Israel

Reflections from Be’eri

Hundreds of terrorists entered Kibbutz Be’eri. Of the 1,000-plus residents, 101 kibbutz members were killed, 30 people were abducted and one-third of the houses were severely damaged or destroyed. (photo by Larry Barzelai)

My wife and I frequently travel to Israel to visit our three grandchildren. Our interest in Be’eri comes from its special connection with Kibbutz Hatzerim, the birthplace of our daughter-in-law. I feel that the story of Be’eri is a paradigm for the story of the Jewish people, the story of building something magnificent, experiencing a great

destruction and rebuilding afterwards to create something even better. It also illustrates how, when people work together, they can accomplish greater things.

Through a mutual friend, I arranged to meet Yaron, a lifelong member of Kibbutz Be’eri and one who had survived the Oct. 7 massacre. He graciously took me on a tour of the kibbutz as he described the events of that day. Much of what follows are descriptions of the events in his own words. He’s given me permission to share them with you.

On the evening of Oct. 6, Yaron and other kibbutzniks were celebrating the anniversary of the founding of Kibbutz Be’eri. Sharing drinks later with some of his closest friends, they started planning a summer hiking trip in the French Alps.

At 6:30 in the morning of Oct. 7, Yaron heard unusual noises, as he slept with his wife and two young children – both under 5 years old. It sounded like shelling and bombing. When the red alert siren went off, they ran to join their kids in their home’s mamad (reinforced security room), which is also the kids’ bedroom.

Initially, Yaron wasn’t too concerned, even after receiving a text that the kibbutz may have been infiltrated by enemies. “OK, I guess we’ll be cooped up in here for a couple of hours,” he thought.

“Messages in the different kibbutz WhatsApp groups start reporting about terrorists walking inside Be’eri,” he writes. “It is close to 8 a.m. Someone writes a message that she hears gunshots.”

Shortly after that, someone reports hearing “terrible screams from the apartment above her, then silence.” Another says that one of the houses in the kibbutz is burning.

Yaron tries to stay calm. The power goes off. Their dog, who is not inside the room, is unusually silent. They hear that someone is in their house.

“They get to the room and try to open the door. I fight over the handle, heart pounding,” writes Yaron. “They don’t succeed! Every time they try, I swing the door handle back to the upright, ‘Safe’ position.”

Eventually, the terrorists give up on opening the mamad. Yaron ignores the calls in Arabic and English to come out of the room. He and his family listen, as the terrorists sing, while wrecking the house. First, there is the smell of gasoline, then smoke enters the room.

A neighbour advises them, via Yaron’s phone, that they should close the gap under the door with wet clothes.

“I take the sheet from my daughter’s bed, pour the bucket of urine on it and jam it under the door,” Yaron writes. “Outside the room, the fire grows fierce, it consumes five years of our lives in minutes…. We are in a closed room, we have no electricity, the children are coughing. I realize that the fire in our home is probably so crazy that even those inhumane monsters can’t still be waiting outside the door. I let go of the handle and I take a deep breath and feel some oxygen flow to my brain. So far, it was the pressure and fear of the terrorists that was suffocating me, but now the smoke is becoming the main problem.”

Yaron’s wife continues to text with neighbours, calling emergency team members repeatedly.

“All of our children’s books are burning outside,” Yaron shares. “Amidst all the terror we hear one of our favourites, a sound book of Arik Einstein songs, catching fire. The fire makes it play, chillingly, one of the happiest songs we know: ‘It’s Saturday morning, a beautiful day….’”

Suffocating on the smoke, the family has no choice but to open a window of their second-floor apartment. Despite the fear of what awaits them outside, the smoke is too much and they climb out onto the metal awning below.

“The four of us are sitting on the metal. We can breathe but we are exposed 2.5 metres (eight feet) above the ground. OK, now what?” Yaron recalls.

They can’t reach the emergency team, so they jump to the ground and hide in a nearby shed. Yaron jumps first, his wife hands him the kids, then follows.

photo - A house identical to Yaron’s, which has been demolished, that gives an idea of the window of the family’s safe room and the challenge of jumping to the ground from the second storey — A house identical to Yaron’s, which has been demolished, that gives an idea of the window of the family’s safe room and the challenge of jumping to the ground from the second storey. *(photo by Larry Barzelai)*

“Another neighbour reaches out, ‘Come to my place.’ I call him. I ask him to risk his life, leave his mamad and open his house for us. He does this while we’re on the phone. We are hesitant to come outside, we are debating with our eyes, and can’t decide if we should stay hidden in an unsafe shed or try to reach a safer place but risk exposure. I ask him to risk his life even more, to take a look outside and verify there are no terrorists in sight. He bravely obliges and says it’s clear. We were in the shed for maybe five, maybe 10 minutes, maybe it was two years, who knows. The kids are silent…. My heart is racing, I open the shed door and we sprint to the neighbour’s house.”

The fire has consumed their own home, and their beloved dog. Temporarily safe at the neighbours’, Yaron sees that the fire might cross over to where they are hiding. “We decide we need to evacuate,” he writes. “At a distance, we spot a few IDF soldiers. A small company or a team…. They escort us to a nearby building where my brother lives. We contact him and he let us in together with two more kibbutz members who had gotten stuck in a similar situation.”

Around 11 p.m., soldiers returned to Yaron’s brother’s place. “They helped us out, they asked us to cover our children’s eyes to shield them from the horrors on the kibbutz lanes and they escorted us to the yellow gate.”

“We made it out,” he writes. “We made it out.”

Most of Yaron’s extended family survived the massacre, except for an aunt who was murdered. In total, hundreds of terrorists entered the kibbutz. Of the 1,000-plus residents, 101 kibbutz members were killed, 30 people were abducted and one-third of the houses were severely damaged or destroyed.

Another victim of the massacre was Winnipeg-born Vivian Silver, who had, prior to Oct. 7, driven patients from the Erez border crossing to hospitals in Israel. She learned Arabic so that she could better communicate with her Bedouin neighbours. She truly believed in a peaceful future between the residents of Israel and the Palestinians of Gaza. Sadly, she was killed on Oct. 7. Her remains were so badly burned that it took weeks to identify her by DNA analysis.

Eli Sharabi, another resident of Be’eri, was kidnapped and taken to Gaza. In his book Hostage, he describes 491 tortuous days in Hamas captivity. He was looking forward to reuniting with his family once he was freed. Instead, upon his release, he discovered that his wife and daughters had been killed on Oct. 7. He cried at their gravesites for two hours, before making the decision that he had to move forward.

Immediately after Oct. 7, Yaron and his family spent many months living in an apartment in the Dead Sea area. They were alive and they were safe, relatively free from missile attacks, but life was far from normal. To say nothing of the trauma they were dealing with, reestablishing a kibbutz lifestyle, while living in a crowded hotel with none of the amenities that glue kibbutzniks together, was challenging.

The family has since relocated to a temporary custom-built village adjacent to Kibbutz Hatzerim. Be’eri and Hatzerim are sister kibbutzim, both founded in 1946. Be’eri was named for Berl Katznelson, a founding father of Labour Zionism, whose nickname was Be’eri; Hatzerim, after a verse in Deuteronomy (2:23) that mentions hatzerim (farms/enclosures) “as far as Gaza.”

Be’eri and Hatzerim are both traditional socialist kibbutzim, populated mainly by people on the left of the political spectrum. Thus, it was natural for Kibbutz Hatzerim to offer to build a temporary kibbutz adjacent to them for people from Be’eri to live until their kibbutz was rebuilt over a two-year period.

photo - The new neighbourhood on Kibbutz Be’eri, where Yaron and his family are planning on living. The rebuilding of the kibbutz is expected to take two years — The new neighbourhood on Kibbutz Be’eri, where Yaron and his family are planning on living. The rebuilding of the kibbutz is expected to take two years. *(photo by Larry Barzelai)*

Most former residents of Be’eri are now living in the temporary kibbutz. Some facilities, such as medical clinics and administrative offices, are shared by the two kibbutzim. Otherwise, the temporary Be’eri has its own houses, schools and offices. Hatzerim expanded its dental clinic, seniors lounge and grocery store to accommodate the increased needs of the larger population. In typical kibbutz fashion, members of both communities met many times to jointly plan this project.

Every day, Yaron leaves his family on the temporary Kibbutz Be’eri to commute 45 minutes to the original. About 60 kibbutz members are living there now, while it’s being rebuilt, and the plan is for most members to return by the start of the school year this September. A printing factory and agriculture are the two sustaining industries on Be’eri.

Yaron’s home, along with 140 others, was destroyed on Oct. 7. Recently, members of Kibbutz Be’eri made a collective decision to tear down all the damaged buildings. They want to try and wipe away the terrible memories of Oct. 7 and build anew. As one part of the construction work, the kibbutz is building a new subdivision, where Yaron and his family are planning to live.

But Yaron isn’t sure that he wants to return. He was born on Be’eri and has lived most of his life there. However, the memory of the trauma of Oct. 7 is very strong. He’s not sure he wants to move back to this place, where so much death and destruction happened. He confided that he may want to live outside of Israel, somewhere he can anticipate a more peaceful future for his children.

Larry Barzelai is a Vancouver family physician, specializing in care of the elderly, who travels to Israel frequently to visit his three grandchildren there. He is presently co-chair of the Jewish Medical Association of British Columbia.

Reminder of hope, resilience

Kindergarten children preparing matzah, 1925. (photo by Joseph Schweigh, KKL-JNF Photo Archive)

In uncertain times like these, as the war with Iran continues, attention often turns to the traditions and customs that have carried generations through both hardship and renewal. Against this backdrop, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael–Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) has shared some rare images from its photo archive documenting Passover across the years. The images, dating from before the declaration of the state of Israel, reflect enduring elements of Jewish life, including tradition, education and communal practice.

photo - A festive parade of Jewish soldiers during Passover in Jerusalem, 1948 — A festive parade of Jewish soldiers during Passover in Jerusalem, 1948. *(photo by Rudolf Jonas, KKL-JNF Photo Archive, KKL-JNF Photo Archive)*

Among them are a photograph from the 1920s showing kindergarten children preparing matzah dough; documentation from a festive Passover parade for Israeli soldiers in 1948, the year of Israel’s independence; and families in Jerusalem’s Mea She’arim neighbourhood participating in the burning of chametz in 1983, a year marked by the effects of the Lebanon War. Though decades apart, the scenes show how holiday practices supported community connection and hope during periods of instability.

photo - A wall newspaper produced in the 1950s and 1960s by Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael–Jewish National Fund’s education department, which was displayed in Jewish schools in England — A wall newspaper produced in the 1950s and 1960s by Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael–Jewish National Fund’s education department, which was displayed in Jewish schools in England. *(photo from KKL-JNF Banner collection displayed in the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem)*

The archival materials also include a wall newspaper produced in the 1950s and 1960s by KKL-JNF’s education department, which was displayed in Jewish schools in England. The poster places the Exodus from Egypt alongside images of agricultural work, tree planting and communal life in the land of Israel, illustrating how Passover was given renewed meaning in the Zionist era as a bridge between a biblical narrative and a modern vision of national renewal.

photo - The burning of chametz in the Mea She’arim neighbourhood in Jerusalem, 1983 — The burning of chametz in the Mea She’arim neighbourhood in Jerusalem, 1983. *(photo from KKL-JNF Photo Archive)*

“These photographs show how people held onto tradition, community and hope during uncertain periods,” noted Efrat Sinai, director of archives at KKL-JNF. “Viewed today, they highlight both historical experience and the sources of resilience that continue to shape Jewish life. Passover appears here as a living educational framework, a connection between Jewish communities in Israel and abroad, and a reflection of the strength of these communities across generations.”

KKL-JNF’s photo archive, which contains tens of thousands of historical photographs, serves as a living chronicle of life in the land of Israel and beyond. Together, these materials are a reminder that the story of Israel has never been defined by hardship alone, but also by its ability to hold onto hope, tradition and the promise of brighter days ahead.

– Courtesy Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund

Sheltering in train stations

Another day, another missile alert: Israelis sheltering at the Herbert Samuel Hotel miklat. The writer and his wife take refuge there, but their dog, Max, won’t leave home. (photo by Gil Zohar)

Those who think history doesn’t repeat itself may wish to WhatsApp my 97-year-old mother, Joyce, to discuss how millions of Londoners like herself sheltered in the British capital’s Tube stations during the Blitz and later in the Second World War. The Luftwaffe bombings traumatized her and her two younger sisters, Anita and Renee. Today, the same “rain” of terror is falling across Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem.

In Tel Aviv and in the neighbouring cities of Ramat Gan and Bnei Brak, nine underground stops on the Red Line of the Light Rail are open 24/7 as public bomb shelters, including on Shabbat, when there is no transportation service. Some denizens of Greater Tel Aviv have taken to sleeping on the station platforms overnight rather than returning home after each all-clear alert.

At the time of writing, the Red Line is not operating. Commuters from Jerusalem to central Israel have been temporarily required to change trains at Ben Gurion Airport before continuing to Tel Aviv.

Not surprisingly in a country where kvetching is the national sport, some people have complained that not all the underground stations have been opened to serve as protected spaces. The Ministry of Transportation has published a list of stations deemed safe, which the frantic hordes may freely enter when the missile alert screams.

The Carlebach station – named after Esriel Gotthelf Carlebach (1908-1956), the Leipzig, Germany-born pioneering journalist, founding editor of the daily Maariv, and cousin of Berlin-born troubadour Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach – has not been opened, as it is not considered suitable as a secure shelter for engineering reasons.

In the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Yerushalmis are also taking cover underground. While all the stops on Jerusalem’s single tram line are on the surface, the Navon Train Station – which is 90 metres below street level and was designed to function as a nuclear bomb shelter – is now serving its secondary purpose apart from transportation.

Home Front Command (HFC) and Ministry of Defence officials have praised the Israeli public for its resilience in quickly reaching a safe place to shelter when the siren goes off.

Israel updated its national building code in 1992 following the Gulf War the previous year, when Saddam Hussein rained Scud missiles down on Tel Aviv and Haifa from Iraq. Previously, zoning laws had required condominium apartment buildings to incorporate a basement bomb shelter, but the threat of heavier-than-air poison gas attacks made those shelters potential death traps. Thus, gas masks were distributed, and every apartment in new residential buildings is now required to have a reinforced and sealed security room, called a mamad in Hebrew. Typically, these are a bedroom protected with extra thick concrete and equipped with a steel door and heavy shutters. A wet towel placed by the door makes for a reasonably airtight seal. Some newer buildings have been designed so that the area around the elevator shaft and stairs serves as a protected miklat (shelter) for the entire floor. It’s a uniquely Israeli way of getting to know one’s neighbours.

The number of fatalities has been miraculously low in the night-and-day barrages from Iran and Lebanon since the current war started on Feb. 28. At press time, 28 people – including two soldiers – had been killed in the hundreds of missile and drone attacks targeting civilian regions in the Jewish state. More than 400 ballistic missiles had been launched. No information has been released on the number of drones fired.

Nine Israelis were killed and more than 40 injured in Beit Shemesh on March 1 when an Iranian missile hit a residential neighbourhood, destroying a synagogue and collapsing the adjoining bomb shelter. The shelter was in a pre-1991 building that had been retrofitted.

A Thai agricultural worker in central Israel and four Palestinian women in a beauty salon in the village of Beit Awwa, southwest of Hebron, were killed on March 18 by debris from an Iranian missile. Barrages employing cluster munitions have hit multiple locations – including near my home in downtown Jerusalem. More than 100 residents in Dimona and Arad were wounded in missile strikes on those two southern cities March 21; most were not in bomb shelters, according to an HFC investigation.

Train service has been interrupted at Tel Aviv’s Savidor station and in Holon, where, as well, several buses were damaged. Military censorship prohibits publishing the addresses of hits.

photo - Max prefers to stay home when the sirens sound — Max prefers to stay home when the sirens sound. *(photo by Gil Zohar)*

On March 15, Israel Railways reopened the train stations in Hod HaSharon-Sokolov, Bnei Brak, Rishon LeZion HaRishonim and Dimona, which had been shut down when the war began. Full service resumed on the lines from Herzliya to Ofakim, and Herzliya to Jerusalem. While the latter stops at Ben Gurion Airport, service at the international air hub remains greatly reduced. Some travelers are choosing to take a bus to Amman, Jordan, or Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to fly abroad. The situation remains fluid.

For my wife and me, four overseas guests at our Pesach seder have had to say “Next Year in Jerusalem” because their flights have been canceled. We live in a charming stone building in the city centre, which was built in 1886 and has neither a miklat nor a mamad. When the siren sounds, we head to the Herbert Samuel Hotel across the street. There, the synagogue two floors below ground level doubles as the reinforced space. Last Friday, as the Sabbath approached and the air raid alert rang, a guest was playing the violin, serenading those present with the strains of “Shalom Aleichem.”

And what of our dog Max? The poor mutt refuses to leave his comfort zone – our unprotected apartment. With every second meaning the potential difference between life and death, we leave him to lie on the sofa and howl at the sirens.

Gil Zohar is a journalist and tour guide who lives in Jerusalem.

Garden City of Tel Aviv

Liebling Haus’s exhibit Life, Plant, City: 100 Years of Geddes’ Plan for Tel Aviv’s Garden City, which documents how Sir Patrick Geddes’ vision continues to shape the city’s urban fabric, includes multidisciplinary works by dozens of artists (photo by Yael Schmidt / Liebling Haus)

On April 11, 1909, 60 families gathered on the beach north of Jaffa to draw lots for the parcelization of the sand dunes they had purchased north of the ancient port. This moment in Israel’s history has been much mythologized, but one thing is clear – those garden suburb pioneers were clueless about urban planning. They turned their backs on the site’s most notable feature – its iconic Mediterranean beach.

The village that the founders initially named Ahuzat Bayit (Homestead), now called Tel Aviv, grew haphazardly, house by house, with an interruption during the First World War, when the Ottoman Turks expelled the newly established town’s Jews. In 1921, following the arrival of the British during the war and the replacement of their military rule with a civil administration, the growing suburb was granted township status separate from the neighbouring Arab-majority city of Jaffa.

It became clear that the township’s slapdash growth needed to be regulated. Into this planning chaos stepped Sir Patrick Geddes (1854-1932), a Scottish-born polymath who was at once a biologist, sociologist, landscape theorist and pioneering urban planner. The 62-page plan for Tel Aviv that he drew up a century ago remains among the most important documents in the history of the city. Liebling Haus – an architectural and cultural centre located in downtown Tel Aviv – recently opened the exhibit Life, Plant, City: 100 Years of Geddes’ Plan for Tel Aviv’s Garden City. It documents how Geddes’ vision continues to shape the city’s urban fabric, featuring not only archival materials but multidisciplinary works by dozens of artists and other contemporary interpretations of Geddes’ ideas and reflections on the city’s future.

photo - Sir Patrick Geddes (1854-1932) was a Scottish-born polymath who was a biologist, sociologist, landscape theorist and pioneering urban planner — Sir Patrick Geddes (1854-1932) was a Scottish-born polymath who was a biologist, sociologist, landscape theorist and pioneering urban planner. (photo from shbt.org.uk/knowledge)

In 1925, Geddes – who earned a reputation for his urban planning in 18 cities in British India – was invited by Tel Aviv’s mukhtar, Meir Dizengoff, to prepare the first master plan to guide the town’s growth. (Tel Aviv achieved city status in 1934.)

Geddes believed that cities were living organisms, shaped by the interplay of nature, society and culture. This holistic approach – unusual for its time – made him particularly attractive to Zionist leaders, who envisioned Tel Aviv as both a future-facing modern metropolis and a cultural project rooted in Jewish history.

His plan was deeply influenced by the Garden City movement, but Geddes adapted it to the climate and social context of the Levant. It emphasized shaded streets to mitigate the Mediterranean heat, wide boulevards that encouraged airflow and social life, and parks and squares as communal anchors. Human-scale residential blocks were arranged around shared green spaces and courtyards.

Geddes’ plan expanded Tel Aviv north from its early neighbourhoods to the Yarkon River. It was delineated by the Mediterranean Sea to the west and what is now Ibn Gabirol Street to the east. Into this flat and featureless space, Geddes laid out a skein of streets with a clear hierarchy. Main north-south and east-west arteries allowed for speedy movement across the city. Secondary streets were narrower and designed for local circulation. Small residential lanes fostered neighbourhood intimacy. The goal was to create a walkable city that balanced efficiency with livability.

photo - On display at Liebling Haus: One of the artworks inspired by Sir Patrick Geddes’ century-old plan for Tel Aviv — On display at Liebling Haus: One of the artworks inspired by Sir Patrick Geddes’ century-old plan for Tel Aviv. (photo by Yael Schmidt / Liebling Haus)

The plan also contained what later scholars have identified as anarchist or cooperative elements. It emphasized worker-led housing blocs and resisted speculative land practices. These ideas resonated with the social and economic conditions of Tel Aviv in the 1920s and 1930s, when workers wanted architecture that reflected their egalitarian values.

Although Geddes’ plan was not executed in its entirety, its core principles shaped the development of the White City, which was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. By the 1930s, Tel Aviv had some 4,000 white Bauhaus-style buildings constructed within the distinctive blocks, boulevards and public gardens Geddes laid out.

Bauhaus was a school of arts, crafts and architecture that operated in Germany from 1919 to 1933. The rise of the Nazi party led to the shuttering of the academy. Some 60,000 Jews left Nazi Germany and Austria for Mandatory Palestine, including architects who didn’t study at the Bauhaus school but were greatly influenced by its style. There, they created a revolutionary, streamlined architectural style that suited the modernist ethos of Zionism.

Tel Aviv’s amalgam of Bauhaus (also called International Style) buildings arose from an accident of historical coincidence: first came Geddes’ town plan; then the wave of mass aliyah triggered by the Nazis’ ascent to power in 1933, which triggered an urgent demand for housing; and, thirdly, the International Style’s lack of expensive decorative features made the cost of construction relatively low. No decorative tiles or ornamental plasterwork meant cheaper construction that could be executed by less-specialized craftsmen.

For the Yekke newcomers, many of whom had to leave significant assets behind, cheaper housing that didn’t sacrifice style was a major draw. The streamlined design with porthole windows, curved walls and balconies was a snub to the values of Central Europe, which the newcomers had barely escaped.

Liebling Haus, built in 1936, is an example of this architectural era. While not designed by Geddes, it manifests the urban environment his plan envisioned. The house’s clean lines, functional design and integration with the surrounding streetscape reflect the synergy between Geddes’ urbanism and the architectural modernism that followed. The Life, Plant, City exhibit runs to May 31.

Gil Zohar is a journalist and tour guide based in Jerusalem.

Sanctuary garden benefits

Gal Raviv, left, and Prof. Tamir Klein in the plant sanctuary at Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. (photo from Weizmann Institute of Science)

When PhD student Gal Raviv thought of creating a sanctuary garden at the Weizmann Institute of Science, what she had in mind was saving endangered plants. But, after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the garden became for her a refuge of serenity and strength. “There’s something grounding about plants that keep growing no matter what happens around us. If they can do it, so can we,” she said. “They represent what the land of Israel can produce and, in these difficult times, they symbolize our own roots in this land.”

Raviv came up with the idea of the garden after hearing a lecture on plant conservation at a conference that Prof. Tamir Klein, whose Weizmann lab specializes in tree research, had organized at the institute. In late summer of 2023, they set up the garden in Weizmann’s greenhouses, with full backing from Weizmann’s Institute for Environmental Sustainability.

Raviv’s doctoral research, conducted in Prof. David Margulies’s lab, is unrelated to plants and focuses on molecular aspects of cancer therapy. Nonetheless, she volunteered to tend the garden, getting crucial help from the greenhouse staff and relying on their expertise.

“When people hear about endangered species, they usually think of a toad whose swamp has dried up, or other animals or birds. But at the basis of any ecosystem are plants: they are the very foundation of our existence,” Raviv said.

“Plant diversity supports diverse insects that in turn provide food for birds and animals. When plant species go extinct, their loss can disrupt the integrity of an entire ecosystem,” added Klein.

Of some 2,300 wild plants found in Israel, more than 400 are in danger of extinction, according to the Red Book of Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority. Plant species that are unique to Israel are particularly threatened: there are about 55 such species, and 35 of them are endangered.

“We have a global responsibility to preserve these plants,” Klein said.

The major threat to plants is habitat loss, which in Israel is especially acute along the Mediterranean. Sand dunes and other parts of the coastal plain are home to an unusually large proportion of wild plant species, yet, to the plants’ misfortune, that’s also where humans love to settle. Less than 30% of the pristine coastal sands that used to line the Mediterranean in the early 20th century remained undeveloped by the beginning of the 21st. These sands might disappear altogether if left unprotected.

There are several plant sanctuaries in Israel, but not all have the proper climate to grow coastal plants outdoors, whereas the Weizmann campus, with weather that’s similar to that of the coast, is well suited to this end. Raviv and Klein kept this in mind when preparing a list of plant species for the sanctuary. The final list was compiled in collaboration with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, which also provided seeds.

Now in its third year, Weizmann’s sanctuary garden holds some 20 endangered plants, a number of which are unique to Israel’s coastal plain; others also grow in neighbouring regions. Most are flowering annuals, but there are also perennials, as well as two species of ancient wheat, genetic relatives of today’s crop varieties. These plants are gradually revealing their preferences and personalities to Raviv and the greenhouse staff, while occasionally serving up challenges and surprises.

For example, since the greenhouses have no bees or other natural pollinators, some of the plants bloomed but produced no seeds. “So, I became the bee,” Raviv said.

To help some species, she made adjacent flowers “kiss,” that is, touch in a way that pollen from one flower could get to the stigma, or ovary system, of another – a process known as self-pollination or cross-pollination, depending on whether the two flowers belong to the same plant or to different ones. She did that, for instance, for Erodium subintegrifolium, known as stork’s bill in Europe and heron’s bill in North America.

In other species – such as the perennial Salvia eigii, named for the botanist Alexander Eig – the reproductive organs are too deep inside the flower for the kiss method to work. Raviv came up with a creative solution. She collected whisker hairs shed by her three cats and used them to transfer pollen from one flower to the stigma of another.

Luckily for Raviv, however, most plants in the sanctuary garden manage to pollinate by themselves.

Other challenges now solved include “late bloomers.” Silene modesta, from a genus also known as campion or catchfly – an annual plant that grows in sandy soil on the coast and in the western Negev desert – thrived in the sanctuary garden from the start. However, even though it produced lots of flower buds, these seemed to dry up before getting a chance to bloom.

A plant conservation expert told Raviv to open one of the dried buds to see if it contained seeds. Indeed, it did, which meant that it had bloomed at some point without being caught in the act. So Raviv went to the garden late at night and, sure enough, found the slender Silene in full bloom. Keeping the bud closed after sunrise is the plant’s strategy for reducing water evaporation during the hot hours, while also protecting its flowers from the strong daytime coastal winds.

The discovery prompted Raviv to initiate a research project in which she compares Silene modesta with its non-endangered relative, Silene palaestina. The goal is to uncover the biochemical processes that ensure water conservation in the endangered plant.

In fact, a major goal of plant conservation is to preserve valuable properties that might be lost forever should their carriers disappear. Revealing the mechanisms behind such properties might make it possible to transfer them to other plants to, for example, help them grow in arid conditions or otherwise adapt to the adversities of climate change.

– Courtesy Weizmann Institute of Science

Last hostage home

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lays a wreath at Ran Gvili’s funeral in Meitar on Jan. 28. (photo © Amos Ben Gershom / GPO)

Yasam (Israel Police Special Patrol Unit) Master-Sgt. Ran Gvili z”l was buried on Jan. 28 in his hometown of Meitar. The last remaining hostage from the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, his body was brought back to Israel on Jan. 26. After 843 days, the clock in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square stopped ticking, and the displays of the kidnapped at Ben-Gurion Airport and the National Library of Israel were removed. For the first time since 2014, not a single Israel Defence Forces soldier or civilian is being held hostage in the Gaza Strip.

Two years, three months and 20 days after Gvili, 24, fell in a battle at Kibbutz Alumim near the Gaza Strip, the hero was given a fitting military funeral. Thousands of police officers, IDF soldiers and residents stood in silence along the streets of the Beer Sheva suburb as the funeral procession passed.

The service was attended by President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Police Commissioner Daniel Levy and Sephardi Chief Rabbi David Yosef, alongside senior political and security figures. The sombre ceremony was the first funeral of a hostage from Oct. 7 attended by the prime minister.

Netanyahu eulogized Gvili: “He considered his injured shoulder meaningless because he believed with all his heart and strength that the security of the state rested on him and the shoulders of his comrades.

“He saved lives – many, many lives,” said Netanyahu.

The prime minister also announced that a new town, Renanim, would be established near Meitar in Gvili’s memory.

Addressing the family, Herzog apologized on behalf of the people of Israel, saying: “I’m sorry we were not there for him. I am sorry that, along with so many other families, you had to wait so many long, agonizing days for the return of your loved one.”

He added: “Without hesitation and without asking, again and again, [Gvili] said, ‘Here I am,’ and went into the line of fire to protect us.”

When the attacks began at 6:29 a.m. on Oct. 7, Gvili was at home, where he had been recovering from a broken shoulder sustained in a motorcycle accident. As news began trickling in of kibbutzim and cities near the Gaza frontier being overrun and their residents massacred, he decided to join the battle. Though on medical leave, he reached for his gun and his uniform, and went to help.

His father, Itzik Gvili, told Ynet News that his son “just put on a uniform and said to me, ‘Abba, I’m going.’ I said to him, ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ and he answered, ‘What do you think? Do you think that my friends will fight alone? I’m going to help them.’ He didn’t ask me. Rani can’t be stopped.”

Driving west toward the carnage at the Nova music festival, Gvili rescued an estimated 100 people fleeing the rave. He then engaged in a battle with dozens of Hamas gunmen near Kibbutz Alumim, killing 14 terrorists before being fatally shot when he ran out of ammunition. At 10:50 that morning, he texted friends that he had been shot in the leg.

For months, Gvili’s family held out hope that he was alive and being held hostage somewhere in the Gaza Strip.

His mother, Tali, told Haaretz in November 2024 that the family had received photos from Oct. 7 showing him arriving unconscious at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and later in Zeitoun on the back of a motorcycle, “but they aren’t conclusive … in this situation, hoping for a miracle feels reasonable.”

Gvili’s body was recovered by IDF search teams following a months-long intelligence operation. Under combat conditions in the northern Gaza Strip, some 700 bodies were disinterred at al-Bats Muslim cemetery in Shuja’iya and Gvili’s was identified by IDF dentists after carrying out the forensic examination of 249 corpses. Many noted that the word ran (singing) has a numerical value in gematria of 250. Gvili was still wearing his uniform, and he was buried in it rather than in shrouds as is customary for civilians.

According to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, “Ran had a passion for motorcycles, enjoyed gatherings with friends, cherished moments with his sister and brother, and relished playing the guitar while sipping lemon arak.”

Gil Zohar is a journalist and tour guide based in Jerusalem.

Farm transforms lives

Danny’s Farm is a leading Israeli centre for holistic healing, offering animal-assisted trauma care, among other services. (photo from Danny Stirin)

After Canadian-Israeli media personality Shai DeLuca was critically wounded in 1996 during his service in the Israel Defence Forces, the instructions from his peers were as blunt as they were unhelpful: be a man, move on.

The injury – that left him with temporary loss of use of his legs – kept him in hospital and rehabilitation for nearly a year, in an era when post-traumatic stress was rarely named, let alone treated. “Back then, PTSD wasn’t understood the way it is today,” said DeLuca. “No one had language for it. No one recognized the symptoms.”

At the end of July 2025, DeLuca traveled to a ranch southeast of Rehovot, Israel, with a Canadian organization supporting IDF veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, families of Oct. 7 victims and Israelis living with trauma caused by terror. What began as just a visit to Danny’s Farm, a unique therapeutic centre, turned into a revelation.

At the end of the tour, ranch owner and chief executive officer Danny Stirin sensed something about DeLuca and asked a pointed question – why had he not dealt with the mental after-effects of his injury?

“I felt like I didn’t even need to say a lot and he understood what I meant,” recalled DeLuca. “He said, ‘the moment you’re ready, just message me. I will be there with you every step of the way.’”

The visit was “life-changing” for DeLuca and returning to the farm later allowed him “to understand parts of my own story buried for years.”

DeLuca credits Stirin as “the person who freed me in a lot of ways from a lot of weight that I’ve been carrying for so many years.”

photo - Danny Stirin, left, and Shai DeLuca in conversation. DeLuca credits Stirin as “the person who freed me in a lot of ways from a lot of weight that I’ve been carrying for so many years" — Danny Stirin, left, and Shai DeLuca in conversation. DeLuca credits Stirin as “the person who freed me in a lot of ways from a lot of weight that I’ve been carrying for so many years.” *(photo from Shai DeLuca)*

Since its inception in 2016, Danny’s Farm has become a refuge for Israelis grappling with trauma, be it from war or terror. At first glance it looks like a ranch – stables with dozens of horses and many small animals about – but amid the pastoral view is a clinic, recognized as a leading Israeli centre for holistic, animal-assisted trauma care. Treatment rooms for art, music, bodywork and complementary medicine sit alongside the barns, and a multidisciplinary staff of psychologists, social workers and emotional-therapy instructors anchors the work with patients. The farm treats some 1,500 people each week.

Even before Oct. 7, the farm was treating children with special needs, survivors of sexual violence, and adults with complex trauma, filling a gap in an under-resourced mental-health system. Since the Hamas attacks and ensuing war, it has become a safe zone for reserve soldiers, evacuees from the south and north, and families coping with loss, dislocation and rocket fire.

For Stirin, the farm grew out of his own brush with crisis and a decision about what kind of fulfilment he sought professionally. “It’s like there’s a point in your life when you’re looking for a purpose,” he said, adding that he wanted the farm to be a tangible example for his children: “so they can see that somebody is going with his heart, all the way.”

A deeper motivation, though, was to help other people with their pain. “I felt that I have to hold the hope for others having a crisis, as I did,” he said.

Stirin’s choice to place animals at the centre of this work came from his childhood. “Since I was a boy, I had a long attraction to animals. All my life I was near them,” he said.

Born in Argentina to a grandfather who worked as a “gaucho,” or cowboy, he grew up with horses and dogs and carried that bond into adulthood. “I realized in the best way, the very powerful way, I felt the energy of the healing, just being near the simplicity of these creatures,” said Stirin.

On the farm, that idea has been formalized into a program that pairs equine therapy with group and individual treatment, and specialized tracks for traumatized children and families. The model, developed in partnership with the resilience organization Tkuma and supported by various funders, is designed to give long-term structure to people who might otherwise never access, or have access to, sustained care.

If there is a single principle guiding Danny’s Farm, it is that trauma is both ubiquitous and intensely personal. “The human soul is very fragile, and very different from one to one,” Stirin said. “The trauma … it plays with you. It can come in all kinds of different ways, shapes.”

Because the nature of trauma depends on a person’s personality, history, physical and mental structure, he said, therapists must approach treatment with “a lot of flexibility.”

“Each one needs something else. That’s what I believe,” he said.

For veterans like DeLuca, who was told to tough it out, the encounter with this kind of care was “liberating.”

Coming back to the ranch last month to introduce visiting media to the farm, he said he found at the farm the space to see his injury “through a different lens,” as part of a story that “did not have to end in silence.”

He said, “With PTSD, the challenge is not closing the door, but opening it, and dealing with it. And what Danny did was [tell] me that I don’t have to keep that door closed.”

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world. His website is davegordonwrites.com. His trip to Israel was co-sponsored by the Or Ofir Foundation.

Jerusalem marathon soon

Last year’s International Jerusalem Winner Marathon. (Sportphotography)

The International Jerusalem Winner Marathon returns for its 15th year and will take place on March 27, with tens of thousands of runners participating from across Israel and around the world.

“The marathon is much more than a sporting event, it is an expression of strength, mutual responsibility, unity and the Jerusalem spirit,” said Moshe Lion, mayor of Jerusalem. “This year, we once again salute the IDF soldiers, security and rescue forces, and reserve personnel who protect all of us every day, and we invite them to be part of an international celebration of sport, community and hope.”

The International Jerusalem Winner Marathon is organized by the Jerusalem Municipality Sports Division in collaboration with the Jerusalem Development Authority, Ministry of Culture and Sports, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, and other partners. Sponsors include Toto Winner, the main sponsor, as well as Azorim Ltd., and others. The marathon is produced by Electra Target.

Registered runners will receive a participant package including an official marathon shirt, bib number, timing chip, and a variety of additional benefits. For more information and registration, visit jerusalem-marathon.com.

– Courtesy International Jerusalem Winner Marathon

Historic contribution

The Roadburg Campus of Tel-Hai College, which is soon to become the University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee. Vancouver’s Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation has donated $50 million Cdn to the institution. (photo from Tel-Hai)

Tel-Hai College – soon to become the University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee – has received a transformational $50 million Cdn gift from Vancouver’s Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation. The historic contribution is the largest ever received by the institution and the largest single commitment in the foundation’s history. It expands on the decades-long partnership between the Galilee and Canadian Jewish federations and communities in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Halifax. It is designed to be the first steppingstone on Tel-Hai’s path after acquiring its new status as the first university in the Galilee in late January.

The investment comes at a critical juncture as the region transitions from two years of war and widespread displacement toward comprehensive renewal and growth. The university and the Roadburg Campus will meet the needs of the community, as the school prepares to take in thousands of new students, researchers and faculty members. The university is positioned as a global hub for applied research, addressing global challenges in sustainable agriculture, artificial intelligence, psychological resilience and social work, fields where Tel-Hai has gained international recognition for its field-tested expertise.

“THU is more than an academic institution; it is the heartbeat of the Galilee and a beacon of coexistence,” said Prof. Eliezer Shalev, president of the university. “Our classrooms are a tapestry of Jews, Muslims, Druze and Christians studying together. This gift from the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation ensures that our academic excellence remains inclusive and that we continue to serve as the region’s primary engine for socioeconomic growth.”

The Roadburg Foundation’s partnership with Tel-Hai reflects the foundation’s belief that learning is the ultimate tool to bring people together, foster peace and create shared opportunities. This $50 million gift, expanded from an initial $8 million commitment to Tel-Hai’s computer science facilities, will serve as a cornerstone investment as the university continues to be a catalyst for social and economic renewal in the Galilee.

“We chose to make this landmark investment now because we believe in the resilience of the people of the Galilee,” said Stephen Gaerber, the foundation’s director. “By helping Tel-Hai elevate to a university, we are investing in a future where world-class science and social cohesion go hand-in-hand to build a stronger Israel.”

“Over the course of the war, we were involved in emergency efforts, especially in this region,” Mark Gurvis, chief executive officer of the Roadburg Foundation, told eJewish Philanthropy. “We started focusing on Tel- Hai as part of the solution for the period after the war, when people would focus on reconstruction efforts. We knew that Tel-Hai was already the major economic and social driver of the region. We focused on positioning Tel-Hai – as it was becoming a university – to be able to fulfil that potential.”

There has been a steady Canadian partnership with Tel-Hai for years, led by the Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA (JFC-UIA) together with local federations and donors.

JFC-UIA and Federations across the country collectively helped move forward the transition of Tel-Hai to a university with significant support for Israel’s north, including approximately $25 million Cdn toward strengthening the region and advancing Tel-Hai.

Israel’s Council for Higher Education approved the transformation of Tel-Hai into the University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee, with university recognition beginning in the 2026/27 academic year. The plan includes a 570 million NIS (nearly $200 million Cdn) investment over five years; proposals for new PhD programs in biotechnology, education, psychology and nutritional sciences; a faculty of engineering focused on precision agriculture, knowledge engineering and AI; and a veterinary school in the Golan Heights.

To read eJP’s interview with Gurvis, go to ejewishphilanthropy.com.

– Courtesy Tel-Hai College and Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver

Nothing as lovely as a tree

Almonds trees on the way to Jerusalem. (photo from PikiWiki)

While Israelis are not what you would call nature worshippers, once a year they do celebrate one aspect of nature: trees. Tu b’Shevat (the holiday’s name is derived from the Hebrew calendar date) is observed yearly, even when there are challenging conditions. For example, in 1991, under the threat of a gas attack from Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, residents in my neighbourhood brought along gas masks when they went out to plant trees. They were lucky on two counts: they didn’t have to use the masks and the almond trees were already blossoming.

The first celebration of Tu b’Shevat, or the “Birthday of the Trees,” occurred in the very early days of the 20th century, though the idea was older than that.

In 1891, educator Ze’ev Yavetz told Haaretz newspaper that, “for the love of the saplings … the school must make a festival of the day that was set aside from ancient times in Israel as the New Year of the Trees. To gracefully and beautifully arrange the trees, saplings, lilies and flowers just like they do in Europe on the first of May.”

That Yavetz mentions Europe is key, as decision-makers in the Jewish National Fund, or Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael, which was founded in 1901, based what they planted in pre-state Israel on the European trees with which they were familiar, mainly conifers.

After the Ottoman Empire fell and the Ottomans left what was then called Palestine, it was discovered that they had not taken care of the land itself. As such, the flora mostly consisted of maquis and garrigue, shrubs and small oaks. However, neither the British nor the Zionists were particularly interested in or familiar with the native flora of the region. Instead, they introduced trees that had not previously grown there.

By 1903, the Jewish National Fund had purchased its first parcel of land in the coastal region of Hadera and, by 1935, it had already planted 1.7 million trees over a total area of 1,750 acres (708 hectares). In the early years of its land restoration, the JNF planted large amounts of fast-growing conifers, and pine forests proliferated throughout the country.

Conifers are mostly evergreens or woody plants, with narrow leaves, often needle-like. They include firs, pines and cedars. There are separate male and female reproductive structures, the cones, and pollination is always by wind. The seeds are mostly winged, and the trees have a regular branching pattern. The needle-like, waxy leaves are helpful in a climate like Israel, as the leaves minimize water loss, but it is not clear whether early planters considered this point.

Four of the Seven Species mentioned in Deuteronomy 8:8 are native trees of the land of Israel. They include date, pomegranate, fig and olive trees. Of note, the fruits of these trees are included in the seder for Tu b’Shevat.

Karin Kloosterman, editor and writer for Green Prophet, describes one interesting, but sometimes overlooked tree in southern Israel. The sidr tree is widespread in the wadis of the Jordan Valley and in the arava, the area that roughly begins at the southern end of the Dead Sea and continues to Eilat. The distance of the arava is about 196 kilometres and it is more or less the divider between Israel on the west and Jordan on the east.

The sidr is a testament to resilience. It has weathered ancient floods and stands tall alongside the tamarisk and the mustard tree. Belonging to the ziziphus family of plants, it reaches an average height of seven or eight metres, with soft, yellowish grey branches, yellow flowers, and round fruits that turn reddish when ripe.

To Muslims, the sidr tree is considered sacred, as the Quran mentions it as being one of the plants in Paradise. It is important to Christians, as its leaves were supposedly used to make Jesus’s crown of thorns. The tree’s leaves, rich in calcium, iron and magnesium, hold therapeutic powers, serving as components in natural wound disinfectants and herbal shampoos.

Not everyone has been happy with Israel’s tree-planting policies. Ironically, the olive tree, the tree that is supposed to be the symbol of peace, has been the most contentious tree in today’s Israel. Palestinian farmers in particular have faced having their olive trees damaged or destroyed by either the Israeli army or by Israeli settlers. Apparently forgotten here is the injunction from Deuteronomy 20:19: “When in your war against a city you have to besiege a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down.”

Six years ago, a Knesset report came out on Tu b’Shevat, revealing that Israel’s trees were not well-protected. It stated that the agriculture ministry had issued tens of thousands of licences in recent years to cut down more than 375,000 trees – more than half of them to make way for building projects. The report went on to say that not only is it hard to appeal, but it is hard to follow the consequences of an appeal. Fines to builders are often not paid.

Just after Israel’s 2025 Independence Day, there was a devastating fire in the Jerusalem Hills, and thousands of acres of trees burned. The weather had been very hot and high winds stirred up the blaze. While it does not appear to have been an act of arson, the JNF estimated that around 20,000 dunams (4,900 acres) were destroyed, with 13,000 dunams (3,200 acres) of those being woodland. It turns out that conifers burn easily, with their high quantity of tree resin.

No humans were killed in the blaze, but an unknown number of slower moving animals were killed. It took a few days to totally put out the fires. Today, seeing the destruction along the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway is a painful reminder of what happened. It will take wisdom to re-plant, and it will also take time.

Today, tree planting in Israel is based on research. In Israel’s north, tabor oak, cypress and eucalyptus saplings are being readied for planting, while staff in Israel’s central region are preparing broad leaf trees, which provide sufficient green cover and pose less danger of forest fires. Meanwhile, in Israel’s south, acacia and palm seedlings are being prepared, as is the planting of fig, carob and tamarisk trees.

The modern state of Israel was not blessed with natural forests; its forests are all hand-planted. The Jewish National Fund has planted more than 260 million trees all over the country, providing belts of green covering more than 250,000 acres.

Tu b’Shevat starts the evening of Feb. 1 this year.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.