KIBBUTZ NIR OZ, Israel — A carpet of green spreads outside the fence of this community in southern Israel as the wheat and potato fields that were trampled by terrorists as they entered the kibbutz on Oct. 7, 2023, and left bare through more than a year of war, have since been replanted and are growing anew in Israel’s rainy winter.

“It took us a lot of time to go back to work in these fields,” kibbutz member Nir Metzger told a delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organization that visited the kibbutz this week during its annual mission to Israel. Metzger, whose parents Yoram and Tamar Metzger were taken hostage by Hamas, heads the kibbutz civilian emergency team and is responsible for the upkeep of the farm machinery. His mother was released on Nov. 28, 2023, as part of the first temporary cease-fire deal. His father was proclaimed dead by Israel this summer, along with three other hostages. 

“The war was going on… then we weren’t allowed to enter these fields. But the minute that they had enough security here, we were already inside, and they allowed us to go into the fields bit by bit. You can see for yourselves all the fields are planted,” he told the visiting Americans.

Most of the fields have been planted with wheat and the rest with potatoes, he said. One field of potatoes is ready to be picked and just behind the patch of wheat there is a new field sprouting, which will be ready to harvest in the spring.

“In the spring we harvest at night because it’s too hot for potatoes during the day,” he said as a new green tractor rolled its way back from the fields along a dirt path to the kibbutz’s tractor yard as the sun set in the horizon behind Gaza. “We’ll be able to show how our fields are green again. It’s something that we consider meaningful as a stepping stone in rebuilding the community.”

Metzger, 49, said his family is among the roughly 20 families planning to return to the kibbutz in the spring. Nir Oz was one of the hardest-hit kibbutzim in the Oct. 7 massacres. For as yet unclear reasons, almost no soldiers were sent to the community during the Oct. 7 massacres, allowing terrorists to rampage freely, resulting in 117 of its 400 residents either killed or kidnapped, and only seven of its 220 buildings left unscathed. This has also led to a deep breakdown in trust between many community members and the state.

And yet many residents maintain an almost spiritual connection to the place. As he was brought back into Israel from Gaza last month, released hostage Gadi Mozes asked the convoy he was riding in to slow down so he could gaze on the fields and vowed to rebuild the kibbutz, Metzger recounted. Together with Metzger’s father, Haim Perry and Gideon Pauker — all three of them slain by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attacks or in captivity — Mozes was part of the kibbutz’s “parliament,” an Israeli tongue-in-cheek term for a group of friends that regularly convenes to kibbitz. This parliament often sat in the small vineyard by the kibbutz fence to drink wine and enjoy the sunset. A new seating area has been rebuilt there, with four pillars symbolizing the four friends, the three shorter ones symbolizing the three who were killed by Hamas.

This is how it still is on the kibbutz, said Danielle Abraham, co-founder and executive director of the Israel-based Volcani International Partnerships and director of its Re-Grow project, which is helping rebuild Israel’s destroyed farms. Life revolves around the agriculture and Hamas understood well the importance of the agriculture industry not only for individual kibbutzim but for Israel as a country as a whole, she told the visitors.

On Oct. 7, the terrorists took time from murdering the civilians to strategically sabotage irrigation systems, she said, killing thousands of  farm animals and stealing or destroying farm equipment; on Nir Oz, they even had enough time to teach themselves how to drive and maneuver the complex machines into the Gaza Strip as the army did not arrive at the kibbutz until the afternoon.

“When Hamas came, they actually had two goals. One was to commit the atrocities that we know, and the other was to destroy the agriculture. They targeted foreign farm workers, torturing them and killing them. They targeted animals… This was intentional, it was strategic. Hamas took time away from the populations to destroy the agriculture. Hamas understood, perhaps better than any of us on Oct. 7 what Zionism really means. Zionism isn’t just about a homeland for the Jewish people. It’s about a connection to the land, and it’s a physical connection. It’s about working the land and making it productive. They understood that agriculture is the foundation of the economy of this region,” she said.

The mission now with the Re-Grow project is not only to rehabilitate the kibbutz farming industry to what it was before Oct. 7 and compensate farmers for what they had, but to rebuild and strengthen it for the next generation, she said.

“On Oct. 7, [2023,] our farmers in this region were part of the communities that held the door to their safe room the whole day. When they were evacuated out they did not know who from their families were missing, had been killed or perhaps taken hostage…But on Oct. 9th, they came back and they came back to a region under fire,” said Abraham. “Against all odds…they all came back to save the agriculture. I think they deserve a lot of credit. No one speaks about our farmers as heroes, and they really are.”

Metzger noted that while the government’s reconstruction-focused Tekuma Authority provides compensation for destroyed machinery, it does so only for the machinery’s current value. Most of Nir Oz’s tractors and other agricultural machines were already aging, so the compensation they received does not cover the costs to purchase new machinery, he said.

“We are thinking in terms of investing for the next generation,” he said. “Our mission is to bring back safety to the region, to Israel, by cultivating the land and [bringing] food security for the citizens of Israel. Seventy percent of the fresh produce of Israel comes from this region of the northern Western Negev. If we don’t do it, then we will lose the land, we will have no food security. We’ll have to depend on Turkey, which is now an undeclared enemy state. We will not be able to keep ourselves safe without the agriculture.”

By March 2024, Re-Grow together with Jewish Federations of North America had already provided kibbutz farmers with funds to purchase new machinery, said Abraham, pointing to the shiny new green tractors lined up neatly in the tractor yard.

“Together with the JFNA we have actually replaced every single piece of damaged equipment for every single farmer across the whole region, which is why the tractor yard here is very full. That was an incredible way to get the farmers back on their feet,” she said. “After every disaster — and Oct. 7 and the ensuing war has been more of a nightmare than I think anyone could have ever imagined — there’s always a huge opportunity to rebuild.”

Now she believes philanthropy can be used to complement government efforts by filling gaps left by government initiatives, with philanthropic organizations stepping in to address emergency needs that may not be fully covered by government programs, and used to build innovative financial models.

“The real trick is to be able to leverage philanthropy in a smart way,” Abraham said. “So blended finance actually uses a layer of philanthropy alongside perhaps low-cost loans or other forms of financing, which helps reduce risk, for innovation, adaptation, and adoption. Basically we have a huge opportunity right now if we’re starting from scratch to rethink about how we build an agricultural sector and how you utilize philanthropy. If we do it right, we can create new models for the future which are sustainable.”

It has been a while since Jewish philanthropy and global Jewry have been involved with Israeli agriculture, she acknowledged, since it has become a relatively successful industry, but rebuilding the farmers in the south is also an issue of national food security.

“This area specifically is where Israel made the desert bloom. This is something all of us are so proud of, and in our historical imagination, you imagine that old pioneer in black and white [photograhs] draining the swamps, making the rocks move to make the land fertile, getting malaria,” she said. “Who stood beside them? Global Jewry and global philanthropy. Somehow we have found ourselves come full circle out of this disaster of Oct. 7. Once again, not only do our farmers need us, but we realize more and more that we actually need them. I really believe we’re at a historic juncture now for the Jewish people and the State of Israel. How we decide to rebuild the agriculture, how we decide to engage in farming in these farming communities will shape not just the future of the state of Israel, but can actually be leveraged for many more things.”

Meredith Jacobs, CEO of Jewish Women International, said visiting Nir Oz made her realize what an integral part of the violence agricultural terrorism was on Oct. 7.

“Just when you thought you’d really seen everything and heard the stories, [you realize] how much more there is. I think hearing about how the irrigation systems were so intentionally destroyed…we came back feeling like as horrific as everything was on Oct. 7, the lack of global support makes it even harder,” Jacobs said. “I’m just in awe of the strength and resilience of the people and the importance of agriculture.”