Israeli farmers revive tequila project cut short by Oct 7 attack
With artillery fire and explosions booming in the distance, businessman Aviel Leitner and farmer Eran Braverman inspected their field of blue agave, hoping they would one day soon produce the country's first-ever batch of tequila.
Planted prior to the war sparked by the unprecedented October 2023 attack on communities in southern Israel, Leitner said the violence and subsequent chaos meant waiting until now to unveil their unique project.
"We wanted to very much show that Israeli farmers had returned to the fields, that this war wasn't going to stop them, that there were new crops growing in the Negev and that there is nothing sexier than tequila and mezcal and agave spirits," he told AFP.
Leitner said he was inspired to bring the plants to Israel following a family trip to Mexico.
For him and Braverman, the survival of the exotic plants -– just like their complex transportation from Mexico to Israel -- is nothing short of a miracle.
Taste of tequila
On October 7, 2023 militants attacked Kibbutz Alumim and other communities around it, burning down barns and greenhouses and destroying irrigation equipment.
"We are about four kilometres from the (Gaza) fence and everything from the fence to Alumim was destroyed," recalled Braverman, who said that 22 farm workers from Nepal and Thailand were murdered there, as were three soldiers who died defending the site.
"When we heard what happened, we were very scared for the farmers and their families because we had grown close to them. It was very, very traumatic," said Leitner.
He was also concerned for his plants.
The dry desert conditions and the drip irrigation technology meant the blue agave could survive without much care and somehow, the field was unaffected by the fighting.
Now, the two men are counting down the days until the plants are ripe, as Leitner looks for a place to build his tequila distillery.
"We're hoping to start manufacturing in early winter 2025 and this will be the first agave spirit manufactured in the land of Israel," Leitner said.
New crops
Danielle Abraham, executive director of the NGO Volcani International Partnerships, which assists Israeli farmers through its "Regrow" project, said communities in southern Israel were "determined to get back on their feet and grow back stronger."
"They are trying to bring new crops, introduce new innovation and think about the future," she said, adding that "they stood up after a disaster with such resolve."
Citing statistics from the kibbutz movement, Abraham said that farms in southern Israel were now back at close to 100 percent of their pre-October 2023 capacity, but were still undergoing challenges.
"The ongoing war and the uncertainty is still taking a big toll mentally on the farmers," she said.
Sheila Gerber, who has run a botanical garden and cactus farm with her husband Yaakov for the past 30 years in the nearby Moshav Talmei Yosef cooperative, said visitors were still staying away.
The fighting is on the other side of the border but the community still live in fear, said Gerber, who described how a recent explosion caused all the glass in one of their greenhouses to shatter.
"It was horrifying. It was scary," she said.
Hamas militants did not reach Talmei Yosef on October 7, after being repelled just outside the gates by members of a civilian security team.
Gerber and her family were evacuated, and returned a few weeks later.
"We came back because farmers come back -- you can't just leave everything to die," she said, adding that "almost all the farmers came back."
Gerber recalled how, until the Second Palestinian Intifada or uprising against Israel began in 2000, she and her family could visit Gaza.
"When it was peaceful, it was very nice and we could go to the markets, we could go to the beach, we could take the kids, it was no problem," she said.
"But of course now we can't and it's very sad for everybody," she added. "What will be the future, we really don't know."
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