by Etgar Lefkowitz
“You have to be an optimist,” says Tomer Suissa, who co-manages the Tosha Bakery. “If you are not an optimist, you will not be here.”
ACHZIV, Israel—On the grounds of an Israeli national park just opposite the Mediterranean coast and near the border with Lebanon, the indoor-outdoor café and bakery is bustling anew with activity, the chill soothing music in the background interspersed with the calm waters of the sea just across the street.
The serene pastoral atmosphere amid the trays of site-made croissants and jugs of sugar-sweet freshly squeezed orange juice from produce from the Golan Heights belie the tension that existed here last year when the area was evacuated during the 14-month long war with Hezbollah; most of the residents have since returned to their homes and businesses following the November ceasefire, hoping for a bout of peace but wary of the future.
“You have to be an optimist,” concedes Tomer Suissa, 35, from the small Galilean village of Shavei Tzion, who co-manages the recently reopened Tosha Bakery where he serves as the pastry chef. “If you are not an optimist, you will not be here.”
‘We thought it wouldn’t last long’
Despite its idyllic setting overlooking the sea on the winding coastal road between Acre and Rosh Hanikra, just north of Nahariya, it was no easy path for the boutique eatery with the wooden tables under the trees, which opened its doors in 2021 in what was then a no man’s land after earlier working out of a small storefront at Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra and dealing with the financial fallout from the COVID-19 crisis.
“We were looking for a place that was similar to the kibbutz with its pastoral feel, its nature and its disconnect from reality,” Suissa, who has had a fondness for food, the kitchen, and especially baking from childhood, tells JNS.
But just as the business was taking off, reality came knocking at their door with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel forcing the bakery to close its doors for the next year and a half as Hezbollah opened another front, this one in their neighborhood.
“At first, we didn’t know how to deal with the situation, and we thought it wouldn’t last long,” he says, adding that they had been accustomed, after grappling with the COVID pandemic, to “an abnormal reality.”
The next day, an army checkpoint went up 330 yards south of the café, with the area declared a closed military zone.
Tens of thousands of Israelis, including those in this pictorial village, were evacuated from their homes in northern Israel during the war as Hezbollah launched some 17,000 projectiles—a mix of rockets, missiles and drones.
Missile fragments pierced the walls of the café. The blasts of shrapnel punctured the pergola. The salty seawater ate away at the outdoor wooden benches.
“We thought we would have to close the place down,” Suissa says.
‘I am enchanted by this whole place’
While they were relocated from their homes, a wartime attempt to join forces with a national bakery chain in central Israel just didn’t make the cut due to the hustle and bustle of the city life it entailed, the antithesis of the country café.
“After several months, it was just too much noise in Tel Aviv,” says Shachaf Avraham, 35, from Nahariya, who manages the commercial side of the café.
After a period of renovation after the war, which they carried out with the help of government compensation, the café reopened its doors this spring, and with it, its local customers began to return.
Despite renewed turbulence caused by the 12-day war against Iran in June, when they had to revert to takeout service, the eatery and many other small businesses are trying yet again at renewal.
“I am enchanted by this whole place, with its delicacy and simplicity,” offers Kitra Shuveli, 61, from the northern Israeli community of Shimshit, who was luncheoning with two friends. “You have to be a believer and not give up on dreams.”
“Now, even seeing the traffic and the return of people is moving,” says Haya Shrem, 63, who moved back to Nahariya with her husband during the war after a quarter century in the Jezreel Valley.
Amid the tranquility, the Hamas attack nearly two years ago and the current war with Hezbollah remain vivid and salient events in the minds of customers and owners alike, even as the world focuses its attention on Gaza.
“The real feel is that it is not everlasting and that we could wake up with Hezbollah in our living room,” says Dorit Keren, 53, from Kibbutz Matzuvam (also known as Metzuba), sipping a coffee at the adjacent gallery. “I am certain that we will yet see a rerun.”
“There is excitement to be back, only it is fragile,” adds Sharon Rotem, 55, from the northern town of Betzet and the owner of the gallery.
“Whoever survived the last five years here is multi-talented,” Suissa observes. “You become hardened and develop the skin of an elephant.”
Still, he would have it no other way. “We’ve returned home,” Suissa says.
Etgar Lefkowitz
Source: https://www.jns.org/returning-home-israeli-pastoral-cafe-near-lebanese-border-reopens-amid-postwar-regional-renewal/
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