“Back-breaking”: Toronto lawyer aiding Israel by harvesting tomatoes

Article content

Brad Neufeld, the vice-president of a Toronto-based health-care firm, was in Tel Aviv when the first sirens went off on Oct. 7, 2023. It was early Saturday morning, and Hamas terrorists had hit Israel with everything they had, murdering, raping and kidnapping civilians.

In the panicked days that followed, Ottawa organized flights for Canadians to flee the sudden war zone. Neufeld, however, took a hard pass.

Article content

“I refused to be ‘rescued’ from Israel. It was clear to me that the entire Jewish people were under attack, and leaving Israel at a time when the country was at its lowest point in my lifetime just felt wrong.”

Instead, the fiftysomething lawyer stayed to help — and found himself doing the back-breaking work of pulling tomato roots from Israeli soil, just kilometres from the Gaza border.

His story exemplifies a trend of people dropping everything to sustain a nation under siege, in solidarity and rebuilding.

As Israel is nearing 500 days since the Hamas-led massacre that claimed 1,200 lives and saw about 250 taken hostage, volunteers like Neufeld have become crucial in filling the gaps left by those workers who left, were killed, or joined the battlefield.

“For individuals, like me, that had not served in the IDF, I was beginning to feel useless to the country’s war effort. There were calls put out for blood donations, something I had never done in my life previous to this war. But I jumped at the chance to do something, anything, to potentially be of value to the country. So many were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for the State of Israel. The least I could do would be to donate blood.”

Article content

Article content

The days after October 7 saw most of Tel Aviv shutting down, he said, emptied of most of its younger men and women. Those who remained created impromptu distribution centres in parks and city squares, providing food and clothing to the displaced.

Whatsapp groups had quickly been formed to organize the hundreds of volunteer opportunities throughout the country, he said. He recalls meeting a group of New Yorkers filling care packages for soldiers and setting up barbecue dinners for soldiers returning from Gaza.

Neufeld discovered working trips to farms in the south, coordinated through a Tel Aviv synagogue.

He chose it because “farming and agriculture was always a strong foundational principle in the creation of the State of Israel, and especially at the kibbutzim in the Gaza envelope, and throughout the country,” he said. “I figured that volunteering on a farm, and working the land, would at least make me feel better about not being more useful in the war itself.”

Article content

In December 2023, Neufeld worked one farm where the tomatoes had not been picked since October 7. The farmer had resigned himself to the fact that the crop was lost, but he wanted to remove all the vines and roots to prepare the soil for planting tomatoes for the next season, said Neufeld.

It was “back-breaking work,” Neufeld noted of the six-hour task, but “critically important that the full root be removed, or the next season’s crop wouldn’t grow in properly.”

Most of the other volunteers were older, and this meant that many of them would summon Neufeld when they couldn’t quite get the full root out.

“I am, by nature, a competitive person, and I like to stay physically fit. So, I thought I would be OK doing this farming work. But I can honestly say that it was a lot more physically and mentally challenging than I initially thought. The awkward movements would often leave me sore for a day or two afterwards,” he said.

“My own mental sanity was helped by just being on Israeli land, helping in my small way. Being stuck in Canada would have made me feel even more distant from the State of Israel and the Jewish people.”

Article content

In the event of a rocket attack, any roadside shelter would take too long to get to from the greenhouses. A few seconds was all the warning they’d get.

“The protocol was to lie on the ground, cover your head, pray and wait. It made it that much more real to experience how the local kibbutzim residents would have experienced living in that region.” There was already a nearby “massive crater” from a previous attack.

The war likely touched and affected everyone in Israel, given how small the country and population are, he said. “Everyone knows someone who was either killed, kidnapped, displaced or serving in some capacity to fight this war. There is unity when everyone is going through the same horrifying experience.”

The Times of Israel reported that Israel was set to find 80,000 foreign workers to tend to areas around the Gaza border that provide a fifth of the country’s fruit, three-quarters of Israel’s vegetable crops, and one out of every 16 jugs of milk.

In addition to scores of organized missions and delegations, various online groups are connecting those who wish to fill the need, such as the Facebook group called Swords of Iron — Israel Volunteer Opportunities, with 41,000 members.

Article content

“There was a unity of mission and purpose that was palpable throughout the country. This war was an existential threat to the State of Israel and to the Jewish people. Everyone knew this, so any differences that may have existed previously were put aside for the greater good of the country.”

Yocheved Ruttenberg, who co-runs the group with Hagit Greenberg Amar, noted the biggest needs are farming, rebuilding the kibbutzes, visiting soldiers, visiting hostage families, and attending shivas of fallen soldiers.

“It blows me away to see how many people have done something outside their comfort zone in such a big way. People giving back at this time, people who have never done anything like this before. We have people come to Israel for the first time in their lives, alone, in the middle of a war,” Ruttenberg said.

“I think volunteer tourism is a new movement. People want their kids to understand what it is to give back. People are coming back for their third trip.”

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our newsletters here.

Article content