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Amid war, food rescue group switches from relying on farmers’ generosity to helping them survive
Yariv Hagbi, a farmer whose family has been growing produce in the area of southern Israel near Gaza for generations, spent part of Oct. 7 fighting terrorists who broke into his family home in the town of Yakhini.
That Saturday, his brother, Yizhar Hagbi, and several other relatives were killed. Since then, the entire community of Yakhini has been displaced, but Hagbi stayed behind because he’s determined to save the family farm — despite all the grief, shock and devastation.
“At a certain point, you have to get back to life,” Hagbi said.
A range of produce grows at Hagbi’s farm in Nir Moshe, including broccoli, potatoes, cabbage, melon, tomatoes, corn and chickpeas. Until the war, the farm relied on Thai farmhands — part of an agricultural workforce of tens of thousands of foreign laborers in Israel. But most fled their places of work after Hamas’s brutal attack left dozens of foreign farmworkers dead or abducted and turned a large swath of southern Israel into a war zone. Without the 20 Thais who had worked at Hagbi’s farm, Hagbi’s produce was left unpicked and was starting to rot.
Hundreds of other farms in southern Israel — the source of approximately 75% of the country’s vegetables — were in similarly dire circumstances.
Joseph Gitler, Founder and Chairman of the Israeli food rescue organization Leket Israel, quickly pivoted his organization’s focus to address the crisis.
In normal times, Leket Israel collects surplus produce from farms around the country — and excess cooked meals from institutions such as hotels and army bases — and distributes the food to needy families via a network of nonprofit organizations. In 2022, Leket rescued 58 million pounds of agricultural produce, and the 20-year-old organization was on track to increase those numbers in 2023.
Then came Hamas’s attack and the war in Gaza.
“We immediately understood that the Oct. 7 attack would bring an upheaval to our work,” Gitler said. “We realized that our food sources were about to dry up.”
First, Leket shifted gears to aid Israeli farmers, who until the war had been Leket’s primary donors of surplus food. The organization began recruiting volunteers from Israel and around the world to help fill the gap left by the absence of farm workers, organizing 15,000 to 20,000 volunteers to farms amid a nationwide movement of volunteers helping pick, plant and protect produce from weeds.
Leket also began purchasing produce from farmers rather than just collecting surplus. The need is particularly high because Israeli farms have lost many export customers due to the challenges of harvesting and transporting the produce at a time when workers and overseas flights are both in short supply (most international carriers have canceled all their Israel flights).
Volunteers with a sign reading “United until victory” pause for a group photo amid work on a farm. (Courtesy of Leket Israel)
At the same time, Leket has been continuing to provide meals to needy Israelis even as some of the organizations it works with to distribute those meals have suspended operations during the war due to logistical difficulties — or, like the army, don’t have surplus food anymore. Today Leket provides about 15,000 meals per day — 50% more than before the war — all via purchased rather than donated food.
“The situations of people we help hasn’t gotten any better since October 7,” Gitler said. “In some cases, they have gotten worse.”
For farms in the vicinity of Gaza, the challenges are tremendous. Almost all farming families in the south are mourning loved ones or friends, have been evacuated from their homes, or have family members doing military reserve duty. The farms themselves have suffered significant damage, including incineration by Hamas terrorists, fields torn up by military vehicles, structures damaged by rocket or mortar fire, and locations commandeered by the army. Farms within four kilometers of the border must obtain special permission from the Israeli Defense Forces to continue operating amid the fighting. Then, of course, there’s the loss of the farmworkers themselves.
That problem is afflicting farmers all over Israel, not just those in the war zones.
Yuval Shargian, a farmer in Tzofit, north of Tel Aviv, whose 100-acre tract grows broccoli, zucchini and leeks, for years has donated his surplus to Leket. But when his entire workforce of Thai and Arab workers disappeared after Oct. 7, he became reliant upon volunteers.
“It’s been amazing with the volunteers,” Shargian said. “They have a lot of good will and a desire to help. My farm will survive because of them.”
Debbi Hirsch Levran, a retired social worker and lawyer living in Jerusalem, is among those who have has been volunteering on farms during the war, and she frequently helps organize buses of volunteers through her synagogue, Kol Haneshama.
“We have worked in cauliflower fields and strawberry fields. We picked sweet potatoes, oranges and tomatoes. We planted broccoli,” Levran said. “It has been therapeutic for us — not only to be in the fresh air and to be with friends, but also to assist people who we’ve never met before but who are part of our larger community of Israel.”
Dan Greenberg, 51, joined a Leket volunteer group on a recent visit to Israel from his home in Brooklyn, New York, picking tomatoes and pomegranates near Gaza.
“The work was tough and exhausting. Every muscle hurt at the end of the day,” Greenberg said. “And it was the most fulfilling work I have ever done.”
Volunteers are helping keep Israeli farms afloat amid a dearth of farmhands and other problems resulting from the war in Israel. (Courtesy of Leket Israel)
Leket has set up a series of partnerships to create new avenues to support farmers and volunteers. A new partnership with Bank Leumi, the Israel Student Union and the Keshet media company will give 800 students who volunteer on a farm for 160 hours a yearlong academic scholarship. In a new partnership with Strauss foods, farmers can receive a debit card through which they get direct funding.
Supporting the farmers is vital not just to keep them in business but also to support Israel’s entire food system. If the farms in southern Israel were to collapse, Israel would have to embark on a major food import campaign with long-term repercussions for Israel’s economy and the national ethos of being self-sustaining.
“That would start a difficult path to come back from,” Shargian said. “Had the volunteers not helped with the planting, Israel would be having a real food crisis now.”
Levran and Hagbi both say planting is critical at this moment.
“The most important thing is to keep planting; it is about preserving our way of life,” Hagbi said. “My family has been farming here for generations, and our enemies want to erase our entire way of life. We are fighting for our very existence. Planting is our way of ensuring our long-term survival here in a Jewish, democratic state. We are doing this for all of Israel.”
Through Leket, tourists to Israel may volunteer for as little as several hours planting, packing or harvesting.
“We need all hands on deck right now,” Gitler said. “Leket is doing what we can. But we need more help. If you’re coming to Israel, be ready to roll up your sleeves. Everyone has to participate.”
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Lebanon Claims It Is Replacing Hezbollah in the South
Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam speaks at the presidential palace on the day he meets with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, in Baabda, Lebanon, Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
JNS.org – Lebanon’s leadership declared in recent days that the Lebanese Army has begun replacing Hezbollah forces in the country’s southern region.
In an April 15 interview with The New Arab, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun announced that 2025 would be the year of the Lebanese state’s monopoly on arms.
Aoun pledged that only the state would have weapons, referring to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), and stressed this goal would be achieved through direct dialogue with Hezbollah, while explicitly ruling out steps that could ignite conflict with Hezbollah.
“I told the Americans that we want to remove Hezbollah’s weapons, but we will not ignite a civil war in Lebanon,” Aoun said, referencing a meeting with US Deputy Envoy Morgan Ortagus.
Aoun added that Hezbollah members could potentially integrate individually into the LAF but rejected replicating the Iraqi model where Shi’ite, Iranian-backed paramilitary groups formed independent units within the military. He asserted the LAF was conducting missions throughout the country “without any obstruction from Hezbollah.”
Hezbollah member Mahmoud Qamat, however, responded by stating, “No one in the world will succeed in laying a hand on this weapon,” according to Lebanese media.
Hezbollah Member of Parliament Ali Fayyad stated the group was open to internal dialogue but warned against pressure on the LAF to disarm Hezbollah.
Col. (res.) Dr. Hanan Shai, a research associate at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy and a former investigator for the IDF’s commission on the 2006 Second Lebanon War, told JNS on Wednesday that statements by Lebanese officials and the activities of the Lebanese army are “unequivocally an achievement for Israel.”
But Shai warned that due “the weakness of the Lebanese army, the IDF cannot rely on it and must back it up with its own parallel defense—mainly through detailed intelligence monitoring and targeted thwarting of any violation not only in Southern Lebanon but also [deep] within it, including at sea and air ports.”
The fragility of the situation was highlighted when a LAF soldier was killed, and three others were wounded while attempting to neutralize suspected Hezbollah ordnance in the Tyre district of Southern Lebanon on April 14.
Hezbollah’s real intentions were also apparent when its supporters reportedly burned billboards celebrating Lebanon’s “new era.”
Most tellingly, the Israel Defense Forces is continuing to detect intelligence of illegal Hezbollah activity in Southern Lebanon, and acting on that intelligence. Overnight between April 15 and 16, the IDF conducted strikes against Hezbollah infrastructure in Southern Lebanon.
In one strike near Aitaroun in Southern Lebanon, an IDF aircraft killed Ali Najib Bazzi, identified by the IDF as a squad commander in Hezbollah’s Special Operations unit. Other recent IDF actions included strikes and artillery fire targeting a Hezbollah engineering vehicle near Ayta ash-Shab in Southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, reports emerged suggesting Hezbollah was actively adapting its methods for acquiring weapons. Reports indicated a shift towards sea-based smuggling routes utilizing Beirut Port.
The Saudi Al-Hadath news site reported on April 8 that Iran’s Quds Force created an arms smuggling sea route that bypasses Syria.
Amidst these reports, Aoun visited Beirut Port on April 11, calling for strict government cargo monitoring.
Karmon expresses skepticism
Senior research scholar Ely Karmon of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University in Herzliya stated, “There’s no doubt there’s a change in Lebanon, first of all on the political level— the fact that President Joseph Aoun was elected—supported by the West, the United States, Saudi Arabia.”
In addition, he said, “Hezbollah’s political weight in parliament and in Lebanon in general has dropped significantly after the blow they received from the IDF.”
On the other hand, Karmon expressed deep skepticism about Aoun’s stated path to disarming Hezbollah. Aoun’s statement that he “isn’t interested in coming to military confrontation with Hezbollah,” and that it needs to be a “slow process,” as well as his call for Hezbollah to enter Lebanese army units, should not be taken at face value, according to Karmon.
“I don’t really believe it. First of all, because traditionally, in the Lebanese Army, most of the soldiers were Shi’ites, for a simple demographic reason. And therefore, the integration of thousands of Hezbollah fighters or personnel into the army—certainly at this stage in my opinion—it’s a danger that they’ll take control of the army from within, after they’ve already for years cooperated with the army.”
He added, “We know, for example, that they received weapons from the Lebanese Army—tanks and APCs—when they operated in Syria in 2013, 2010, and they even presented them publicly in Qusayr [in Syria]. On the other hand, we also heard one article from a Hezbollah representative who’s on their political committee, stating, ‘Absolutely not, we will not give up the weapons!’ It is clear there’ll be opposition.”
Karmon said he was skeptical about Lebanese government claims about taking over around 95 out of some 250 Hezbollah positions in Southern Lebanon. Karmon assessed that Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors would be cautious but that they would continue to try “as usual, to act and to bring in weapons, to prepare some infrastructure in case, for example, there is a crisis in the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear issue.”
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‘Tradition, Tradition!’
An image from “Family at the Seder,” from the 1935 Haggadah by artist Arthur Szyk (b. 1894, Lodz, Poland—d. 1951, New Canaan, CT). Photo: Courtesy of Irvin Ungar
JNS.org – How important is tradition in Judaism? Obviously, the answer is that it is very important. I mean, they even dedicated a major song by that title in “Fiddler on the Roof!”
How strong is the need for tradition in the spiritual consciousness of Jews today? Despite the effects of secularism, I’d venture to suggest that there is still a need inside us to feel connected to our roots, our heritage and our sense of belonging to the Jewish people. Perhaps more than any time of the year, Passover is the season when millions of Jews embrace their traditions with love, warmth and lots of nostalgia.
But for vast numbers of our people, tradition alone has not been enough. And that applies not only to the rebellious among us who may have cast aside their traditions with impunity, but also to many ordinary, thinking people who decided that to do something just because “that’s the way it has always been done” was simply not good enough.
So what if my grandfather did it? My grandfather rode around in a horse and buggy! Must I give up my car for a horse just because my Zaidy rode a horse? And if my Bubbie never got a university degree, why shouldn’t I? Just because my grandparents practiced certain Jewish traditions, why must I? Perhaps those traditions are as obsolete as the horse and buggy?
There are masses of Jews who think this way and who will not be convinced to behave Jewishly just because their grandparents did.
We need to tell them why their grandparents did it. They need to understand that their grandparents’ traditions were not done just for tradition’s sake, but there was a very good reason why their forbears practiced those traditions. And those very same reasons and rationales still hold good today. There is, in fact, no such thing as “empty ritual” in Judaism. Everything has a reason, and a good one, too.
Too many young people were put off by tradition because some cheder or Talmud Torah teacher didn’t take their questions seriously. They were silenced with a wave of the hand, a pinch of the ear, the classic “when you get older, you’ll understand,” or the infamously classic, “just do as you’re told.”
There are answers. There have always been answers. We may not have logical explanations for tsunamis and other tzuris, but all our traditions are founded on substance and have intelligible, credible underpinnings. If we seek answers, we will find them in abundance, including layers and layers of meaning, from the simple to the symbolic to the philosophical and even mystical.
The seventh day of Passover recalls the “Song of the Sea” sung by Moses and the Jewish people following the splitting of the sea and their miraculous deliverance from the Egyptian armies. Early on, we find the verse, “This is my God and I will glorify Him, the God of my fathers, and I will exalt Him.”
The sequence is significant. First comes “my God,” and only thereafter “the God of my fathers.” In the Amidah prayer, the silent devotion, which is the apex of our daily prayers, we begin addressing the “Almighty, as our God and the God of our fathers … Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Again, “our God” comes first. So while the God of our fathers, i.e., tradition, most definitely plays a very important role in Judaism, an indispensable prerequisite is that we must make God ours, personally. Every Jew must develop a personal relationship with God. We need to understand the reasons and the significance of our traditions lest they be mistaken for empty ritual to be discarded by the next generation.
Authentic Judaism has never shied away from questions. Questions have always been encouraged and formed a part of our academic heritage. Every page of the Talmud is filled with questions and answers. You don’t have to wait for the Passover seder to ask a question.
When we think, ask and find answers to our faith, the traditions of our grandparents become alive, and we understand fully why we should make them ours. Once a tradition has become ours and we realize that this very same practice has been observed uninterruptedly by our ancestors throughout the generations, then tradition becomes a powerful force that can inspire us forever.
The seders we celebrated at the beginning of Passover are among the most powerful in our faith. They go back to our ancestors in Egypt, where the very first seder was observed. How truly awesome is it that we are still practicing these same traditions more than 3,300 years later!
Our traditions are not empty. They are rich and meaningful and will, please God, be held on to preciously for generations to come.
With acknowledgments to Chabad.org.
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Thousands of Protesters Rally Against Trump Across US
“Protect Migrants, Protect the Planet” rally in New York City, U.S., April 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
Thousands of protesters rallied in Washington and other cities across the US on Saturday to voice their opposition to President Donald Trump’s policies on deportations, government firings, and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Outside the White House, protesters carried banners that read “Workers should have the power,” “No kingship,” “Stop arming Israel” and “Due process,” media footage showed.
Some demonstrators chanted in support of migrants whom the Trump administration has deported or has been attempting to deport while expressing solidarity with people fired by the federal government and with universities whose funding is threatened by Trump.
“As Trump and his administration mobilize the use of the US deportation machine, we are going to organize networks and systems of resistance to defend our neighbors,” a protester said in a rally at Lafayette Square near the White House.
Other protesters waved Palestinian flags while wearing keffiyeh scarves, chanting “free Palestine” and expressing solidarity with Palestinians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza.
Some demonstrators carried symbols expressing support for Ukraine and urging Washington to be more decisive in opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Since his January inauguration, Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, have gutted the federal government, firing over 200,000 workers and attempting to dismantle various agencies.
The administration has also detained scores of foreign students and threatened to stop federal funding to universities over diversity, equity and inclusion programs, climate initiatives and pro-Palestinian protests. Rights groups have condemned the policies.
Near the Washington Monument, banners from protesters read: “hate never made any nation great” and “equal rights for all does not mean less rights for you.”
Demonstrations were also held in New York City and Chicago, among dozens of other locations. It marked the second day of nationwide demonstrations since Trump took office.
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