Alex Grointman, 85, can’t remember all the different kibbutzim and moshavim in the Western Negev he’s volunteered at over the past year. He’s worked at Re’im, Kissufim, Zimrat, and Mivtahim, and probably more. Since January, he’s been volunteering with groups working in agriculture at different border communities, helping support Israeli food security filling in for roles previously filled by foreign and Palestinian workers.
Grointman was born in Amsterdam in 1939, a year before the Nazi invasion. His parents and brother died in the Holocaust, as did other family members. “I made aliyah at 18, at the end of 1947,” he told Davar. He and his wife Penina spent many years on Moshav Ben Shemen, where Grointman served as manager of the dairy.
Last September, after Yom Kippur 2023, Grointman and his family traveled to Amsterdam to lay memorial stones for family members who were killed in the Holocaust. After a moving event during which they visited sites where relatives lived and sang Hatikvah, they returned to Israel on October 1.
“On the morning of October 7, I sat down for a light breakfast before my workout at the gym,” Grointman recalled. “An alarm sounded. My wife and I ran to the safe room. We sat there, and slowly, horrifying messages started to come in. At first, we couldn’t know what was happening, but as it became clearer, we understood that the situation was very serious.”
He and his wife immediately looked for ways to help. “I felt that due to my age, most of the initiatives and volunteer opportunities were not suitable for my abilities,” he said. “My daughter-in-law is a military officer, a lieutenant colonel in active service. Since October 7, she has been on duty constantly, and my son was left alone with three small children at home. We helped him with the kids. We spent a lot of time with them. That was our modest contribution.”
Grointman first heard about the agricultural volunteering groups in January, and he joined immediately.
“We work in different agricultural sectors, depending on the seasonal need: harvesting, planting, thinning, weeding, cleaning, packaging,” he explained. “Here and there, we heard shelling; once or twice, we had to lie on the floor due to rocket fire.”
“One of the things you learn in agricultural work is how many hands are needed from the moment a seed is planted in the ground until it arrives as a finished product on the supermarket shelf,” he said. “How much work is required for every tomato or pepper. Many jobs simply cannot be done by machines; they require working hands. This is something you don’t realize until you actually go work in agriculture. We’ve learned to appreciate the vegetables we eat, to look differently at every lettuce or eggplant.”
Grointman said he has been strengthened by the agricultural work. “You volunteer and give, and that gives you strength,” he said. “I discovered that despite my age, I am capable of contributing. It’s a joyful feeling. I see volunteering as a great blessing for all parties. We provide much-needed working hands in agriculture, even today, and we gain wonderful and meaningful experiences from it. I think there’s a lot of social value in this.”
Fellow volunteers are from all segments of the Israeli population. “The atmosphere is excellent, and it gives us a lot,” he said. “We work energetically, willingly, and with joy. I learned that the spirit of volunteering is alive in the people of Israel. The people of Israel reveal their beauty, unfortunately, in difficult situations—despite everything, and nonetheless—and that’s probably one of the things that makes us who we are.”
