Recently, a friend stopped by to say hello. “How are you?” I asked, introducing her to two acquaintances sitting at my side. “Good!” she replied, with a happy smile. “Very good!”
And we all pounced. “Good?!?” we retorted, in indignant unison. “Good?!? How?”
My friend was mortified. “In the micro,” she elaborated. “In the macro I’m disintegrating, too.”
It was a sobering moment. Something is very rotten when you’re attacked for feeling okay.
Relentless public trauma is clobbering us all with overwhelming anxiety and despair. How refreshing it is, and how crucial, to take time off in a peaceful space and regroup. Glow Glamping on Rom Farm, 10 minutes from Karmiel in the Galilee, is restorative.
The magic begins before reaching the glamorous tents, before viewing the goats and their tiny kids, before oohing over the farm-to-table breakfast. The drive up Mount Kamon mellows the shakiest mood – the farm nestles far away from hooting horns and scooting around daily chores; the air is clear, and the living feels easy.
Nature walks, bonfires under starry skies, yummy local food, and a massage in a tent after a steaming sauna all recall memories of simpler days when we were young, and the world seemed sane.
But there is much, much more to the farm than a fun holiday in the sun. Started by Amit Rom almost 40 years ago, the land from the get-go was a vision realized.
“I grew up on a pig farm,” recalls Rom, “but that was not my dream. My mom was a Holocaust survivor and a social worker for all the Bedouin in the South; I wanted to work with the values she’d inculcated.”
The government desired a deer farm in the Galilee; Rom convinced it that goats were the way to go. In 1986, he off-loaded a herd of 50 onto the fertile terraces of his newly acquired land, unpacked a shipping container, which became his home, and started selling milk to Tnuva.
His entire herd was stolen once, then the replacements were stolen, too, but Rom and his growing family (he and his wife have three daughters and a son) simply started again.
Rom Farm: Sustainable dairy, crafts & wellness in Israel
Today, the thriving 2.6 hectares (6.5 acres) of built area and 140 hectares of pastures boast an internationally award-winning dairy; yoga, pottery, and carpentry workshops; a restaurant; crafts shop, and more. The spices, vegetables, and herbs are grown using sustainable methods of irrigation from compost created on-site.
But the enchantment does not stop there. Rom Farm is literally a healing space, where wounded souls can rest and mend.
Almost 20 years ago, Rom established a center for patients with mental challenges, tailoring treatment to individuals and teaching productive skills to enable them to work with dignity. Many ultimately find general employment; those who can’t remain to work on-site.
Ten years ago, the farm was functioning, the goats giving good yields, the 14 patients gainfully employed, and things were chugging along, when Ron Propper, one of the heirs to the Osem foods dynasty, “fell out of the sky and onto my property!” exclaims Rom.
Ron met Rom, and dreams ignited. Propper, a real estate tycoon, had been looking for a return-to-nature, sustainable tourism opportunity. He came in as a partner, and how goodly became thy tents, and thy tabernacles, O Israel.
Glow Glamping, with 19 luxury tents and one brick-and-mortar suite, is the perfect place for a wedding or to mellow with your kids. Prettily appointed spacious tents with en suite bathrooms, staff members who feel like friends, mountain views, and pin-drop quiet are reasons enough to head for the hills.
BUT THAT is only one aspect of the enterprise.
In addition to tourism, the farm is a safe haven for 150 trauma patients: soldiers with PTSD from the recent war; reservists in between call-ups; parents of children murdered at the Supernova music festival; siblings of fallen soldiers; and older soldiers who were not treated properly years ago.
“Post-trauma wounds your soul,” explains Albert Anconina, 57, a reservist who volunteered on Oct. 7 and spent 455 days in uniform over the past two years. The married father of three came home at last, got into bed, pulled a blanket over his head, and could not get up. Any little noise jolts a fractured mind back into battle: a plate breaking, a child crying, a door being slammed. Battlefield memories bring back the trauma – bombs exploding, friends being hit, yourself being hit.
Defense Ministry figures show that of the 22,000 wounded from the ongoing war, 58% are coping with psychological injury. Estimates expect an additional 10,000 among the wounded to join this sad statistic, most of them dealing with mental health challenges.
Racheli Stern, head of the Social Services Division for Post-Trauma at the Defense Ministry Rehabilitation Department, says the goal is to heal the deep fractures caused by psychological wounds and enable renewed growth and a good life alongside the wound and pain. The ministry understood the value of open spaces, connectivity to the land, nature, and animal-assisted therapy. Nine rehab farms were established for this purpose; Rom Farm is one.
“The cream of Israel comes to us,” says Edan Shir, CEO of the farm. “They are broken, can’t sleep, can’t function; every plane that flies over is a trigger. We are aware of this and pick our therapists with precision; we provide a safe space where healing can begin.”
Anconina agrees. “Religious soldiers like me weren’t sure if we could eat there,” he recalls. “Eating and cooking together is a big part of the process. We shared this with our mostly secular staff, who bent over backwards to ensure the highest level of kashrut. That’s symbolic of the enormous caring we have felt consistently.”
Secular, religious, Arabs, Jews – the whole mosaic of Israeli society is working and healing together in the secluded space. Morning meetings focus on patient well-being; the emphasis is not to dwell on terrible memories, which often are shared later, during daily activities.
Yoga, acupuncture, sound healing, pottery, carpentry, working in the forest and in the herb garden, simple mingling in the coffee shop. Step by step, the farm erases the survivor guilt that some of the wounded feel and “changes reality for us, by giving us back a future,” says Anconina.
There are challenges ahead. Although the Defense Ministry has expanded its medical and psychological support infrastructure by a 53% budget increase (to NIS 8.3 billion), wounded soldiers still face financial hurdles. Even if treatment is covered, many face loss of earnings and other war-related problems.
The country is not yet in healing mode itself; while we glamped and gramped (taking grandchildren on holiday), F-16 fighter jets streaked endlessly across the starry skies over the snuggly bonfire as we wondered whether US President Donald Trump or Iran would attack.
We will take it step by step. Propper’s social impact enterprise vision – successful, providing employment to every sector of society, boosting local agriculture and products, and, most importantly, healing the damaged – is a beautiful model for the country as a whole.
May we soon know less fraught and fractured times, when we never feel bad about feeling good.
The writer was a guest of Glow Glamping. peledpam@gmail.com