The road into Israel’s Western Galilee in spring is impossibly green and serene… so long as missiles aren’t landing in anyone’s backyard.
Since the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel was signed on April 8, 34 IDF soldiers have been killed, and troops are still very much working at the border zone to keep terrorists from launching missiles into Israel – especially into civilian towns and cities.
For 13 years, Western Galilee Now has been building its business consortium, which gives small business owners a reason to meet and collaborate. With backing from JNF-USA, restaurateurs, dairy farmers, and artists have been able to keep producing their goods and making their crafts – whether for a group of one young family or a tour of 20.
Michal Shiloah-Galnoor, CEO of Western Galilee Now, organized the Spring Festival this year and told The Jerusalem Report that long-time dairy farmer Yael Dugma of Dugma Farms called her just hours before the festival began, expressing concerns that no one would show up for her cheese demonstration. She didn’t know how much preparation to do – if any at all.
Cost of war
Tourism accounts for roughly 40% of the economy in parts of northern Israel. Since the war began nearly three years ago, many businesses have been operating at only a fraction of their normal capacity.
“You don’t know each morning if you’re going to open your business or not,” said Shiloah-Galnoor. “You don’t know how many employees to invite, how many supplies to buy. The customer makes decisions at the last minute [these days]. But you also can’t just close and wait forever for things to get better.”
When tourism slows, the consequences spread quickly. Restaurants order fewer vegetables from farmers. Cafes reduce staff hours. Workshops sit empty. Local gas stations, hotels, and family-owned shops lose those customers who once passed through.
The festival, which stretched across multiple villages and communities, offered dozens of experiences: organic wine tastings, historial tours, dance shows, ceramics classes, live music performances, and artisan demonstrations.
At Dugma Farm, children fed goats while families gathered around long wooden tables to watch fresh cheese being made by hand. The owner, Yael Dugma, greeted guests with smiles, samples, and an abundance of enthusiasm for her craft.
One cheese was eaten moments after being prepared – still hot from production, and served after a swift flip of the plastic slotted bowl. Setting it upside-down, the leftover milk drained away. The cheese was then sliced and served.
The Dugma family immigrated to Israel from Yemen in 1949, a year after Israel gained its independence. Like many immigrant families of that era, they arrived with little infrastructure or agricultural experience. According to family history, the Jewish Agency for Israel provided each family with a cow and agricultural training to help establish livelihoods in the north.
From that modest beginning, the family today has created a milky empire complete with on-site attractions for families.
Today, machinery assists much of the work, but the production remains deeply hands-on. Dugma herself speaks little English, but her warmth translated easily, and she tried to express her sentiment.
“I love people, and I want to teach people how to make cheese,” she said. “I love the bees, too. And when people come to learn.”
The program at Dugma Farms ended with a surprise guest – Galnoor-Shiloah dressed in a cow suit. The woman behind the festival found herself communicating in a way that spoke to everyone in the room – through some humor. Everyone danced to close out the farm part of the itinerary.
One of the more unusual attractions of the festival involved Israel’s only harp workshop, where handcrafted wooden harps are produced and shipped internationally. During the festival, two musicians performed a harp duet with the hills of the Galilee as their background.
“We want people to spend time with the real people producing things here,” Galnoor told me. “Talk to the artists. Ask them about life right now in the Galilee. Show them you care. That’s part of the support.”
Creating connections
At Lotem Village, visitors gathered for a ceramics workshop overlooking the Galilee mountains. Participants shaped plates from clay while sipping local wine and eating award-winning cheeses.
The workshop was led by artist and goldsmith Liat Gilad, whose small studio sits deep in the mountains of Kibbutz Gaaton.
“The festival is an opportunity to open the door and connect,” Gilad said after the workshop clean-up. “I’m an artist working in my little studio, and suddenly people from all over Israel are coming here.”
For small creators like Gilad, visibility means survival. A successful festival weekend could generate workshop bookings and sales for months ahead.
A minute up the road sits the Lotem Winery. The view reveals itself suddenly – the moment visitors walk through the modest front door of the vineyard restaurant. As guests turn toward the wooden terrace, they find themselves overlooking a vast green valley with green mountains rising along the 360-degree view. It’s part of what keeps people coming back. It’s expansive.
At the winery, guests sampled organic wines while learning about the process of turning grapes into wine – and what makes the difference in the color of the final product.
Hospitality and hope
The final stop of the day carried some emotional weight.
In the Druze village of Julis, Noor Restaurant has become an unexpected symbol of wartime solidarity and inclusion.
Its owner, Basma Hino, lost her husband, Marcel, through military service connected to the IDF. He passed away in 2015 after falling into a coma from a severe service-related injury.
Following his death, Hino had to support her family alone – an uncommon path for a woman in traditional Druze society, where mothers have not historically occupied prominent public business roles – if any work-related roles at all.
She opened her own restaurant.
After October 7 and the outbreak of war in the north, she made another unprecedented decision: she converted Noor into a kosher establishment.
Hino explained that religious Jewish soldiers visiting the restaurant with her son had been unable to eat there because the food was not kosher. Rather than accept the divide or let the troops sit on the side, she decided to overhaul the place and kosher it.
“We want people to take the warm hospitality of the Druze community back home with them,” Hino said. “Especially religious Jews who never had the opportunity before to taste Druze food.”
The restaurant now regularly sends meals to soldiers stationed near the Lebanese border while also attracting observant Jewish visitors who previously could not dine in Druze establishments.
In a region defined by tension and grief for several years, Noor represents another Israeli reality often overlooked abroad: one of coexistence, connection, and ownership.
Before we departed, Galnoor offered one final thought: “I want people to say, ‘Wow – there are so many amazing places in the Western Galilee. I have to come back again.’”
Western Galilee Now hosts both a Spring and Winter festival to bring people into the heights during typically “off” seasons, but the Galilee has much to offer at any point of the year.■