Taking refuge amid the Golan vines

Fleeing to the North (but not too far North) is the thing to do for those looking for some postwar escapism.

By NOA AMOUYAL
A server pours a glass of champagne at the 11th annual Jerusalem Wine Festival. (photo credit: COURTESY GOLAN HEIGHTS WINERY)
A server pours a glass of champagne at the 11th annual Jerusalem Wine Festival.
(photo credit: COURTESY GOLAN HEIGHTS WINERY)
Typically, sharing a glass of wine under the stars is considered a romantic outing fit for two. Adding 10 busloads of people to the mix, unlimited wine and a DJ quickly transforms a traditional rendezvous into a full-blown nature party – with wine.
After enduring numerous sirens from Hamas rocket attacks over the summer, revelers from the White City and even as far afield as Jerusalem came out in droves to join the outing, made possible by the community organization Tel Aviv Internationals. Visiting the tranquil (and safe) Golan was like setting foot into a part of Israel they didn’t know existed.
“It’s the type of community where people leave their keys in the door,” Orly Landsman-Sloma, a marketer for Golan Heights Winery and the main event organizer, said.
Indeed, meandering through the vast grapevines illuminated by a singular spotlight and the faraway strobe lights coming from the DJ booth offered a familiar soundtrack to an unfamiliar setting for the denizens of Tel Aviv, looking to take refuge from their chaotic day-to-day routine.
The event provided “an opportunity for two different types of populations to meet each other… When organizing a party, it’s always nice to have a change of atmosphere, which can be very freeing,” Landsman-Sloma said, explaining the draw of having the event in such a location.
Due to its remote setting, fleeing to the North (but not too far North) is the thing to do for those looking for some postwar escapism.
“We live in a small community here, it’s like a bubble,” Ya’ara, a Golan Heights tour guide said. “I’ve only had one cancellation all summer,” she added, giving a wildly different take on the state of the tourism industry than her central and southern counterparts.
Oren and Rotem, brothers who work at Kibbutz Geshur where the event took place, echoed those sentiments, “It may have been a nightmare in the South, but we didn’t feel anything.”
And what of the busloads of young professionals who schlepped three hours each way to have their one night of wine-soaked fun in the Golan moonlight? Well, they too were eager to put the summer’s events behind them, and focus on the night before them.
“Since I recently moved here, I want to see as much of Israel as possible and have a good time,” one young woman who came to Israel last month for a one-year study abroad program said.
After a night of sipping on a variety of wines, dizzily dancing to the DJ’s hip-hop beats and gorging on asado steak, bleary-eyed partygoers arrived back in Tel Aviv at 3 a.m.
“That was fun,” one exhausted partyer told another mid-yawn, as they bid each other farewell in the middle of the night.
It isn’t often someone from Tel Aviv gets completely wiped out from a party. However, in the Golan, they may have finally met their match.