Daniel Nakash’s parents made Aliyah from Algeria and Morocco and, in the late 1950s, went to live in Metullah on the Lebanese border. Nakash and his 8 brothers and sisters were born there, and though he lived in other places in Israel, he always had a home in Metullah.
64-year-old Nakash took early retirement from teaching English in Tel Aviv at the end of last year, to go tend to his olive groves in Metullah. But on October 16, Metullah was evacuated, as Hezbollah attacked in the wake of October 7 and the town became a closed military zone.
Everyone was evacuated to hotels, but after a few days Nakash returned home and refused to leave.
Metullah usually has a population of about 1700, but today, aside from army personnel, there are less than a handful of people who are staying put. Although he has six children living in the center of the country, all of whom he can stay with, as well as the possibility of staying in a hotel, Nakash wants the comforts of home, even if missiles are exploding around him. One fell near his house, and another in his 19 dunam (4 and a half acre) olive orchard.
When he served in the IDF, Nakash was in the air force, in an anti-missile unit, before the Iron Dome took over.
Nakash has many reasons for not wanting to leave Metullah. The most prosaic is that he likes being at home. “Home is home,” he says. He has two large dogs and when he was in the hotel, they insisted on jumping on the bed and sleeping with him. Nakash has a bomb shelter a few yards from his home and he’s also built a subterranean room under his house where he and his dogs hang out.
Nakash also wanted to tend to his groves, which although he’s restricted by the army, he can still partially work on.
The third reason is ideological. “I can see the lights on in Lebanon, while we are in blackout mode,” he says. “Let the army advance more into Lebanon and let the Lebanese evacuate. I don’t want to give up my home, even temporarily.”
Scud missiles aimed at Metullah isn’t unusual, it is after all, on the border with Lebanon, and the residents take it in their stride. It’s a beautiful, bucolic place to live and I guess they feel it’s a small price to pay for the occasional inconvenience.
Is Nakash scared he might get killed?
“Look, of course there’s a risk, but what’s going to happen will happen.”
He tells me that there had just been a terrorist attack in Haifa and a soldier was badly wounded. There’s no guarantee that he’ll be safer somewhere else, and apparently there’s no law that can force him to leave.
In the meantime, Nakash is making himself useful while hanging around. He lets the soldiers use his place to shower. And he does errands for his neighbors on request, throwing out food from their freezers, taking care of their homes for them, taking care of his ex-wife’s home and the rentals on his property for when people will be able to return.
May it be soon and may the Children of Israel return to their borders.
