More Than Just a Garden

Editors Note: On July 27, 2024, a Hezbollah rocket struck a soccer field in Majdal Shams, a Druze town in the Golan Heights, killing twelve children and wounding dozens more. In the two years since, Birthright Israel’s Volunteer in Israel program has partnered with the community to build gardens at local schools, an effort aimed at bringing renewal to spaces marked by loss. The reflections that follow come from volunteers who took part in that work. 

I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, in a strongly Zionist community. My first trip to Israel was Birthright’s Classic 10-Day trip; this time, I came back on a Volunteer trip to Majdal Shams. Each one mattered to me for a completely different reason.

The first trip gave me something I needed at that point in my life: real connections to other Jews my age. For the first time, I felt like I was part of the majority, where everybody around me just knew what davening was. I felt like I belonged there in a way I hadn’t felt anywhere else, and that trip changed my life. This second trip would give me something just as important, but completely different: the feeling that I could actually make a difference, that I was engaging with a community and not just experiencing one passively.

I’d followed the news out of Majdal Shams, but the Druze community itself was still mostly unfamiliar to me. I knew they lived peacefully alongside Jews in Israel, and that was about it. On my first Birthright trip, my only real exposure to any of Israel’s other communities had been the Bedouin tent experience, memorable in its own way, but nothing like what was ahead of me now. This was a real first, and it sat with me the whole way up.

Before we ever reached Majdal Shams, we spent two full days volunteering elsewhere, and both shaped how I showed up once we got there. The first was at Yahel, a thrift store, sorting donations, simple work, but genuinely rewarding. The second was a day on a pomegranate farm, and something the farmer said to us has stayed with me ever since: that what we were doing out in that field was “the real Zionism”. 

When we finally arrived in Majdal Shams, the community met us with Turkish coffee and dried fruit, and their gratitude was immense and immediate. You could feel it before anyone said a word. I threw myself into the gardening, partly because it was the work in front of me and partly because it gave me somewhere to put everything I was feeling. Kids were everywhere. There was no getting away from the weight of the day, no matter how hard I dug. 

We met the principal of Elementary School B, the school that lost six of its own children in the attack. She was chic, cool and smart, and so eloquent I found myself hanging onto every word. Talking with her, I realized how wrong it would be to think of Majdal Shams as some small, forgettable place. This is a real town, full of real people building a real life. We spent time with the students too, jumping rope, touring their colorful classrooms, listening to them try out their English on us, delighted every time we understood them.

The physical work itself was harder than I expected. We broke up cement by hand to make room for the garden, and by the end of the day, a space that had been nothing but dirt and rubble was full of trees and life. It felt like more than just a garden. 

We were told this might be one of the first groups to volunteer that far north this year, places kept off-limits until it was safe again. We just drove up to plant a garden. There was no sense of alarm, though for a lot of people on the bus, this part of Israel was completely new to see. It didn’t feel unsafe once we were there.

Since coming home, I’ve made a decision I didn’t expect to make: I don’t want to spend my energy on the haters anymore. I’d rather post the sunsets over Tel Aviv, the ordinary happy scenes on the street, the Israel that doesn’t make headlines but is just as true. One more thing from the trip has stayed with me: a Shabbat dinner where our group spanned every level of observance and affiliation and every age, all of us at the same table in a way that doesn’t come as naturally back home. Everybody had a seat there.

My first trip to Israel changed my life. That’s how so many of us actually connect to being Jewish in the first place. Volunteering gave me something just as important but completely different: the feeling that I could make a real difference, that I was engaging with a community and not just experiencing one passively. That feeling is the one I keep coming back to. If a friend told me they were on the fence about going, I’d tell them the same thing every time: just go. And if you’re nervous, there’s no organization I’d trust more than Birthright to make sure you’re safe.