Last week, a senior Israeli official told the media that the country’s goal is to establish full diplomatic relations with Lebanon soon, a move that follows a November ceasefire between the Israel and Hezbollah that has kept Northern Israel relatively safe in recent months. In that light, since March 1, the Israeli government has been urging displaced Israeli families from the region—more than 60,000 people who fled after Hezbollah began firing rockets at them after Oct. 7—to finally come home.
But not everyone is convinced. Some fear the ceasefire won’t last. Even the mayor of Metula, where 60 percent of the buildings were damaged—including the Canadian-built hockey and sports complex—has warned residents not to return yet. And some may never.
On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, we’re joined by Michal and Nir Zamir, a Metula couple with deep Canadian ties. She’s returned to her empty home in northern Israel just recently, while he stays in Edmonton where some of their children live. Then we’ll hear from Dr. Esther Silver, a former Torontonian who toughed out the war in her home in Kfar Vradim, a small town about an hour to the southwest of Metula in the Upper Galilee.
Related links
- Why Israel’s military escalation with Hezbollah impacts Canadians in Northern Israel on The CJN Daily from Jan. 2024.
- What Esther Silver said after the IIHF banned Israel’s national hockey teams (temporarily) in 2024 from international competition, in The CJN.
Transcript
Transcripts are AI-generated and main contain minor errors.
Ellin Bessner: That’s a snippet from a very recent visit to northern Israel by some Canadian Jewish leaders to see for themselves how damaged the area is after a year-long war between Israel and Hezbollah. The war displaced over 60,000 Israelis due to the constant barrage of rockets launched on dozens of communities from across the border in Lebanon. The rocket attacks killed 45 Israeli civilians, including those 12 Druze youngsters playing soccer. Seventy-eight IDF soldiers died in combat there. It took exploding pagers, targeted assassinations, including of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and a limited ground invasion last fall to decimate Hezbollah’s fighting capabilities. In November, Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire. Two weeks ago, on March 1, the Israeli government told the displaced Israelis it was time for them to move back home, leave the government-funded hotels or apartments where they’ve been staying in other parts of Israel, and repopulate the north. The IDF will keep troops in five locations inside southern Lebanon as a buffer zone to make sure things remain quiet. Meanwhile, direct diplomatic talks between Israel and Lebanon towards normalization are on the horizon, which explains why some residents whose homes miraculously were not touched have returned to sleep in their own beds. Even though the mayor of Metula warned his community not to return yet because he says 60% of the buildings were damaged; that’s about 40450 in total. And there’s no schools, medical clinics, not even a department store. But other residents aren’t so convinced this ceasefire will hold.
Nir Zamir: Who promised those guys that they will come home, fix their homes, bring their children to sleep in the house, and in six months it won’t happen again? That’s the most frightening fear that we have to deal with, from now to the future.
Ellin Bessner: I’m Ellin Bessner, and this is what Jewish Canada sounds like for Monday, March 17, 2025. Welcome to The CJN Daily, a podcast of The Canadian Jewish News, made possible in part thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Gronovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation. We’ve reported before about the forest fires from rockets destroying agriculture around Kiryat Shmona and the damage to Metula and about entire communities in the Upper Galilee and the Galilee Panhandle effectively turned into ghost towns. Now we want to know who’s going back and who isn’t. We also checked in with people with deep ties to Canada, who never left. Later, we’ll chat with Dr. Esther Silver, formerly of Toronto. She wasn’t ordered to leave her home, nine kilometres from the Lebanese border. But first, meet Michal Zamir and her husband, Nir. They spend Jewish holidays in Edmonton, where two of their children live. But the couple lived and worked in Metula, where they raised their family for nearly 40 years. She still works for the local water utility, and he’s retired from making handcrafted furniture. After October 7, they had to evacuate to a hotel in Tiberias. But recently, Michal decided she needed to go back to Metula because she missed her couch, which, miraculously, including her house, wasn’t hit. Her husband, Nir, decided he’s staying in Canada for now. They both join me to explain why they disagree on whether it’s safe to go back.  Michal is in Metula and Nir is in Edmonton.
Nir Zamir: Hi everybody.
Ellin Bessner: It’s really great to talk to you, and I’m so honoured that, first of all, so many different time zones. I’ll start with anybody. Can you tell us just the background of how you ended up staying in Edmonton, how long you stayed in Israel? Tell us sort of the timeline.
Nir Zamir: First of all, when the war started, we just stayed in Metula for at least, I think, two weeks, because I joined the unit, the reserve unit in Metula, to protect the town. We didn’t know that it would take so much time. After two weeks, I was thrown out from this unit because I was told that my wife has to leave, and she refused to leave without me. They told me, okay, you’re too old for us, you have to leave. They didn’t want any citizens to live in the town during the war when nobody knew what’s really going to happen. So we stayed together almost 18 months, 17 months in a hotel in Tiberias, and the house was empty. But we came from time to time when we were allowed. We came to see that everything is okay.
Ellin Bessner: And was it, has it been damaged or any neighbours or anything around you?
Nir Zamir: Our house is in the middle of town, and luckily some houses not far from us got shot or burned, but our house is okay.
Ellin Bessner: But what does the town look like now? I was listening to the mayor saying that he doesn’t want people to come back. It’s not ready.
Nir Zamir: It looks like a war zone. But I think that he’s involving too much politics in his decisions.
Michal Zamir: It’s not nice to be back here because the roads are awful, and there’s nothing here. There’s no municipality, there’s no supermarket, and there’s no health services. In the last few days, many more people have come back because the government said you have to come back. So people come back, but you find Metula very different, very destroyed. It’s like you live in a building area.
Ellin Bessner: Construction, construction, construction.
Michal Zamir: Yeah, that’s right. Every car that moves on the way creates a lot of dust, so you can’t keep your house clean.
Nir Zamir: Why did you go back, my wife?
Michal Zamir: Because it’s my house, and I like to sit on my couch and watch TV and do whatever I want.
Nir Zamir: You have a better couch in Canada.
Michal Zamir: Okay.
Ellin Bessner: No, but you should tell us you went back because you have work. No? They made you come back, or no, it was your choice?
Michal Zamir: No, no. I work from the hotel also. I can work from any place, even when I go to Canada. So I work with a computer from any place around. But I came back because I’d had enough of the hotel. I couldn’t stay any longer in the little room. And I wanted to come back home. I feel very good when I go inside home. I feel great. I don’t feel the war. I don’t fear, and I’m okay. But when you go out and see what’s going on outside, it’s not nice.
Ellin Bessner: Are the schools open at all?
Michal Zamir: No schools, no kindergartens, nothing. To buy something, you go to Kiryat Shmona. It’s the next new city. It’s about 10 minutes’ drive. Here in Metula, we have nothing.
Nir Zamir: How many families came back with kids?
Michal Zamir: In Metula, now for the last week, I guess a few families have come back, maybe 10.
Nir Zamir: Okay, that’s nothing, right?
Ellin Bessner: Well, because I want to know, like, if school is open, are the parents still–in Israel, it’s still the school year–so are they going to take them out of school and bring them to Metula where there’s no school, and they have to do it on Zoom? I don’t know how that’s… absurd.
Michal Zamir: The high school is open in Aravaim. And now, because a few families have come back, the mayor made arrangements for transit to take them to the school in the morning.
Ellin Bessner: School buses?
Michal Zamir: Yeah, yeah, school buses.
Ellin Bessner: Are there teachers, though, for the elementary?
Michal Zamir: No, not in Metula. Nearby, there is a school. Where is the other one? I don’t know.
Ellin Bessner: Do you know? Friends and relatives have made the decision not to come back because it’s enough with the upheaval. They’ve already started businesses there, and they’ve already bought a house. What’s your, you know, experience?
Michal Zamir: Yes. There are a few families that said they won’t come back again.
Ellin Bessner: You mentioned earlier that you felt you should go back because you were fed up with living in a hotel. Do you feel safe now that they have a truce with Hezbollah?
Michal Zamir: It’s funny. I feel safe because we have the army here. I said, “What’s going to be in the future when the army loosens a little bit?” Now I feel very safe and okay. I go to sleep quietly, and I feel okay. I don’t know what’s going to be in a few months ahead or a year ahead. I don’t know.
Nir Zamir: We came to Metula 37 years ago with two babies. It wasn’t even safe there, but we didn’t understand that. We were Zionists. We wanted to live on the northern border of Israel. Michael’s grandparents were some of the pioneers that built this place, and we just made a decision to move to the north. Now we understand that the danger we took was very big, but for 35, 36 years, we lived very comfortably and very happily in Metula.
Michal Zamir: It’s because we didn’t know what was going on behind the border. That’s the reason we lived here quietly. We’ve got four children, and we raised them very well. Everything was okay. But now after October 7th, everything changed.
Ellin Bessner: We know your son is in Canada, in Edmonton. Where are the other ones?
Michal Zamir: Another daughter is also in Edmonton. Here in Israel, I’ve got two daughters, one with four children, and the other used to live with us. She’s the little one, and when the war started, she moved to Binyamina. So now she’s living in Binyamina, and she said it’s like Metula but without the border.
Ellin Bessner: Is she going to come back?
Michal Zamir: Not for now. She said maybe in a few years. Maybe when she feels safe and sees there’s no Hezbollah behind the border, then she might come back.
Nir Zamir: The absurdity is so big that even I told my daughter with the kids, “Don’t come to sleep in Safta’s house for now. We will tell you when to come, and it will be when we feel safer.” Because this agreement between Israel and Hezbollah is so breakable. We are in the same situation we were in before the war. So, nothing has progressed. When Michal says she feels safe, it’s only a feeling because she sees soldiers around her, and it gives her a good feeling. But in the long term, Hezbollah can do anything they want in two minutes, and we will be almost in the same situation we were stuck in before, and then the army would have to react again and do something. So, it’s very fragile. I know about many families that used to live in Metula, rental houses or bought houses with kids, who said they will not go back to Metula. So for the future, I think Metula would become a very old town with all the old people who are not very afraid of staying in the north, next to the border.
Ellin Bessner: You said that the mayor is telling everyone not to come back because there’s nothing here yet. It’s not ready. You said it was political. Do you want to explain what that means?
Nir Zamir: It means that he wants more money from the government to fix and correct the old town. He definitely would love to have all the citizens back when everything is 100% perfect.
Michal Zamir: I don’t agree with you. He said that because there are no schools or kindergartens for the children, they can’t be here.
Nir Zamir: But for people whose houses were not damaged, why won’t they go back?
Michal Zamir: They come back. There are a few families who have come back. It’s not nice to live in a construction area.
Nir Zamir: It’s all over Israel. It’s not only Metula. There are many villages along the border that were hurt no less than Metula. So, I think when he refuses to let his people come back, he wants the government to think Metula is very special, very different, and the damage is much bigger than in any other places.
Ellin Bessner: You said Kiryat Shmona is the big city, and you go there. But what did you see in terms of damage there? Is it also a construction zone, and are the fields still burnt or what?
Michal Zamir: No, not Kiryat Shmona. Not all the stores are open yet because they said there’s not enough people. But people are coming back. In Kiryat Shmona, you see much more cars on the road—a lot of cars.
Nir Zamir: You mean the shopping center?
Michal Zamir: Shopping center, yeah.
Ellin Bessner: What about the fact that the governments supported families like yours, who were displaced economically and financially? They gave you, I don’t know how many shekels for rent or whatever. Is that finished now, or are you still getting some money from the government?
Michal Zamir: I don’t know. For the last month, we got the amount they promised.
Nir Zamir: I want to correct something. If you decided to stay in a hotel during this period, the government paid for your hotel. They didn’t give you a rent or something else. It was your decision to get some money from the government for your own rental or to stay in one of the hotels that had an agreement with the government. In that case, you don’t get any money directly.
Ellin Bessner: But it was free. Yeah, they either paid for the rent like in Esther Silver‘s case, or they paid the hotel directly, and you got free accommodation. Same thing.
Nir Zamir: The hotel cost them more, the government.
Ellin Bessner: Well, I heard rent prices went up crazily everywhere too.
Michal Zamir: Yeah, that’s right.
Ellin Bessner: So you’re there, and Nir, you stayed in Edmonton. Why do you feel it’s not safe to go back? Or are you going to go back soon?
Nir Zamir: Because, first of all, every day I’m watching the Israeli news for three, four, five hours from here. I know almost even better than Michal, because she’s working. I know every small move and every bomb that is dropped. I’m aware of everything that happens in Metula, and it’s not healthy. When I thought I was coming here to be with the grandkids and forget everything, it doesn’t work this way. You’re so tense, always listening to all the news about the border and any attacks or bombings. I’m waiting for Michal. Definitely, the two of us will go back to Metula. That’s a final answer. There is no way we will stay here in Canada. But because we have five grandchildren here, we decided to spend some time and enjoy the two worlds.
Michal Zamir: In ’88, we moved to Metula.
Ellin Bessner: So when do you think you will have your reunion in Israel? Or are you going to come back to Canada first? Michal, what’s the plan?
Michal Zamir: No, I’m coming to Canada first. We’re going to spend the holiday there in Canada.
Nir Zamir: My plans are different than Michal’s. And I’m asking myself and the citizens themselves, what promises us that in the next few months, like 3, 4, 5, 6, even more, Hezbollah won’t do the same as he did before? There is one big, huge neighborhood in Metula that was hurt very much because they are in direct view of Lebanon. There is nobody, nobody can promise you 100% that from now to the future, it will be safe. If we are Jewish people, we know that we’ll have to fight all our lives for our safety, religion, and whatever. We know that our grandchildren will have to serve in the army and protect the country forever.
Michal Zamir: Time change maybe. I don’t know. They promised me, they promised the Lebanese, and they said now the Lebanese are against Hezbollah also. So maybe there’s a little light at the end.
Ellin Bessner: I love it. Thank you so much for being on The CJN Daily.
Michal Zamir: Thank you.
Ellin Bessner: As we mentioned earlier, Dr. Esther Silver is a psychotherapist. She treats people with trauma and ADHD. She lives in Kfar Vradim, about an hour southwest of the Zamirs. She wasn’t ordered to evacuate the village. It’s famous for two reasons. Kfar Vradim has an Iron Dome battery in it, and the war is literally down the street from her. Plus, Kfar Vradim is home to Romy Gonen, one of the hostages taken captive by Hamas from the Nova Music Festival released just in January. Her Canadian cousin Maureen Lesham in Toronto has worked tirelessly for her freedom. Esther Silver is also the manager of Israel’s national women’s hockey team. They can’t practice anymore at the damaged Canada Centre in Metula. Silver joins me now for an update on how she’s survived life in Israel’s north. You never left.
Esther Silver: The government decided that only up to four kilometers away from the actual border were people to be evacuated because they had no possibility to react in time. But that’s a fallacy because people five, six kilometers from the border also had no time to react to missiles, and it gave us no special protection from being shot at regarding missiles from the get-go. So we were all pretty exposed all the time. It’s been a difficult year.
Ellin Bessner: How much damage was done in your community, if any, by either the Israeli army base, the Iron Dome that’s there, and the heavy equipment and the rockets?
Esther Silver: From Hezbollah, well, whenever they shot down rockets, one episode that scared the heck out of me, excuse me for my French, but as a Canadian, I’m not really used to full-out war. One morning I was driving on the street just below me, and the siren sounded. I got out of the car, lay down on the ground, and I looked up, tons of explosions, rockets, the Iron Dome going up, and it was like, oh my God. I feared for my life that day. A rocket hit an apartment half a kilometer from me and destroyed it completely. The family was inside their shelter, so they were safe, and they themselves were evacuated from the border. So it was kind of a double whammy for them.
Ellin Bessner: And they moved to Kfar Vradim.
Esther Silver: Yes, we had many families here. My renters, for example, are evacuated from the border. In a minute, I’ll talk about their experience. The same day that we had this massive, I think it was over 50 missiles. A young Arab Muslim man was helping his brothers and sisters get into the bomb shelter, and he was struck directly by a rocket. They couldn’t find any parts to bury. It was that bad. It got close to home and very scary.
Ellin Bessner: Your community is still functioning. There are schools, hospitals, clinics. What’s happening there? Describe.
Esther Silver: Well, we shut down for a while. At the beginning of the war, we had to shut down, and schools are only open on alternate days and only in the bomb shelters. But because there was a high risk of getting hurt going to school and coming back, we went to a Zoom system, which was really difficult for the kids. Also, a lot of the kids developed severe anxiety, so they had to sleep in the bomb shelter. Parents couldn’t go to work. I was terrified of driving on the roads. I worked also in Carmiel, which is just south of us. Because of all the shooting and shelling, it’s hard. I’m 72 years old. Getting out of my car during a missile attack and lying on the ground is scary and not comfortable. So I stopped working in Carmiel. It profoundly affected our work, the kids’ schooling. I’d say most kids are at least behind by half a year, if not more.
Ellin Bessner: You said people moved in, but did any of your people that you know actually leave?
Esther Silver: People were frightened. People from Ma’alot, which is just north of us, and that was the subject of a massive terrorist attack in 1974, killing several children. So they have already in their genetics a fear of infiltration. I just want to add, the first week after October 7th, everyone was terrified that we’d be infiltrated and attacked by Hezbollah. All of us bought a special piece of wood with a hole in it that prevents the door from being opened. We all went out and got it, and we were all in our bomb shelters the whole time. People had their guns on them. We were terrified that first week or two, but thank God they never attacked. So, yeah, people have left the village. I have spoken to people, and they went to Jerusalem. They went to other places. They were supported by the government fund, funded by the government because they suffered from anxiety and couldn’t function here.
Ellin Bessner: You said you had to stop working in Carmiel. Were you able to continue your profession as best you could and still working now as a doctor?
Esther Silver: Yeah, yeah, I work 30 hours a week. I work in Nahariya. Nahariya had typically at least five missile attacks a day, but thank God I was right next door to the bomb shelter. So it was just a matter of getting up and going with the patients and the whole staff to the bomb shelter and keeping the kids calm, which was a problem because you could still hear everything outside. Also, here we had attacks night and day and was running down the stairs because my bomb shelter is in the basement. My dog, she knew on her own to go downstairs when I wasn’t home. She knew how to open the door, and she’d go into the bomb shelter. The dogs are affected. This week, we had, I think you know that Israel attacked Syria last week. So we had a full day of huge fighter planes in the sky over us. I couldn’t understand why my dog was crying all the time, and then I realized that during the war, when we had Iron Dome and we had the missiles, she would get very upset and scared. So there’s a kind of a collective trauma that all of us have gone through, and we’re still carrying.
Ellin Bessner: When the truce, the ceasefire and the truce happened with Hezbollah and it’s now been November, December, January, February, March—four months—and March the second, the government said, it’s safe, go back, move back to the north. That’s our priority, revitalize the north. How do you feel about this? Do you think that it is safe now? Are you thinking people should come back?
Esther Silver: I don’t think they have a choice. I have many patients who have been evacuated, many, many patients who have been evacuated. What they tell me is they can’t afford to live anywhere else, so they have to go back. They are nervous. The initial reaction was, no, no way, we’re not going back. And then they started going back to their homes. My renters are from a village just right on the border just north of me called Avivim Menachem, and they’re going back. She has reservations, the mother, but the dad’s like, no, that’s where we live.
Ellin Bessner: So they’re going back, and their house is okay.
Esther Silver: Their house is okay, thank God. School’s already started, the bus service has already started. The kids, I ate dinner with them last night, were very close. The kids are looking forward to going back, you know. They have friends now from the village, but they’ve been in that settlement for many, many years, and they want to go back. So I would say the vast majority of people along the border—I’m not talking Kiryat Shmona, but along the border—I think that most of the people are going to return. They’ve already returned to their homes. Most of my patients have returned because they’re fed up with living in a hotel in Jerusalem or with mom in Nahariya or whatever arrangement they made. They want to be home. But I think Kiryat Shmona is going to take a long time. My renters were telling me that a lot of people in Kiryat Shmona have bought apartments in Nahariya and have no plans on going back to Kiryat Shmona. There’s a lot of poverty in Kiryat Shmona already from the get-go. A lot of people tasted a better life outside Kiryat Shmona, and they want that better life.
Ellin Bessner: Yeah, but do you feel personally safe now?
Esther Silver: Yes. I believe in our army. Our kids are amazing, our soldiers are amazing. I won’t talk about the government. You know, we all felt such a huge sigh of relief when the truce came into effect. We hope that the army will keep up what it’s mandated to do, which is to keep Hezbollah out. So my village itself is pretty safe, so I don’t see myself going anywhere soon.
Ellin Bessner: I wanted to speak to you specifically about the hockey situation in Metula, where you and your girls from your hockey team have grown up. Can you update us on what’s the situation with that?
Esther Silver: Well, it was damaged secondarily to a missile, the swimming pool area, but it caused damage to the whole site. So basically the arena is shut down. It will depend on funding from the government, and we hope and pray that we’ll come back because we have a lot of players from Metula, Kiryat Shmona, and Kfar Giladi and Gesher Haziv. We had at least five players who were evacuated, and some of them have not yet returned to their homes. One other girl, her brother was badly wounded in the war at the beginning. So everyone has paid a price emotionally and physically in this war, in spite of which, even though we couldn’t have practices because we couldn’t get together, we have five girls in the army. They weren’t even allowed to come to practice, and two of them couldn’t go to the tournament last month because of security risks in Bosnia, where we were playing. It was pretty difficult getting our team together and getting to the tournament. But our girls are amazing. They’re so brave.
Ellin Bessner: You won a silver medal. Congratulations.
Esther Silver: Yes. And, you know, even though they booed us throughout the games and refused to, they transmitted the game on YouTube, but they always omitted Hatikvah when we won. I mean, dirty, but it is what it is.
Ellin Bessner: I know. The Kfar Vadim. Our listeners might not know it. It’s like, it’s the Kfar of roses, right?
Esther Silver: Yes.
Ellin Bessner: Tell me about the fields. Has the agriculture area been impacted by the war for the most part?
Esther Silver: People in and around my village and north of my village, and even I’d say most of the north, are being able to work. However, during the war, the fields in the Golan Heights, they couldn’t work the fields, but they had fruit trees full of fruit, and under fire, they were picking the fruit, and we were the beneficiaries because they would bring truckloads of fruit to our village, to all of the villages, and they were amazing. Oh, my God. I bought 10 kilos of cherries, and they were perfect cherries, you know, and, oh, mangoes. Unbelievable produce, because they couldn’t sell them anywhere. And all of us were volunteering and going to the different kibbutzim to pick the fruit and vegetable, because you have to. You can’t just leave it. It wasn’t just in the south, up here in the north as well, and people were put in Metula. There was a man and his son and Thai workers, and he was killed by a mishap because he kept on going out to his fields to pick the fruit. It was very sad. Everything’s getting back to where it was before and functioning. Our theater, which never closed down, but when you went to a performance, there was an announcement at the beginning: In the case of a missile attack, crouch forward and put your head between your knees as if that’s gonna save you.
Ellin Bessner: Sounds like a 1950s education film about the bomb.
Esther Silver: Absolutely. But the people are resilient here. And, you know, in our village, one of the girls was taken hostage.
Ellin Bessner: Her name was Romy Gonen, because there’s a big Canadian connection to her family. Maureen Leshem in Toronto. Yeah. And so Yarden Gonen is quoted as saying she’s never bringing her sister to the Kfar of Vadim because the community is, quote, crushed by the artillery batteries. I wonder if that resonates with you or not.
Esther Silver: We were crushed, but I think we’re okay. As I said, we’re resilient. Life goes on, we’re living with it. And most of us probably have a degree of post-traumatic stress disorder. I have a lot of patients who are presenting with that. But we’re here and we want to be here. We’re happy to be here. You know, there’s a verb in Hebrew, “Lenormal” [Uncertain], which means to normalize. And we’re trying to normalize our lives. I think Romy will come back, but more for a visit than to live here.
Ellin Bessner: Is there one last thing that you want our Canadian listeners and readers to understand? Now that the government is encouraging people to come back to the north, we—
Esther Silver: Need people to live here. And of course, any Canadians who are thinking of escaping Canada to a safer place. As ironic as it sounds, well, our village is building new houses and they have a high quality of life, and I totally recommend it.
Ellin Bessner: Yeah, that’s ironic that we all worry about you and you all worry about what’s happening in Canadian streets.
Esther Silver: That’s right.
Ellin Bessner: Esther, it’s been really great to catch up with you. I’m glad that you came through this.
Esther Silver: It’s a pleasure, and you take care.
Ellin Bessner: And that’s what Jewish Canada sounds like. For this episode of the CJN Daily, made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation, the Jewish Federations of Canada United Israel Appeal raised over $100 million to help Israel after October 7th. A lot of that money went to evacuees in the south, but a good chunk went to help northern Israel as well. And they announced a further $20 million donation will go to expand a college in the community of Tel Chai to boost education in the area. Our show is produced by Zachary Judah Kauffman. The executive producer is Michael Fraiman, the editorial director is Marc Weisblott, and music is by Dov Beck Levine. Thanks for listening.
Show Notes
Credits
- Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
- Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
- Music: Dov Beck-Levine
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