katif and then decades later had to start from scratch after losing everything in the destruction of Gush Katif. He rebuilt his life in the Negev, creating the Carmei Mevurakh winery and vineyard.

The saline soil in the desert near Beer Sheva where his vineyard is located was so salty that no one believed it possible that anything could be grown there, there were barely any weeds or native wild plants growing there when Nissim decided that this would be the sight for his newest project. Today it is home to a thriving vineyard which is going from strength to strength against the odds, an island of vivid green in the midst of the barren yellow-brown of the dry season desert.

The abundant rains of the most recent winter/spring rainy season have produced a bumper crop this summer, flushing out more of the salts from the ground and nourishing the vines, making them stronger and healthier than ever.

It's been a long road for this small family run and owned kosher winery and vineyard to get to this point. In summer of 2014 Nissim and his family were getting ready to plant 12,000 grape seedlings before Tu B'Av, a crucial planting date the summer before a shmitta year. But then the 2014 Gaza war, Tzuk Eitan, erupted and overnight all the young men in his family who were going to help with the labour intensive task were drated. He was left alone with his wife and two daughters - and the 12,000 seedlings. He thought he was about to lose everything again but his daughter put a post on social media and it was seen by someone from Hashomer Hahadash, one of the organisations helping farmers in need. The next day they sent Nissim 135 volunteers aged from 8 to 80 and within three days the vineyard was planted, just before Tu B'Av.

His extended family are very involved in helping out. During the summer you can meet young and old relatives in distinctive red family Carmei Mevorakh t-shirts coming and going at the vineyard, helping out however they can at this critical time of year.

Since October 7th he has once again suffered from labour shortages, especially during the busy harvest period when he has found himself needing to rely on volunteer help to pick all the grapes.

It was our honour to join the Southern Exposure agricultural volunteer group to help out this summer and learn more about quite literally making the desert bloom.

Grapes of love

The grape harvest is in full swing, incredible how in the middle of our bone-dry yellow-brown summers so much of the countryside is still vivid green because of all the vineyards, growing numbers thriving around the country, even deep in the desert, as they did in ancient times, but more about that later.

Last week was the festival of Tu B'Av, 15th of the Hebrew month of Av. It's a festival dating back to biblical times, a celebration of the grape harvest but also described in ancient sources like the Talmud as a day on which single women would wear borrowed white dresses (so as not to shame anyone who couldn't afford one) and go out dancing in the vineyards to attract a potential suitor. That custom has mostly faded over the centuries, but instead it's kind of morphed into a Jewish festival of romance, lots of music events out in nature (especially in the vineyards of course), wine festivals, romantic dinners, heart shaped cakes in the bakeries, love in the air.

The morning of Tu B'Av was by chance all the first grape harvest I volunteered at this summer. It was in the middle of the Negev desert, wilderness all around and then a vivid patch of green on a couple of low hills - vineyards and even more surprising, right below it a lush field of tall corn. Grown with recycled water.

The Negev region has recently received a wine appellation designating it a distinct wine growing region, as it was in ancient times. There are dozens of successful wineries in the area today, many, like the one I worked at last week, inspired by research into historic grape growing techniques uncovered in archaeological digs. Later in the week I had a chance to learn more about that too, but I think that will have to be another post.
This was the first batzir (grape harvest) of the season at this small family owned and run kosher vineyard winery in the Negev desert.

We were so lucky to have gorgeous weather, part cloudy, a gentle cooling breeze to mitigate the summer sun, all of which made it easier to appreciate the stunning views. Despite the mid-summer heat it was actually quite pleasant in the vineyard, at least for most of the morning. There was a breeze in the hills and the lush vines gave a little shade, especially if you sat on an upturned bucket to pick, low enough to be shaded by the greenery. We started work around just after 6am and finished before 11am, just as the sun was high enough in the sky to produce a fiercer heat.

We were picking Chardonnay grapes, among the earliest to ripen. The Negev is known especially for its white and rose wines, though this vineyard also had some red varieties like Malbec, Marselan, Cabernet Franc and Barbera. I'm not a big wine maven but I'm learning so much from working at vineyards around the country. I think vineyard work has become some of my most favourite agricultural work, from the shaping and maintenance of the vines while they are dormant during the winter to the exuberant summer harvests, there is something so magical about grape vines, whether for wine or table.

Much of the work has a meditative quality to it, wending your way along the long, often extremely long, rows, sometimes in terraces on rocky hillsides, sometimes among lush lowland farmland or plateaux of rick dark soil left by long extinct volcanoes or rocky desert wilderness or even sandy desert dunes. It's stunning to me the variety of environments in which vineyards can thrive, and that's just in my tiny corner of the world. Grape vines are truly remarkable. Picking grapes is very social work, you meet people working the other side of the vine across from you, next to you, conversations naturally strike up, stories exchanged over the gentle clip clip of the pruning shears and the plop of grape bunches into the waiting crates.
We were a diverse bunch that morning, a group of local young people doing a year of post-high school volunteering, volunteers mostly from the Jerusalem area from pensioners to primary school kids, mostly Orthodox Jews, a few Christian tourists from Europe and east Asia, and a group of veiled Bedouin women from a nearby village.
But what about the wines you ask? Well we have been promised tastings next time we come to help with the harvest at this place, hopefully in another couple of weeks. The grapes fresh from the vine are incredibly sweet and delicious.

We watched the opening of the last World Cup, hosted by Qatar, on tv screens set up outside a pavement cafe in the southern Jordanian port city of Aqaba.

A mostly local Jordanian crowd with a smattering of overseas tourists, both Western and Arab, sat together watching the pomp and ceremony and the opening Qatar vs Ecuador game in good spirits, sipping traditional Jordanian coffees and teas, munching on baklava and dates, quite a few puffing away on nargilla hubble bubbles.

The chaos and uncertainty of the pandemic was starting to lift, there was a sense of hope and new beginnings.

Today, the last day of this year's World Cup, Aqaba was targeted by a volley of Iranian missiles, intercepted by US anti-missile defense systems and Israeli Iron Dome systems across the border in Eilat.

War clouds seem to be gathering again over the region, including the Gulf states and previous World Cup host Qatar, which had thought their vast wealth and playing both sides would grant them immunity from any potential Iran war or regional instability.

It was a sweltering day to be working in a greenhouse but it was such a satisfying day's work despite the non-stop shvitz.

My companions were two incredible volunteers who despite physical/health constraints are two of the most enthusiastic and dedicated farm volunteers I know, people with a deep love of Am Yisrael and a smile and friendly word for everyone.

There's something meditative about a straightforward farm job, like trimming leaves from a tomato plant, you have to think, yes, but you get into a rhythm of the familiar and you can immediately see results as the "jungle" of stray leaves and shoots evens out into a colourful neat tapestry of bright cherry tomatoes hanging on the trimmed vines.

Today's work was further enhanced by two podcasts, though admittedly I did not understand a word of the first one because it was entirely in Thai. The presenter had a very pleasant, relaxing voice though. I enjoyed just listening to the music of the language while I clipped and pruned, at once focusing on NOT CUTTING THE STRINGS OR TOMATOES, while being soothed by a monologue in a language with which I have almost no familiarity. The Thai worker listening along seemed very intent on his work and the speaker, when I walked past he was smiling a warm contented smile as he listened and clipped the vines.

The second podcast was playing from the phone of a high school student from the village, a serious young man who works at the farm after school and through the summer.

He was on a channel aimed at helping young people prepare for national service and he was listening to an interview with an educator at a yeshiva pre-army programme talking about his life story and experiences.

It was absolutely fascinating, the man being interviewed (who's name I didn't catch) was deeply thoughtful, someone with great conviction and deeply held beliefs, but also someone who didn't gloss over experiences he found challenging or painful, but instead talked about how he grew from them, how they fashioned his world view and most importantly to him, how they shaped the way he performs his job as an educator who teaches classes in Gemara, Krav Maga and wilderness survivalism.

He said a great many things and if my hands hadn't been busy trimming cherry tomato vines I would have taken notes, but one of the things that stuck with me in particular was his comment that what marks Krav Maga as an Israeli martial art is how it draws from a Sabra ethos of using whatever you have to hand to protect yourself, a shoe, sand, and likewise survival skills are predicated on knowing how to make full use of your environment, being able to create what you need from what there is, not from what you wish you had.

He said spiritual, mental and soul survival should be thought of in the same way. What resources do you have to hand? What can you use to build up your mental and spiritual strength when you need to? Everything you have experienced, everyone you've ever met, all your knowledge, all the history of those who came before you, so many tools that people often fail to see or lack the creativity to explore or think about, even when maybe they are right in front of them.

I asked the youngster what he hopes to do during his army service. He answered with a slight air of bewilderment because this is the most obvious thing in the world: he wants to be a combat soldier when he finishes secondary school so that he can protect his home and community located near the Gaza border.

I'm frankly way too sleep deprived from air raid sirens at all hours of the day and night because Iran is firing ballistic missiles at densely populated civilian areas in several US allied Middle Eastern countries but after seeing post after post like this I feel like I have to say something as someone in the Middle East looking at the discourse in Europe and North America from afar. Those of us in countries like Bahrain, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman look at how the enlightened countries of the West are happy to enable the Iranian regime to spread death and destruction across the Middle East, caring only about whether they will have to pay more for oil. Who cares how many ballistic missiles armed with cluster munitions Iran lobs at densely populated civilian areas and international airports (leaving thousands stranded), as long as the price of gasoline doesn't go up. It kind of reminds me of bumper stickers from the 1973/4 oil shocks caused by a different Mid East War: "If you're cold this winter burn a Jew". I really right now don't care who the US president is when it comes to dealing with the Iran threat, if he's a progressive Democrat, if he's Trump, this should not be a partisan issue. The Iranian regime (distinct from the long suffering Iranian people) has been a major destabilising force in the Middle East and the world for decades now. It is a major sponsor of brutal jihadi groups like Hizballah with its horrific stranglehold on Lebanon, Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen who've been terrorising international shipping in the Bab al Mandab straits and the Red Sea for years now, as well as inflicting terrible suffering on the people of Yemen. In recent months the IRGC and affiliated militias have murdered tens of thousands of Iranians who dared to protest against the tyranny of the regime. All over the world there are thousands, millions, or Iranians who fled this cruel regime and are begging Western countries to help them bring freedom, safety and stability to their homeland. Is this possible? I don't know, but their testimony of the horrors wrought by Khamenai's government show how One of its chief aims since the 1979 revolution has been the destruction of Israel, a country with which it does not even share a border and with whom Iran had warm relations prior to the revolution. As a Shii fundamentalist regime it has targetted its Sunni neighbours, stirring up terrorism, wars and instability across the Middle East, with massive death tolls, all sparked by the extreme ideology of the Iranian regime and the IRGC. Learning from Iraq's use of Scud missiles as terror weapons during the Iran-Iraq war, the Iranian government has dedicated huge resources to the mass production of ballistic missiles and drones to terrorise the civilian populations of nearby Sunni countries and Israel in the present, but also to work on developing longer range missiles to threaten Europe and even the US in future. Iran has used its missile and drone expertise to help Russia in its war against Ukraine, building drone factories in Russia and helping to kill and maim vast numbers of Ukrainian civilians and decimate Ukrainian towns and cities. And then there is the Iranian regimes nuclear weapons programme. This isn't WMDs in Iraq all over again, this is a real and present danger, not just to Israel, which I understand many in the west would be happy to see nuked along with her 10 million citizens, what the Iranian leadership likes to call a "one bomb country", because Israel is so small, just a couple of nuclear warheads could wipe out its entire population, but because a nuclear Iran could more easily hold the world to ransom - imagine a crisis over oil tankers getting through the Straits of Hormuz if Iran already had viable nuclear warheads to fix to its long range missiles aimed throughout the Middle East, at Europe, at southern Asia. The Iranian government's single minded focus on all of these projects have made it a real time threat not just to its neighbours, not just to Israel, but to the world at large, yes, to you in the West, in North America, in Europe, in Australia, NZ, Japan, Korea - wealthy industrial nations who worry about the price of oil and the impact on their economies. Yes, you can all keep appeasing Iran, let them wreak havoc across the Mid East as long as you get your oil, but the wars and instability will catch up to you and your economies because like it or not, you all have important economic interests in the Middle East, whether it's Gulf oil and gas or Israeli innovation and R&D. From medical technology to agricultural innovation to computer chips to cyber security, Israel is an important part of the global economy contributing to the world in a myriad ways that improve standards of living, promote growth and create jobs, including in the US and Europe. Western countries have an interest in Israel not being wiped off the map by Iran. It is detrimental to the global economy when Iran threatens international oil and gas supplies but it is also detrimental to the global economy when one of the world's top technological innovators, major R&D centres and huge start up generators is under fire from ballistic missiles. Likewise when a major banking centre like Manama, Bahrain is being targetted or a business hub like Abu Dhabi.

More traditional spring skies - flocks of migrating storks, pelicans, cranes, alpine swifts and swallows, myriad raptors and song birds travelling over Israel on their long journeys between Africa and Eurasia. A sure sign Pesah is almost here. Such a joy to look up to the sky and see the birds doing their thing as they do every spring come war or covid and whatever other crazy thing is turning our human lives upside down.

Love and fava beans

 

So what did I do today? Joined several groups of volunteers helping out on an Iranian-Israeli (Jewish) family farm in the heart of Israel sorting and shelling fresh ful (fava) beans with a friendly Iranian-Israeli woman who came to Israel from Yezd when she was a teenager more than 50 years ago.

As we worked conversation flowed, Pesah customs and recipes, like Persian green rice with fava beans, "traditional women's talk" that made us feel grounded and connected with our female ancestors from Jewish history, sitting in a circle, assorted Jewish women of different ages and backgrounds, preparing vegetables from the farm for the upcoming holiday.

The farmer's mother stopped by to say hello, chatting for a while in Farsi with my work companion. She also brought with her a still steaming dish of freshly cooked fresh green fava beans for us to taste, a seasonal delicacy, a sign of spring, for the fresh ful season is short. In some communities dishes like this are traditional for Pesah, in others we refrain from eating beans on Pesah, but either way, fresh green ful in the market stalls is a sign of spring in Israel.

And from time to time we got alerts of incoming Iranian missiles and work stopped while we all made our way to the big central shelter in the centre of the moshav village, Jews of all kinds, including those with Iranian roots, non-Jewish migrant workers, Arabs - we all get the Home Front Command alerts on our phones, everyone takes cover together, knowing that Iranian missiles target us all.

On the bus home I sat up front near our Arab driver. He worried about incoming missiles while we were on the road. Worried that I get off at a major junction that's out in the open without close shelter (I knew a friend was giving me a lift from the bus stop so I wouldn't be standing around waiting, not to worry).

The people sitting up front talked about cancelled Pesach plans and vacations, cancelled Eid ul Fitr (the Muslim holiday concluding Ramadan which just finished) plans and trips, life put on hold by the war, spur of the moment ad libbed plans to keep living within the strange new rubric of this war. Strangers, friends and acquaintances, but all with a deep genuine empathy for each other's experiences because we are all in this war together, we all get it, understand each other despite our different communities.

"Safe journey, quiet journey", "Good tidings", "peace" we call out to each other as people get off at their stops. They aren't just words, but blessings and wishes from the heart.

When a missile siren stopped work yesterday at the farm where we were volunteering everyone, regular farmworkers and volunteers, piled into the shelter and the regional Leket farm volunteer coordinator took out his guitar and started a musical singalong Tehillim (Psalms). People joined in, religious, secular, Jew and non-Jew, whether they knew the words or just hummed along. That spirit was a distillation of how we live with the constant existential threat hovering over our everyday lives. No matter how good (and they are incredibly good) our anti-missile defenses, we still know that our enemies have some pretty huge and destructive arsenals aimed at our population centres, and worse that Iran's leadership and IRGC, Hizballah and others are consumed by the hatred required to use these weapons against us. So it's not that we aren't aware that there is a risk of one of these terror weapons hitting, it's that we have faith in the dedication of those protecting us. We will not be cowed, this is our home, our heritage, we are determined to live in the best way that we can. Our ancient ancestor, King David, had a life filled with trouble, with enemies out to get him, but he found time and inspiration to write the sublime poetry of Psalms, to find strength in song, to appreciate the good around him even in the darkest of situations.

 I don't know whether to laugh or cry when people overseas decide to lecture me on 1) "just stop this mutual baseless hatred with Iran" and 2) "war is bad". 

Because someone in the West who has never experienced war or living with missiles being lobbed at them clearly needs to explain to the person who's lived through years of it what war is like. We here wouldn't have a clue otherwise. We'd think it was hunky dory fun and games and glory. Not like we live in a country where running for shelter from ballistic missiles is a fact of life or where there is a national draft and people spend the cream of their young years serving their country. 

Forgive the sarcasm, but it's really getting a bit much to be lectured on how to best to protect our lives by people on the other side of the world who's main concern is the price of petrol and whether war looks bad on tv, rather than whether an Iranian missile is going to hit their home or whether Iran will get to have the nukes they keep promising to use to wipe our country off the map. 

War is horrific, but sometimes not fighting a war has even more horrific consequences. 

Which brings me to #1. There is no "mutual hatred" of Iran from Israel or even from most Iranians I've ever met. There is a fanatical revolutionary regime in Iran though which for 40 years now has been teaching its schoolchildren every day to chant "Death to Israel", and who's leaders burn with a passionate ideological hatred for Israel, believing the existence of a non-Islamic, let alone non-Shia state in the Middle East to be an affront to their faith and an impediment to the coming of the Twelfth Imam, meaning Israel must be destroyed to hasten the coming of the Mahdi and their version of "end times". 

By contrast prior to Khomeini's revolution in 1979 Israel enjoyed diplomatic relations with Iran, the two countries had close ties, include direct flights, tourism and commerce. 

Jews have had ties with Iran going back to the ancient Persia of biblical times, whether it's the Persian court drama of the Purim story or the Cyrus proclamation that allowed the Jews exiled by the Babylonian empire to return home to Zion and rebuild Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple with the Persian king's blessing. 

There is a mutual respect and affection between Iranians and Jews, two ancient Middle Eastern people still clinging to ancient language and culture that predate the Arab Islamic colonisation of our region, our countries dotted with ruins testifying to millennia old civilisations, spoken Farsi and Hebrew stubbornly preserving languages spoken by our ancestors. I have seen so many messages about this from Iranian people, both living as emigres in the global Iranian diaspora and from within Iran. 

There are huge numbers of Farsi speaking Jews hailing from Iran, Afghanistan and central Asia, including a significant and influential community in Jerusalem dating back around 200 years, among the builders of the first neighbourhoods outside the walls of the Old City. 

There are many Israeli Jews who have Persian Jewish ancestry, including senior politicians, rabbis and military leaders, as well as beloved popstars like Rita and Liraz Cherkhi. Iran is not some vast unknown to many Israelis, but a living culture that is part of their lives too. 

So no, this is not a war about peoples hating each other, ignorance of other cultures or a need for everyone to just learn to love each other. There is a serious ideological motivation for the Khomeinist Iranian leadership to oppose Israel, just as there is a serious historical cultural connection and mutual appreciation between many Israelis and the Iranian people. 

The deepest hope of the peoples of Israel and Iran is that this murderous Khomeinist regime will fall or at least be weakened enough so that our countries can again openly and officially be friendly with each other, to the mutual benefit of all.

 We are already on to Pesah, but the message remains the same. Many times in history we haven't been able to, "allowed to", defend ourselves against a genocidal tyrant intent on wiping out our people. Purim and the Exodus from Egypt are two very different instances where our people were able to resist genocidal decrees and with God's help save ourselves from annihilation. At their core they are festivals of remembrance and thanksgiving, messages that are relevant more than ever as we go into yet another wartime Pesah.

 Window open to listen to the balm of rain, the natural kind involving water falling from clouds, pattering down outside, inhaling the soothing petrichor scent. I think I can hear all the plants and trees outside sighing with relief and contentment after a prolonged bout of dry weather in what should still be our region's rainy season.

(can also hear the deafening roar of jets, we are still in the middle of a war, but one can dream)

 

The Iranian regime and its Hizballah proxy army in Lebanon have been taking a leaf out of the Houthis playbook - how to cause maximum destruction, or at least chaos, sleep deprivation and disruption to as many civilians as possible using the minimum number of missiles and drones from their dwindling stocks.

Instead of being able to send over barrages of dozens or even hundreds of missiles in one go like they did last June, this time they seem to have far fewer missiles so they tend to send over small numbers, even just one or two, but as often as they can fire, creating constant air raid sirens and keeping Israelis on edge as to whether they can dare pop out for a moment to get groceries or drive to a doctor's appointment or go to work or take a shower or bathe the baby.

Many of the missiles are equipped with cluster warheads which detonate in midair scattering small bombs in all directions over a wide area, further increasing the areas that can be threatened by even one or two missiles.

So it was a challenging day's work for our little group of farm volunteers, several times having to stop work and rush over to the nearest miguniot (prefab concrete shelters) and then wait to get the all clear notice that it was safe to come out again, return to work for a while, then another alert, and so on.

We were glad the drive to and from the farm was quiet, the previous time we'd had to pull off at the nearest village to find shelter when the alert went off while we were on the road.

Life is crazy, tense and uncertain at the moment, but I'm glad we're able to do something to help the country get through this, and I'm also glad that in the midst of all this we are still able to find ways to laugh, to smile, to banter with friends and acquaintances over a day's work or while sheltering together in a migunit.

That kind of night to go with that kind of day, that kind of week, that kind of fortnight...

People keep asking how we're doing and I'm not really sure how to answer that, but ever since that first long Shabbat of the war in and out but mostly in our home shelter, versions of this song have been going through my head each time the siren goes.

While we are grateful our home has a shelter and we don't have a mad dash in our PJs to a public shelter, it is also a rather small shoebox sized shelter.

Fitting seven of us (and sometimes eight or nine) inside requires advanced Tetris skills as we call out Waltonesque style to check that everyone is inside and we can shut the heavy blast door as the siren wails outside.

Even within the thick concrete walls you can clearly hear the booms of interceptions and explosions, often from a considerable distance.

We can usually arrange ourselves in a way that allows us all to sit down more or less comfortably. It is not a place where one would ever consider dancing the Hokey Cokey or anything else. But one does most definitely need to stretch and shake it out after squishing together within its confines.

You take the whole family in

The whole family out

In

Out

Shake yourselves all about

You listen to Pikud Haoref

And you turn around

That's what it's all about

Oh Iranian missiles

Oh Hizballah missiles

Oh Hizballah drones

Knees bend

Arms stretch

Arghhh arghhh arghhh Because even when it feels like we live on a rollercoaster built over an active volcano, sometimes you just have to laugh. This has become our shelter song. Along with a great many Psalms.

Among the many places where fragments of Iranian missiles fell today: Jerusalem's Old City, including on the Temple Mount near the Muslim Dome of the Rock shrine and next to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Iranian ballistic missiles are huge, even "fragments" of these missiles can be very large. I was talking to a devout Muslim friend from Jerusalem and he mentioned that one of the large fragments fell on a roof near a relative's home in an adjacent neighbourhood. He said God was watching over all the faithful today in Jerusalem: Christians, Jews and Muslims, because it was a miracle that noone was hurt. It was a reminder that we are all His children.

Six years ago, March 2020, was a Purim overshadowed by the arrival of the pandemic with its lockdowns and quarantines, its air of global apocalypse looming over everyday lives brought to a sudden screeching halt. 

I saw a lot of people collapsing into depression, panic, profound fear, as normal routine turned into a bizarre life of zoom work and school, staying close to home, closely following the news. People raged over school closures, over what to do with juggling working and having the kids home, and the general chaos of it all.

It was incredibly stressful to be sure, but I remember then saying to friends to try to roll with it, remember that life has a way of throwing curve balls and people are more resilient than they realise, we'll get through it. Look for the broader picture. How many of us are the children or grandchildren of people who's lives were similarly turned upside down by war, having to flee their homes, displacement. Some of them missed years of school. Some of them had to then pick up school in a country speaking a different language. But they turned out OK, made successful lives, were educated, raised families, worked, lived, laughed. 
And this is just as relevant 6 years later. This time schools are closed because of the war, the missiles and drones fired from Iran and Hizballah controlled areas of Lebanon. We aren't under quarantine but still staying close to home, kids have zooms and remote learning, parents who can are trying to work from home, others are out to work with kids at home. It's weirdly like the covid times but with missiles instead. I came across a photo from that insane March 2020, the younger kids dressed up as Marvel superheroes playing together, big smiles, big poses. "Imma, we're saving the world!!" Six years later my kids are still trying to save the world. It's interesting how much is inate personality and how much is the circumstances of their formative years. Now they have real superheroes to dress up as whom they dream of emulating when they grow up - Pikud Haoref search and rescue, Magen David Adom and Hatzola first responders and paramedics, police and firefighters helping to keep us safe, Iron Dome and Hetz anti-missile defence teams protecting our skies. I see the reverence in their eyes when they meet someone in a paramedic's uniform or the orange berets of Home Front search and rescue. Real people who's jobs or volunteering is truly about saving the world, saving life, keeping us safe. This is who my kids aspire to be when they are old enough. Not just because every kid at some stage wants to be a firefighter or a police officer, but because this is their reality, this is how they are growing up, with profound understanding that these are the people who's dedication allows us to live our lives despite the threats all around. Real people saving real people from very real threats.

In recent day's Iran proxy army in Lebanon, Hizballah, has joined in the fray, bombarding northern Israel. Tonight the assault has been non-stop and especially intense.

For me this is especially personal, not just because I'm an Israeli, but because of the amount of time I've spent on farms in the area in recent years.

I see the red alerts flash up on my phone and the place names aren't just place names.

Goren where we picked lemons.

Beit Hillel where they grow wonderful pecans.

Mughar where we've helped a disabled Druze IDF veteran harvest olives while his sons were all on active reserve duty.

Vineyards near Nov where a young second generation moshavnik has planned a beautiful vineyard in memory of Israel's fallen.

Yardena where there was an elderly farmer growing cucumbers who passed away just this year and now his son is running the farm.

Metulla, Kfar Yuval and Margaliot where we've pruned fruit trees and picked apricots, plums and peaches.

Kibbutz Tzivon from where I had a long phone call last summer from a farmer growing grapes in desperate need of help to bring in his harvest.

Mitspe Av"iv where a father who's soldier son was killed in a terror attack while he was taking the bus home has planted a communal olive grove on a windswept hillside surrounded by wild native Galilee woodland, a shared space for all the communities in the area, Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze, to come together and honour his son's memory in friendship - and in growing olives for olive oil.

Tzippori where we waded through crates of overripe vegetables and fruits that weren't picked in time, trying to salvage produce that could be cooked or turned into sauces for those in need.

If you want to meet a hero, some of the bravest are the farmers of northern Israel who have continued to work the land and provide for the country even under constant Hizballah assault.

I apologise that it's taken me so long to respond to everyone who's gotten in touch to see how we are doing. I think many others have probably answered this far more eloquently than I have, but I also know that many of you don't know other people in Israel, so I'll try to give my take.

I don't even really know how to answer that because what do I say, yes, it's uncertain, frightening, stressful to have the martyrdom obsessed IRGC lobbing ballistic missiles at you? But also thank God we're all home, we're together, our home has it's own (tiny) shelter, mostly we're just discombobulated from constant alerts and sleep deprivation and gah, kids are back to covid era style "remote learning" and zoom school while adults are trying to work from home.

The first answer sounds like we're in terrified panic mode (we aren't, concerned yes, but we've been living with wartime for years now). The second answer sounds glib, making light of a very serious situation (we're not, but we know to count our blessings and see the dark humour in this as well)

And really both are true to different degrees, considering the severity of the situation most Israelis, us included, are getting on with getting on as best we can. It doesn't mean it isn't scary, but it also doesn't mean that everything is frozen because of the war.

Uncertainty is always difficult, just as we saw during the lockdowns and ever change regulations during the pandemic. There is something of that same feeling of constantly having the rug pulled out from under our feet.

For example this week we were meant to be attending several weddings, but with restrictions on the size of public gatherings due to the risk of missile attacks, all of those weddings had to be reduced to about 50 close family and some of the young couples' friends while everyone else attended remotely by live stream. In some cases the young couple even postponed the event because their parents or other close family are trapped overseas, unable to get home to Israel or drafted on emergency call-ups. I know in the scale of the horrors of war this sounds trivial, nothing compared to people who's homes were hit, but it's just one measure for how people's lives have been turned upside down by the ripple affects of the missile and drone war.

So how are we? Back on the rollercoaster? Well, to state the obvious, our country has been targeted by Iran and it's proxies so many times in recent years, from Hamas rockets and assaults from Gaza, Hizballah missiles and attempted incursions from Lebanon, Houthi missiles and the blockading of Israeli shipping through the Red Sea, missiles and drones from Iranian backed militias in Syria and Iraq and more recently direct missile and drone assaults from Iran itself. To paraphrase one of Israel's most well known singer-songwriters (think an Israeli Bob Dylan) "We survived Pharoah, we'll get through this too."

That is kind of the meta mindset though, the big picture of huge events happening around us, news flashes and on the grand scale, the unimaginable awfulness of war.

But all around that is the day to day lived experience of what in Israel is known as "emergency routine", otherwise known as trying to live life as normally as possible with the impossible happening all around.

An elderly relative has specialist appointment at a hospital in another city scheduled months ago, he needs this appointment, but do you risk another family member to drive him when there have been a lot of missile attacks in that area and there is a real risk of falling intercept shrapnel on open intercity roads where there are few options to take cover? Do you risk transporting an elderly person knowing that if the siren goes in an open area there is no way he will be able to quickly exit the vehicle, maybe climb over a highway barrier, certainly not get down flat on the ground?
What about the kids? On the one hand they have grown up with the threat of rockets, of shelter drills and sirens. The last three years have been the most intense, and the war with Iran in particular has included some of the most time we've spent in shelters, but still, it's part of the reality they've lived with their whole lives. 

And still, more than fear I think is the frustration of their lives being turned upside down and so much put on hold all over again. Like my current high schooler says, they had a rough deal through covid, then came October 2023 and just as things seemed to be becoming more "normal" again, came this war, and once again school is out, exams, including matriculation exams, are postponed (there was an attempt this week for them to sit some of the exams in a shelter but fortunately common sense prevailed that we don't need a class of kids sitting for a three hour exam in a shelter, especially with the odds that they'd been woken several times during the middle of the night by alerts). 

It's been crazy busy, everyone home, everyone is always hungry. I need to put together a recipe/food shopping guide for what to feed kids in shelters, specifically in shelters in which there is no room to move once everyone is inside and considering that it's just a few weeks to Pesah. The entire country pretty much is sleep deprived, our bodies constantly on alert to dash to a shelter if necessary. Every car engine and whine of a household appliance sounding too similar to the wail of an air raid siren or the cacophony of the phone's emergency alert noise. People are exhausted from constantly feeling wired, they are exhausted from sirens at all hours of the night and day, they are exhausted from the need for constant readiness, never being able to stand down because someone could be firing something at us at any time. But with that all we are a people and a country with a long view of history. We know who we are, we know why tragically sometimes we have no choice but to fight and we are determined to defend our homes. More than anything we are resilient and resourceful, we have a high level of social cohesion, meaning that while we argue and debate all the time, we also deeply care about the people around us and will go to great lengths to help our fellow Israelis, of any creed, whether it's supporting those who've lost their homes to Iranian missiles or volunteering in everything from clearing missile impact sites to doing farm work to cooking meals for our soldiers and first responders. These are difficult times, but we have faith that tomorrow will be a better day.

All over Israel farms continue to need help from volunteers.

For the first few days of the war Home Front Command instructed volunteer groups like Leket to stay home, there was concern about buses of volunteers getting caught by Iranian missile fire and falling shrapnel from intercepts on open roads and in the open countryside.

A few days ago though guidelines were given for small groups of volunteers to go out to farms again, as long as they had shelters in case of missile attacks.

Last night was a sleepless night for many Israelis who were repeatedly jarred awake by missile and drone alerts from Iran and their proxy Hizballah in Lebanon. We gave up on running back and forth and just squished into our mamad (home shelter) as best we could. As my daughter put it, kind of like trying to sleep while playing Twister.

Despite the sleep deprivation though groups of volunteers were up at 0500 or earlier to make their way to farms in need around the country.

I joined a group I often volunteer with from Jerusalem, mostly pensioners, who've been supporting local agriculture since Hamas invaded in October 2023. Today's volunteers included several retired nurses, a retired Egged bus driver, retired teachers, a semi-retired librarian, a tour operator, a semi-retired agronomist and someone recovering from recent knee surgery, still walking with a cane.

This is an experience group of farm volunteers who've been all over the country, but most of all spent time helping farms in the Gaza border area.

We know the drill, what to do if a siren sounds while we're on the road. We know that in the current situation the first thing to do when we arrive at a farm is to make sure we know where the shelter is.

We have stories to tell from various war time sirens involving taking cover in muddy roadside ditches and lying flat in an orchard where the ground was covered in over ripe avocadoes. All things considered these have been very rare occurrences despite the many many hours we've logged on the roads and in farms in front line areas.

Shortly after arriving at the agricultural packing centre today in south-central Israel we were joined by another small group of volunteers, also mostly pensioners, but from Tel Aviv. In autumn 2023 we were strangers, by now we've run into each other volunteering at the same farms so many times that we are all familiar faces.

And there was just so much work to be done today: crates upon crates upon crates of all kinds of produce freshly picked or waiting in the refrigerator room from yesterday or the day before. Fruits but mostly vegetables to be sorted into premium and seconds quality categories, cleaned and sometimes trimmed and finally packed ready for delivery to customers around the country, some paying customers, others for donation to people in need.

We were relieved that the workday went by without sirens. We had an alert about missiles launched from Iran on the drive back and pulled off to find shelter in the nearest moshav village, but fortunately for us the sirens missed us and we were able to continue on our way.

I won't say that there was no trepidation in heading out on intercity roads at the moment, but there was also comfort in what has become a familiar routine.

Most of all there is strength in being able to do something to help our people in these difficult times, however small that something is in the scheme of things, it's important to be able to find a way to do.

This is very much the ethos of Israel, to be the helper, not to stand by but to make a difference and this goes double and triple for times of crisis or war.

There are volunteers all over the country, many in much riskier areas, who are going out to support farmers, who are helping clear up sites where missiles or missile fragments have hit, who are volunteer medics and first responders, who are sheltering people who's homes were damaged, people offering their gardens or homes to young couples who's weddings would otherwise be cancelled because of the limitations on public gatherings, volunteers who are cooking up vast quantities of home cooked meals for anyone affected by the war, including thousands of those who've had emergency call-ups, and of course Israelis all over the country who are volunteering to go out and deliver assistance to anyone who needs it, even when there are air raid sirens and so much uncertainty. This is the backbone of Israeli resilience.

Thanks to all our friends and family overseas who have reached out to us and my apologies if I haven't responded to everyone, it's been rather hectric around here.

I'm not online a lot these days, I find I have less patience for it than I used to and there is a weird cognitive dissonance in reading people around the world theorising from the safety of their distant countries about whether I and my people have a right to self-defense or whether we should just politely capitulate to people who proudly say they want to wipe us out. Me? When a bunch of people with a uranium enrichment programme have a clock in the middle of their capital city counting down to my country's destruction, I choose to believe it isn't just talk and they actually mean what they are saying. Not because I like war, but because I'm all too familiar with just how terrible war is and understand that sometimes there is no choice but to choose a pre-emptive strike against an enemy who is pledging to destroy you than to wait for that enemy to strike once they are at full strength and capable of making good on that horrific promise to erase your country from existence. Please don't patronise us with condescending talk explaining to us that "everything has a diplomatic solution", "war is not the answer", "nothing is ever determined by military means". Unlike people in countries which aren't under attack and haven't been for decades, I and my people are very aware of what war means, how very terribly awful wars are. We have paid the all too terrible cost of fighting for survival, everyone of us in Israel has lost someone or knows someone who has. We have no illusions of Hollywood action films and glorious war novels. We know exactly how ugly and devastatingly painful war is because our people have been forced to live it again and again and again. Unlike the Europeans and Americans lecturing us to just allow Iran to make a deal, what's the worst that can happen, we know what's the worst that can happen.

I just wanted to check in and say that thankfully we are OK and thank you to everyone who PMed me to see how we are doing.

We've been running in and out of shelters since the air raid sirens went Saturday morning, just as we were about to leave for Sabbath morning services at our local synagogue.

Friday night prayers welcoming Shabbat this evening will be just a few neighbours gathering in someone's home shelter so that no one has to walk far from home and be caught out in the open if a siren sounds.

Grateful that our semi-basement level apartment has a home shelter, many people have to run to shared public ones or take cover in deep underground rail stations and parking garages.

I'm also grateful that my main "complaint" is that I am by now so under-slept from disturbed nights that I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing, constantly waiting for that grating alert to scream from my phone warning of another incoming round of ballistic missiles from Iran, time to rush back into our postage stamp sized shelter, shut the blast door and hope nobody needs bathroom.

The potential of this situation has been hanging over us for so long, I think that by the time it happened the whole country was one tightly wound spring from the tension of whether it would and when. Weeks of saying "we'll do x or y, well, unless war breaks out again", restocking our emergency supplies just in case.

This time of year is popular for weddings, we have several friends who's children were supposed to be tying the knot over the last week or next, but with strict emergency rules in place against too many people gathering together (in case of a direct hit) other than inside a bomb shelter, wedding halls are closed. So a few days ago my friend's daughter got married in her neighbours' back garden, close to a home with a big enough shelter, with just her immediate family. Another friend's daughter is due to get married on a kibbutz in central Israel this Sunday, she'll also be having a much smaller family ceremony in someone's yard close to shelter.

So in a bizarre way it's like we're back to Covid lockdown, schools and businesses closed except for essential services, everyone who can do so advised to work from home, school children going over to remote learning.

Most missiles and drones are successfully intercepted, and while that is better than a massive ballistic missile with something like a 500kg warhead crashing into a residential area, it still means that there are instead multiple pieces of smaller shrapnel falling to earth and these can still do plenty of damage. Some of the missiles have cluster warheads which spread multiple little bomblets all over the place.

We don't know what will be, how long and what will be the outcome. Everything is up in the air again and we are doing our best to roll with the punches and keep our family safe. 

 This is Mary Ann Velasquez De Vera, "Michelle," from Basista, Pangasinan, Philippines. She was working as a caregiver to an elderly woman in Tel Aviv. Both she and the woman she looked after were injured by an Iranian missile strike in a residential area of Tel Aviv yesterday. Mary Ann succumbed to her wounds. Her dedication helped to save the life of the woman she cared for. May her memory be blessed.

It's hard to believe that last Friday everyone was in festive mood watching the annual Purim holiday parade down a central boulevard, a kid focused celebration in which all the local elementary schools, youth groups, Scouts, children's gymnastics, dance and sports teams participate, most in themed fancy dress, one school all native wildflowers, another honouring firefighters.

It felt so normal, so joyous. I know I wasn't the only adult standing there with children or grandchildren with tears rolling down my cheeks at the feeling of simple happiness watching this community celebration, the kids beaming, the hours of work that had clearly gone into so many floats and costumes, the innocent fun, something I will never be able to take for granted again. So yes, in a way those tears watching the parade were a release of all the awfulness welled up inside since October 7, tears of relief and seeing our children having a regular, happy, Purim event with silliness and costumes and fun. Finally, after these terrible years in the shadow of the horrific Hamas invasion of Israel, of the war forced on us by the brutal Hamas assault, of sick fear over the fate of our hostages, of rockets and the threat of Hizballah from the north, after all of that, this Purim parade was the promise of sweet normality and letting our children be children. But those tears were also the thought that even if the threat of another Iran war which has been hanging over us for months, comes crashing down tomorrow or the next day and once again, a national emergency stops our children from experiencing the simple joys of Purim, the school fancy dress event, the community celebrations, the silly season in all its silliness. Even if all that is cancelled again, at least, at the very least, the children who spent so long preparing and anticipating and getting excited over this event, will have gotten their wonderfully happy, Purim parade. And so it was. We were woken in the early hours of the following morning to missile alerts from Iran.

Blessed once again with copious rain in the Judean Desert this winter 2025/2026 - the flowers have once again been nothing short of miraculous by the shores of the northern Dead Sea.

Reseda boisseri רִכְפַּת בּוּאַסְיֶה like a meadow of candles.

Wildflowers blooming in the Judean Desert this winter near the shores of the Dead Sea. Only spent a few hours in the area one morning, but worth every minute to see this in person, just glorious.

Lunar awareness: If you follow the solar Gregorian calendar it may have slipped your attention that it is the new moon and those of us following lunar based calendars that means a new month, and for some a new year.

This week's new moon ushers in:

- the month of Adar for Jews - the month of silliness, joy and miracles centred around the holiday of Purim in the middle of the month.

- the month of Ramadan for Muslims - the month of fasting by day and celebrating with family by night culminating in the festival of Eid el Fitr at the end of the month.

- the east Asian/Chinese lunar new year spring festival

For all of us that follow a lunar based calendar the cycle of the moon remains closely tied to the rhythm of our daily lives, looking at the night sky still helps us to tell time and work out our schedules.

Maybe it's a small thing but to me there is always a thrill at being able to look up at the night sky and know when the next festival or fast is coming by the shape of the moon or when one the kids says "Look Imma, the moon is getting small again, it's almost Rosh Hodesh", or "Look at the moon, it's going to be my birthday soon".

I feel a frisson of connectedness with my heritage, with my ancestors, all the generations who looked up at that moon and did the same thing, all those who came before me and looked to the night sky to know whether it was time yet to celebrate the new month. That direct link to the eternal, the ever so distant moon by which generations of my people, and so many other ancient peoples, tell time.

A moment of breaking through the ever present electronic hum of modern hi-tech living to remember something more primal, one of the first mitzvot in the Torah, the blessing and honour of keeping alive this millennia old tradition.

Side point - both the Chinese and Jewish calendars are lunisolar, meaning that they are calculated according to both the moon and the sun.

In these times of intensifying anti-Semitism and open assaults on Jewish people around the world it can be challenging to find a child appropriate medium to help younger kids learn and have a framework within which to talk about these issues.

My dog loving 10 year-old and I have just finished reading this excellent book together. As DH says, as long as we have kids who enjoy being read to, we shall continue the "book at bedtime" tradition and read to them each night.

"The Lost War Dog" by Megan Rix tells the moving story of a Jewish girl and her beloved dachshund Wuffly living in Nazi Germany in 1938.

The persecution of Jews and those with disabilities (there are at least two prominent deaf characters) is told through the eyes of children living through these horrific times, the casual Jew hatred inculcated through teachers in the German education system, the growing isolation of Jews cast out of their jobs, homes and schools, the raw fear of simply existing day by day, including Kristallnacht and the Kindertransport.

The story is compelling, intense, and especially for a sensitive child, quite scary in places, but in a child appropriate way. The writer skillfully conveys the reign of terror under which German Jews were living without making the book too frightening for this age group.

While it's aimed at independent readers aged between 8-12, I highly recommend children read this book with a parent, teacher or other adult (or possibly older teen sibling) to help answer questions and provide background if necessary, though there is a glossary at the end of the book.

I found this story an excellent jumping off point both for teaching about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, but also for discussing anti-Semitism, as well as mechanisms of persecution and demonisation of Jews and other persecuted groups throughout history and sadly of course in our own times.