A day under fire in the north of Israel (Forest Rain)

By Forest Rain

Stress poisoning and bombs

On October 13th, I had a very interesting day. Too interesting. By the end of the day, I felt like I had been steam-rolled and it took me 24 hours to bring myself back to normal.

Of course, our normal here in Israel, particularly in the north, isn’t normal at all.

Our day began with a meeting with an important Israeli official in a Haifa coffee shop. The conversation was interrupted by the sound of sirens, screaming that we needed to race to the bomb shelter – only there was no shelter in the coffee shop. What do we do? Everyone got up, leaving their food and drinks on the table and ran across the street to the shelter in the nearest building.

Packed in the shelter of an apartment building with people we don’t know, we had to wait 10 minutes before leaving - because while the Iron Dome is excellent, no system works 100% of the time and shrapnel from the missile interceptions can continue to fall from the sky – so we continued our discussion with explosions overhead and a girl crying in the corner from stress.

Then we returned to the shop, paid our bill, and continued our day.

Later in the day, we drove toward the northern border.  

It’s not safe to travel to places under missile bombardment If you are in a shelter, that along with the Iron Dome is likely to keep you more or less safe (and even that is not 100% certain) but traveling between places, there is no shelter and no assurance that you won’t be hit.

But we wanted to see what was really happening to our country. Haifa is under bombardment and the communities along the way to the north have been bombarded even more than Haifa. Traveling that path is a risk but bombs can find you anywhere and the thought that any terrorist would succeed in terrorizing me into not going wherever I want in my own country made me so angry that there was no way I was staying home.

The communities bordering Lebanon have been evacuated for the last year. When the IDF entered Lebanon with ground forces, the area became a closed military zone – meaning that only the military or those approved by the military can travel there.

But from Haifa to Nahariya, life goes on. People live in their homes, go to work, shop, and send their kids to school (according to the assessments of the IDF Homefront Command which shuts down the schools when the bombings are too bad).

We decided to drive on the old road rather than the highway. The highway is faster but the old road has buildings along the way, making it possible to find shelter should we get caught outside when the sirens go off.

We popped in to check on our daughter-in-law who was by herself in their home near Nahariya. Our son, her husband, is enlisted and someplace in the north. That means worrying about him while being bombed. Fun stuff. She told us that although where they live there supposedly is 30 seconds to get to the shelter when the sirens go off, the explosions often come before the siren.

We had a nice visit and continued further north.

After Nahariya, soldiers stand guard closing the area to unnecessary travel – for the protection of civilians and to make it easier for the army to do what they need to do. The soldiers we talked to were pleasant (as our soldiers usually are) but also anxious (which is not usual at all). They were concerned about Hezbollah UAVs invading and bombing them. It was later in the day when we saw just how justified their concern was…

It was getting dark. Definitely, time to go home. That’s when the sirens went off.

We were on the road, nowhere near any kind of shelter. We did what other drivers did – stopped the car on the side of the road and ran down a small incline as far away from the cars as we could get. There was a ditch that provided some semblance of protection so we laid down and covered our heads, as the Home Front Command instructs us to do. When missiles hit shrapnel flies up at an angle so the best bet is to be flat on the ground and cover your head. 

The sound of the siren blaring from the nearest community and my phone was nerve-wracking enough. Then I saw on the app update that the sirens were due to an incoming UAV. Then we heard explosions - the IDF trying to intercept – which is more difficult to do than with missiles that have a defined trajectory.

So there I was face down in a ditch, in the dark, shaking and cursing my curiosity. Len covered me with his body. He wanted me to feel safe and calm down so he made jokes to distract me. I laughed. Then I heard a little girl wailing in terror. She was further down the road with whoever it was that was trying to take her home. None of us were hurt but if I was shaking, how would a small child feel?

How long do you wait before moving when it’s a UAV attack and not a missile? I could see on my app that alerts were going off further south so obviously the UAV was moving in that direction, away from us. I assumed that it would be shot down closer to Haifa.

We got in the car and continued on the way home.

Outside Nahariya, the sirens went off again. This time missiles. Like all the other drivers on the road, we pulled over and got out to run to the nearest shelter. There wasn’t anything close and there wasn’t time. Some people stopped next to a wall that couldn’t really help. We were close to the mall so we ran in that direction, hoping to find an entrance. A building outside the mall looked like a bomb shelter but it was closed. It took us a moment to figure out that it was an electricity generator room for the mall (so not a place to go inside). So we stood in between the wall of that building and the wall of the mall, a relatively good place to be. Women from Nahariya were reluctant to stand where we were because they were wearing flip-flops and there were thorny bushes under our feet. But what’s a few scrapes in compared with flying shrapnel? We encouraged them to come in and they waited with us. One had a 10 or 12 year old daughter. She was silent but had tears in her eyes and her face was twisted in fear.

I swallowed my own pounding heart to smile and tell her she was very brave and doing a great job. It is absolutely infuriating to see children being terrorized – and children should not see grown-ups afraid.

There were no more sirens on the way to Haifa. When we arrived we thought we’d take some time to sit outside on the beautiful promenade overlooking the bay, breathe some fresh air, and relax before going home.

The weather was beautiful and the view stunning, as always.

And then, from the base at the bottom of the Carmel we heard their loudspeakers: “Warning! Be prepared for impact! Take shelter!”

What the hell?! First of all it was shocking that we could hear what was happening from so far away. And my reflexive response was, why do our soldiers have to be prepared for impact?! Hezbollah should be preparing for impact!!

And then they shot an intercept missile, bright like a streak of fire into the night sky. The trajectory was so steep, at first it wasn’t clear what direction it was going in – my body tensed before my mind understood what it was seeing. It looked like it went to Lebanon. The light disappeared and then we heard the sound of the explosion rolling back at us like a wave coming in from the sea.

Looking at my phone to see updates on what happened, I began seeing the lists of wounded roll in. The UAV that didn’t explode on us flew all the way to Benyamina and exploded on people there. A lot of people (later we learned that they were soldiers – 4 were killed, dozens wounded, some critically).

We went home and began to unwind from the too intense day. I understood that my body was washed with adrenaline, and I needed to decompress or suffer from stress poisoning, so I drank a lot of water.  

And then the sirens went off.

We raced down the stairs to the shelter and listened to the huge explosions of the missile interceptions over our house.

It wasn’t easy to relax and go to sleep after all that but finally we managed – only to be woken up too early in the morning by sirens.

That was just one day when nothing happened to us.

 

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A worthy IDF commander (Forest Rain)

By Forest Rain

"Every Hebrew mother must know she entrusted the fate of her sons to worthy commanders"

Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter isn’t 10 feet tall or made of steel. He is a man who, if he told you to walk through fire, you’d do it - because he’d go first and show you how it’s done.

Winter became a household name in Israel while serving as the commander of the Givati Reconnaissance Battalion during Operation Protective Edge (2014) when he invoked God before battle in a letter to his soldiers. This is part of what he wrote:

“A great privilege has befallen us to command and serve in the Givati Brigade at this time. History has chosen us to be at the forefront of the struggle against the 'Gazan' terrorist enemy who defies, curses, and reviles the God of Israel’s Armies. We will act together with determination and strength, initiative and strategy, and we will strive to engage with the enemy. I trust you, each and every one of you, that you will act in this spirit, the spirit of Israeli fighters who lead the way for the camp. 'The spirit that is called Givati.'

I lift my eyes to the heavens and call out with you, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One.' May the God of Israel grant us success in our ways, as we go forth to fight for your people Israel against the enemy that insults Your name. In the name of the IDF fighters, and particularly the fighters of the brigade and the commanders.

May the scripture be fulfilled in us that is written: 'For the Lord your God is the One who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.' And we say, Amen.

Together, and only together, we will prevail."

The full text of his letter

Certain elements in Israeli society objected vehemently to framing the war as a battle between “the Gazan enemy who reviles the God of Israel’s Armies”. Many of Israel’s elites, including the highest-ranking officers in the IDF, insisted that Israel is not in a religious war, certainly not with all of Gaza, and loudly demanded that God not be made a part of it.

That was the point when the Israeli public began to have an inkling that there is something wrong with the highest levels of the IDF.

Ignoring the uproar, Winter led his men in battle with courage and determination, as he’d done for the last three decades, and returned, reporting of prayers answered in battle.

No wonder the elites of the IDF pushed him out.

In the aftermath of the Hamas invasion, it was shocking to learn that the man widely regarded as an exceptional commander, with an illustrious career, who knows how to win, was considered “unfit” for promotion. The leaders responsible for our security when Gaza invaded, had no position for Winter.

Shocking but perhaps not surprising. Hellenists fear Maccabees. Jewish strength, under the auspices of God, doesn’t mesh with the mindset of those who desire the auspices of America or NATO. Today the divide is most obvious between the field ranks in the IDF, soldiers who witnessed the carnage and are fighting for the honor of sisters defiled, brothers slaughtered, and hostages who must be brought home versus the high-ranking officers, those currently serving and retired officers who have become politicians and news “analysts” – the elites of Israeli society who instinctively adhere to the American Don’t and have convinced themselves that victory isn’t something tangible.  

Last week, I was at a conference, in a crowd of people who understand the necessity of victory. We listened to several prominent, intelligent speakers discuss the state of our nation, one year after the invasion. Although Israelis tend to be cynical and rarely get excited about specific individuals when Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter walked into the room there were hushed whispers of anticipation. He came quietly, with no fanfare, and sat, waiting his turn to speak.

When he walked to the podium the crowd broke out into enthusiastic, appreciative applause. So much so that this warrior turned red in embarrassment.

Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter is astonishingly humble. He explained that he never saw the military as a career, for him it was only about service. He wasn’t there for the title, ranks, or glory. He wanted to protect the nation and bring his soldiers home safely.

He proceeded to give a breathtaking speech (that Hebrew speakers can hear here – note some of the applause has been cut out of this clip).

Winter pointed out that as Jews, we have the concept of peace deeply ingrained in us. The word peace appears repeatedly in the prayers said three times a day, every day. It’s the word we use in Hebrew for both hello and goodbye. Someone else pointed out that the blessing after meals ends with a request for God to give us courage and bless us with peace. Courage comes before peace.

And that is what Winter wanted to say - peace is part of our Jewish DNA, so much so that we melt a little when anyone offers peace and yet we must understand that in the Middle East, these offerings are false. There is no peace, only a truce accepted when weak, to allow for time to gain strength and destroy the other party later on. To be safe we must fight.      

He spoke about his experiences on October 7th, highlighting the individual heroes who saved the Nation (with no focus on what he did that day). He discussed the concept of responsibility, the necessity for unity to win, and faith that while things look very bleak now, he doesn’t believe that God would keep the Nation of Israel for thousands of years, bring us back to our ancestral homeland, only to allow us to be destroyed.

He says that it doesn’t matter how he was treated by the system. What matters is that now, all the IDF units, the field soldiers, and their direct commanders invoke God before entering Gaza.

He made everyone stronger with his words. We all saw that he means what he says and lives what he believes, and he does it with strength and gentleness, courage and humility.   

Afterward, I went to thank him.

I told him: “You said you aren’t used to applause but, you see, we don’t have any other way to thank you.”

He turned red again and said “I know”, trying to avoid more compliments but I hadn’t finished.

“I want to explain what people are thanking you for. You see, we were always told "Every Hebrew mother must know that she has entrusted the fate of her sons to commanders who are worthy of it." (a saying that has been part of the IDF ethos since Ben Gurion). We all thought that that was what we were doing. On October 7th we learned that not all commanders are worthy of that trust and a national ideal was shattered. That hurts a lot. But then there is you.”

Listening quietly and thinking deeply about my words, his eyes filled with tears.

I continued: “You show us that the ideal we always had DOES exist. And you provide a role model so that our sons can know what a commander is supposed to be like. THAT is what we are thanking you for. Thank you.”

 

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“Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria” - A tour of Tura Winery (Forest Rain)

By Forest Rain

“Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria”

Many of the hills of Samaria are barren and empty – except for those touched by Jews who came back and are renewing the love story with our ancestral homeland.

When Vered and Erez Ben Saadon got married in 1997, they chose to live in the village of Bracha, located on Mount Gerizim in Samaria, where the biblical blessing was given to the tribes of Israel.

Vered and Erez had a dream to farm the land. The newlyweds invested the money they received as a wedding gift to buy the first 20 square kilometers of land where they planted vineyards. Today the Ben Saadon family owns 560 square kilometers of vineyards.

For 2000 years the land lay empty. Now it looks like this. The green is just part of their vineyards.

“You shall yet plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria.
Those who plant them, they will enjoy the fruit” (Jeremiah 31:5).

At first, the couple sold their grapes to other wineries. When they fully understood how special their grapes are, they decided to open their own winery  - Tura, a world-class, award-winning estate winery that has become a place of pilgrimage for Israeli and foreign wine connoisseurs.

It took courage and vision to open Tura Winery in Rechalim, a small community located just 15 minutes drive from Ariel University, 40 minutes from Rosh Haayin. Rechelim was another Zionist vision realized – named after two Jewish women named Rachel murdered by Arab terrorists and our ancient matriarch, Rachel. For life taken, in honor of the life given, a new community established. The first pioneering family to live in Rechalim lived in a tent for nearly eight months, but soon after, multiple families joined them, permanent homes were built, and Rechalim grew into a community in the full sense of the word.

Some of the original tents were incorporated into the structure of Tura Winery. 

The Ben Saadon’s unique personalities are woven into the success of Tura. Erez oversees the wine-making process at all stages, from growing the grapes to marketing. Vered hosts visitors to the winery where shares her extraordinary story and knowledge about Samaria. She has become an unofficial “spokesperson for Samaria” which is why on Israel’s 75th Independence Day Vered was chosen to represent the farmers, the residents of Samaria, and Israeli Wine and light a torch at the torch lighting ceremony on Mount Herzl in their honor.

Vered was born in Holland and as a young girl immigrated to Israel with her parents and sister. Vered’s father was Jewish but her mother was not. Having relatives who survived the Holocaust as well as relatives who aided the perpetrators of the Holocaust led Vered’s mother to decide that she wanted to stand firmly on the side of the Jews. Israel’s chief rabbi Shlomo Goren conducted their conversion ceremony.

Vered says that the Jew hate we see in Europe today is the same hate that created the horror of the Holocaust. It was never really gone. For years she has been warning visiting Europeans that the hate will destroy them. In the past, they showed little understanding of what she was saying. Perhaps now, they will see what she meant. She worries about Israel too but sees more hope for us. We have our soldiers and, if we choose wisely, we may merit miracles. We will need both.     

The slogan of Tura Winery is “Patience & Inspiration”. It reflects the art and love infused in the process of making their wines. It’s appropriate for the story of Israel too.

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The Tura Winery Visitors Center can accommodate up to 55 people.
There is an entrance fee and it is by appointment only. To arrange a visit, please call: 02-650-8882

For more information about Tura Wine please visit: https://www.turawinery.com/

 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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To the pioneers of Judea and Samaria, "people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, and do" (Forest Rain)

By Forest Rain

“To me, you cannot say, that’s not realistic”

There are those who talk and there those who do. I deeply admire the doers. The people who make things happen, particularly those who, with unwavering determination, pull a new reality out of thin air. The stubborn ones who keep treading the long road, against all odds, despite being derided and denied, accused and despised.

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

When Steve Jobs created the famous Apple ad honoring the misfits and troublemakers who have no respect for the status quo, the general public loved the romance of the idea presented. Public reaction is very different when it comes to real people who fit this description.

Few people have made, as Jobs liked to say, “a dent in the world”, like Daniella Weiss. She changed the map of Israel. Literally.

For the past 50 years, Daniella has been (and still is!) the most prominent woman in the settlement of biblical Israel – Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

Daniella was a key member of Gush Emunim, a Zionist movement with the mission: “To bring about a major spiritual reawakening in the Jewish people for the sake of the full realization of the Zionist vision, in the knowledge that this vision’s source and goal in the Jewish heritage and in Judaism’s roots are the total redemption of both the Jewish people and the whole world.”

Basically, their idea was that Jewish identity is tied to our ancestral homeland and to fully actualize our identity, it is necessary to live in the land that gave birth to our People. Healing the divide between this land and her people, the people and the land, will not only heal Jews but will also heal the world.

To make this vision a reality, the leaders of Gush Emunim went to different areas of biblical Israel. Rabbi Levinger went to Hebron. Rabbi Chanan Porat went to Gush Etzion.

Daniella Weiss, with the core people of Elon Moreh went to Samaria. Her actions and mentorship led to the creation of 300 communities, 800,000 Jews living where, before 1974, there were none.

Between 1984 and 1988, Daniella served as the Secretary General of the Gush Emunim Movement. For 11 years Daniella was the Mayor of Kedumim. Since 2007, Daniella, together with others, including the late Rabbi Levinger, established The Nachala Settlement Movement.

When I was a child in America, the word “settler” meant “pioneer”, the people who braved the wilderness and built America with their own two hands. They were people to be admired and emulate. After the Six Day War, Israelis returning to their ancestral homeland, were treated as heroic miracle-makers. After the Yom Kippur War in 1973 many people, including Israelis, were not so certain about being the people physically actualizing a biblical prophecy.

As if settling down, and making yourself comfortable, in the land of our ancestors could be a bad thing. I can imagine Daniella would laugh and say: “Do you really think that Jews returning to their promised land is avoidable?”

People who believe in biblical prophecy are often derided. Those who take action to make the prophecies come to life are considered by many to be crazy. They are called extreme, hard-liners, messianic...

Jews living in their ancestral homeland, willing to defend themselves and their families, even when the government is unwilling (or due to international pressure, unable), to come to their aid are deemed by European governments, the US State Department, and even by some on Israel’s left to be “the obstacle to peace.”  Recently different governments have sanctioned individual residents of Judea and Samaria, including Daniella Weiss, as if they are to blame for the lack of peace.

Jewish presence in the land makes it impossible to divide the land and that makes many people angry.

They forget that Judea and Samaria, not Tel Aviv, is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish People. They refuse to look at the map and see how the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria protect the metropolitan of Tel Aviv from an October 7th-style invasion from Palestinian Authority-controlled territories, the same PA whose leaders promised more October 7s, whose people overwhelmingly support Hamas. For example, the PA city of Kalkiliya is 14 kilometers, 9 miles from the Mediterranean Sea – an easy stroll away from Kfar Saba. The outskirts of Kalkiliya and Kfar Saba are practically touching, closer than the distance between Gaza and Nir Oz. The only difference is that in Gaza there were no Jews and subsequently no IDF to prevent the invasion.

One doesn’t need to be “messianic” to recognize the importance of Jewish presence to establish Jewish safety. Bible believers, both Jews and Christians, will say that it is wrong to divide God’s land. Indigenous rights dictate that Jews have the right to live in their indigenous homeland. But even if only focused on the practicalities needed to create security, it is easy to understand that civilian life means homes and roads that remain open because they are in use by civilians. The IDF doesn’t occupy territory, it protects homes. Pulling civilians out of that area (like what happened in Gaza) creates a vacuum that the enemy fills – and when that endangers the nearby civilian population, it is necessary to use extreme military force.

The presence of communities actually keeps the peace, as much as peace is possible in this region.

Daniella Weiss’s Nachala Movement continues to support the return of Jews to our ancestral lands. She says: “I don’t need to be told that the people need to lead the government in making things happen. I teach others that idea.

She says 650 families have registered to establish communities in Gaza. Governments, organizations, and even many Israelis say that this is a wild, crazy, and dangerous idea. Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “It’s not realistic.”

Daniella’s response? “To me, you cannot say it’s not realistic. Gaza is part of the historic land of the tribe of Judah and we are going to return to our land.”

For 50 years she’s been making the unrealistic real. 

Steve Jobs said it better than I ever could: “Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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The heroic last hours of beloved nurse Amit Man, murdered October 7 (Forest Rain)

By Forest Rain

Beautiful, beloved Amit Man – words are not enough

Words are tools that describe and create reality. Powerful yet only representations, a reflection, not the experience itself. There is a gap between the two which usually goes unnoticed. But when the experience is profound the gap becomes sharp and painful. The words fall broken and twisted into the chasm that they cannot bridge.   

What words could encompass the whirlwind of evil that swept through this little building, snatching lives away and laughing the whole time?

The dental clinic in Be’eri was designated as a gathering place in an emergency. It was not equipped for the disaster that hit the community on October 7^th. Who could imagine a full-scale invasion of monsters armed to the teeth and eager to rape and burn families alive?  

It was here that the Children of Light fought the Children of Darkness.

What words have enough truth in them, enough depth, to describe what happened in this little clinic? What words have enough light in them to describe Amit Man, beautiful and beloved, dedicated to life, choosing others above herself when the missiles began? She could have left the kibbutz. She could have stayed in the safe room. Instead, she took her paramedic’s bag and ran to the clinic. What words are enough to describe Dr. Daniel Levi, Amit, and a nurse battling for seven hours to treat the injured and save lives? What words are powerful enough to honor the two members of the kibbutz's emergency response team who stood guard, fighting off the monsters so that the healers could treat the injured?  

Seven hours, an eternity in hell.

Throughout the battle Amit, just 22 years old, kept her composure and constantly updated the Magen David Adom (MDA) headquarters about the condition of the wounded, pleading for evacuation. When the medical supplies ran out, she caressed the heads of the injured, gave them water, and encouraged them. Two of the survivors recounted that the assistance she provided saved their lives.

Around 2:00 PM the brave men battling to protect the clinic ran out of ammunition.

Amit managed to send a message to her family: "I don't think I will get out of here. Please stay strong if something happens to me."

 

“They’re here.”

Three little words. So much, unspeakable horror.

In her last call to her family Amit can be heard screaming “Shachar” the name of one of the men trying to protect her. Did she scream because she had already been shot in the leg or was it because she was watching his life run out of his body and she couldn’t help?

When Amit was found they saw she had been shot in the leg, managed to apply a tourniquet to herself, but was shot again and died.

There are no words profound enough to convey what it is like to stand in the place where evil swept through, snatching lives away and laughing.

The walls, riddled with bullet holes, are silent yet accusatory. Here the Children of Light shone in all their glory. Here their sacrifice, love, dedication, honor, and dignity were not enough to stop the evil, ravenous and hellbent on stamping out life. 

People whose loved ones were ripped from them here wrote on the walls, words doomed to fail in conveying the depths of their emotions.

The flatness of the words knocked the breath from my lungs. I saw words that attempted to infuse dignity and respect in a place where dignity was stolen. I saw words that attempted to express love and honor.  And then one little word jumped out at me: “Mom”.

Amit Man’s sister Haviva and mother wrote these words on the wall, in between the bullet holes:

In memory of Amit Man, our little sister,
the beloved of our hearts who was murdered while saving lives,
together with Dr. Daniel Levi,
Shachar Tzemach,
and Eitan Hadad.

We love you forever and ever.

Mom !
Haviva

As time passes and others forget, we are left to pick up the debris left by the storm.

October 7^th isn’t over. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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How Lavender Saved Israel (Forest Rain)

By Forest Rain

I don’t particularly like lavender, but a farm dedicated ONLY to lavender?! I thought that would be something worth seeing. I never imagined I’d hear about lavender saving Israel but then in Israel, you never know what you will discover.

Azizo Lavender Farm is located in the community of Kanaf in the Golan Heights.

The name "Azizo" is inspired by a Latin inscription discovered on a lintel of the ancient synagogue in Deir Aziz, where modern Kanaf now stands. Farmer Dan and his wife Lilach chose this name to honor the deep historical connection to the land and the water source by the same name that sustained the ancient community and continues to nourish their lavender fields today.

The place is beautiful and full of purple accents – and fresh lavender smells much better than the lavender scent used in perfumes and detergents.

Farmer Dan happily explained the history of the business, growing and harvesting lavender. His lavender brought a small but crucial revolution to Israeli households. Everyone used to use moth balls to protect clothes – an effective but terrible-smelling solution. The first Azizo product was small bags of lavender to use instead. They work so well and last so long that some Kanaf residents still use the ones they bought in 1987!!

The farm now sells a large variety of products made with their lavender – everything from chocolate, liqueur, honey, and lavender ice cream to lavender-based toiletries.

Nice, wholesome, and a little boring until suddenly farmer Dan told us about October 7^th.

We didn’t know to ask. Who would think that a flower farm in the north of Israel had anything to do with the horrors of the Hamas invasion in the south?

On October 7^th Dan got a phone call from a woman begging for help. Her husband was among those evacuating bodies of the massacred to the Shura Camp for identification. Within hours the rooms of the camp were piled to the ceiling with bodies and the smell was unbearable.

The soul could not deal with what they were seeing. The task needed to be done but the workers were becoming physically ill.

“You have to help me!” she pleaded.

The next day the Shura teams received Dan’s solution - small bags of lavender which they inserted inside their face masks and lavender oil they could drip on the masks themselves. Instead of breathing death, they could breathe in lavender.

The invaders massacred Jews to try to disconnect us from our land. Flowers born of the ancient love story between the Jewish People and our ancestral homeland, between this land and her People, saved the day.

Flowers protected those doing the unspeakably horrible and deeply sacred work of identifying the massacred. They enabled the families of Israel to get much-needed answers. We used sheer determination and technology too but we needed flowers, a blessing from the land herself to finish the job.

Think about that.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Fighting Antisemitism: Putting Down Roots in the Land of Israel (Forest Rain)

Fighting Antisemitism: Putting Down Roots in the Land of Israel

Fighting the dark isn’t effective. Increasing the light is. Even small lights make a difference.

Below is a practical proposal for fighting antisemitism by strengthening our connection to our ancestral homeland through direct support of Israeli farmers like Omri.

Once, those who supported Zion, collaborated to finance the redemption of the land of Israel. Now your help is needed to maintain and protect the land. By helping to sustain and develop Israeli agriculture, you are contributing to the resilience and security of the Jewish people in Israel and worldwide. The model this project proposes is personal and direct, where you can see, touch, and even taste the impact of your contribution.   

This is relevant for Jews and for our Christian friends – when Jewish roots in Israel are weakened and even denied, both Jewish and Christian identity, heritage, past and future are being denied.   

The oldest hate never went away, it was lurking under the surface waiting for an excuse, an opportunity to go public again.

The October 7th Hamas invasion triggered a terrifying outburst of Jew hate worldwide. Tellingly, it exploded on the streets of Europe and America before Israel’s response in Gaza, showing us that the public expression of virulent Jew hate was the result of hope – hope generated by seeing Israel on her knees and the realization that when Jews around the world don’t have a strong Israel to back them up, they are easy prey.

Most Jews believed that they would never hear in their lifetime calls for Jewish blood on the streets of civilized nations. That happened in the Holocaust. Sometimes it happens in the Middle East but in New York? London?

We assumed that Jews were safe in their respective homes and that Israel’s existence was a given fact. Now, following October 7th, we find ourselves facing an unprecedented fight for Jewish existence—the survival of the state of Israel and the safety of Jews worldwide.

It’s time to go back to basics: The Nation of Israel, the Land of Israel

To combat the hate, we need to strengthen ourselves. Let’s begin with the basics - rooting ourselves in the Land of Israel and finding a personal connection to the land that shaped our identity and nation. Rootless people are easy to bully but when faced with strength, bullies back down.

Jewish identity transcends religion. Despite being scattered across the globe, we are one Nation, rooted in our ancestral homeland—Israel. Our identity as a tribe, our culture, language, and history originated from this land. The bond between our people and this specific piece of land is unique. Whether we realize it or not, the Land of Israel and the Nation of Israel complete each other.

When disconnected from the land that shaped us as a nation, both the people and the land suffer. When Jews were exiled from ancient Israel, just as promised in the Bible, the land became fallow, waiting for our return: "I will make the land desolate, and your foes who dwell upon it will be desolate" (Leviticus 26:32).  

Disconnected from the land, Jews are incomplete, guests in someone else’s land – a minority that is easy for the hateful to target.

Israel needs to be maintained and protected, not because she is a safe haven for Jews to escape to, but because Israel is a source of strength and courage. The Jew haters hate Zion because they understand that Israel is the source of who we are. What we need to know is that our roots are deeper and stronger than any bully.

“Hatikva” and connecting to the land saved Omri’s family

A ship called “Hatikva” (hope in Hebrew) brought Omri’s grandfather Yair to Israel. It was 1948 and he was two years old. Tunisia was becoming dangerous for Jews, so his courageous mother decided that the only hope was to come to Israel. 

The Tunisian authorities as well as the British who, at that time, still held the Mandate for Palestine Israel were blocking Jewish immigration to Israel. So, his parents locked up their home as if they were simply going on vacation and walked away, never to return. Somehow they managed to reach France and from there, thanks to tourist visas, they reached Israel on “Hatikva”.

Although they were wealthy, staying in Tunisia could have cost them their lives – and living free in your ancestral homeland is priceless.

From merchants in Tunisia, they became farmers in Israel. Here they could put down roots and connect to the land. Hope literally saved their lives and gave them a future.

Fast forward to today.

Omri is now a fourth-generation farmer in the Jewish ancestral homeland. He manages the farm together with his father Moshe. Over the years the family adapted their crops, becoming more efficient and productive. Through hard work and love of the land, they did well.

Being a farmer is hard in normal times. For years farming has been overlooked for the more flashy high-tech sector, although agriculture is an issue of national security. The borders of Israel were defined by the physical presence of farmers, as Joesph Trumpeldor famously explained: "In the place where the Jewish plow will plow the last furrow, there our border will pass." And it’s not just the borders – farmers throughout Israel constantly battle to protect their land from agricultural terrorism designed to push them off the land.

After October 7th everything became even harder.

Although they’ve built their farm from empty land and managed it for four generations, Omri’s father, Moshe tells Omri to find another job, one where he’d be more appreciated, could work less hard, and earn more. Omri says he’ll never give up the family’s farm. Every tomato or cucumber they grow is like a precious jewel. Seeing vegetables grow, knowing they will nourish others, makes him happy.

  

Omri’s greenhouse is overflowing with tomatoes of different breeds, sweeter and brighter than I’ve seen anywhere else. When asked how is it that his plants produce so much and in such good condition he smiles and says: “I don’t know. I love them [the plants]. I sing to them and talk to them and try to give them everything they need. Why shouldn’t they give back as much as they can?”

Although Omri’s farm is not near the north or southern border, October 7 damaged his ability to manage his crops. The ramifications of the invasion and the subsequent war extend beyond the obvious.

When the invaders came, no one escaped their brutality. Foreign workers employed as field hands were also slaughtered, tortured, and taken hostage. Surviving workers were evacuated to other farms in safe locations, including Omri’s farm in Tzrufa (some 30 minutes from Haifa). They were brought to his farm with the clothes on their backs and their phones. Some didn’t have shoes. Omri described one of the men getting off the taxi that brought them to the farm, curling up into a fetal position and rocking back and forth. He bought them clothes and tried to make them comfortable, but their terror was so enormous that it was impossible to get through to them – and when they conveyed what had happened to them to Omri’s employees, they too became terrified and subsequently decided to leave their lucrative jobs and return home to their families in Thailand.

Omri needs some 18 people to manage his farm properly. He now has himself and 3 workers.

He had to plow under some of his crops because there weren’t enough hands to pick the produce.

Volunteers (including myself) come to help Omri when they can. One day of help is nowhere near enough but it’s better than not having the help. It is a race against time to pick his luscious tomatoes before they rot on the vine.

Omri greets every volunteer with joy and declares everything picked a victory. It is a victory when the carefully tended produce goes to the plates of the people of Israel. It is an even larger victory when good people step into the gap, willing to help and make this terrible time a little less difficult.

What can you do to help?

Redeeming the land wasn’t a one-time event. It’s a process and your participation is important to enable the land to be maintained and protected.

This is an invitation to connect to a specific piece of land, through a specific farmer - Omri.  Put down roots in Omri’s farm and make a tangible, measurable difference.

Here’s what you can do:

1. Volunteer in Israel on the farm – join Israelis volunteering to work for the day. There is work suitable for almost any age/physical condition. You can join volunteer groups via Leket Israel or HaShomer HaChadash.        

2. Financially contribute and facilitate the work being done on the farm – every contribution makes a difference! Leverage family, friends, and community to collaborate and create an even larger impact.

·     3. Have plants planted in your name or to honor someone who matters to you:
One tomato plant costs between $0.40 – 0.70 USD (depending on the breed).
One line of plants in the greenhouse consists of 100 plants.
One greenhouse holds approximately 36,000 plants.

·     4.  Help Omri build a new greenhouse.
The greenhouse will cover 5 dunams (a little over 1 acre).
It will have 14 “sleeves” (sections), each one costs $6650 USD. Can you help build that? Or even part of it?

If you would like to partner with Omri contact me at: lionheart.e@gmail.com

When you contribute to Omri’s work, you will be able to say with pride: “I built that.”
I made it possible to grow those tomatoes. To build a new greenhouse.
I helped put food on the tables of the people of Israel.
I helped maintain this specific piece of land. My roots are here. 

And when you come to visit, you will be able to see, touch, and taste your accomplishment. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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