Picking up the pieces: the Israeli winery bridging the border with Lebanon

Hundreds of thousands of shattered and fire-damaged wine bottles line the floor of a once-thriving winery in Moshav Avivim, a picturesque community on Israel’s border with Lebanon.

The tableau of devastation at the former winery in this deserted Israeli village in the Upper Galilee, just down the hill from Lebanon, has remained frozen in time since four Hezbollah missiles struck the site last year.

With a shaky ceasefire in place since late November, the Israeli government has urged residents of border communities to move back home by the end of the month. But, uncertainty and concern over a future war with the Lebanese terror group is omnipresent and hangs like winter mist in the mountain air.

An IDF pullback from Lebanon less than a mile away – apart from five border points – due today is only adding to the fears of residents that Hezbollah will eventually find its way back to the border villages.

“What will we come back to next month?” pondered the winery’s manager Meir Biton as he walked through the rubble of his family’s demolished business, which is reminiscent of some of the worst destruction of homes on Israel’s southern border during the October 7 onslaught. “Nobody has the answers yet.”

“Everything remains as it was,” concurred his brother Yisrael, 38, as he plucked up a dirtied but unbroken bottle of wine from the immense destruction at the site.

The family business was hit by four rockets fired by the terror group (Image: Rina Castelnuovo)[Missing Credit]

As villagers trickle back to their homes to inspect the damage there remains, through it all, a spirit of resilience to rebuild and start anew despite all the odds and their inauspicious geographic location.

This small border community was originally established by Moroccan immigrants in 1958, including the Bitons’ parents who settled there in 1963.

Three decades ago, their father Shlomo built the winery in the backyard of their home; it served both as a source of tourism and of pride for the accolades it picked up.

The day after the Hamas attack on southern Israel, this northern moshav, along with scores of others, was evacuated by order of the IDF due to concerns that Hezbollah would attack, concerns which were soon realised. To date, tens of thousands of residents remain displaced.

“A day didn’t go by without attacks here,” Meir recalled, noting that he and his brother would come back on some nights to check on the winery despite the risks.

It remains littered with shattered and burned wine bottles (Image: Rina Castelnuovo)[Missing Credit]

With the Lebanese village of Maroun El Ras, a Hezbollah stronghold, less than a mile from their homes, there was no advance warning of incoming rocket attacks. “First, there would be a shriek and an explosion, and then seconds later the alarm would go off,” he said.

During one such nocturnal visit last March, with his family evacuated to Tiberias further south, Meir was knocked unconscious when two missiles struck the winery directly and set it ablaze. As soon as he got back on his feet, he grabbed a garden hose from his parent’s home and tried in vain to put out the flames that were devouring everything his father built.

An endless sea of shattered bottles alongside blackened wine barrels now litters the structure, which caved in during the inferno. Overturned, fire-damaged reception tables are the sole remnants of what was once the visitors' center. A blackened sign at the door reads: “Welcome to the Avivim Winery.”

It could cost up to $10 million to rebuild (Image: Rina Castelnuovo)[Missing Credit]

Meir estimates that it will cost up to $10 million to rebuild the business and take several years to replant their nearby vineyard, which must be uprooted thanks to a virus that ravaged the unharvested grapes as the war raged.

Amid the destruction, though, there is a symbol of the family’s hope – a lemon tree that was struck by rockets yet, though blackened in parts, remains standing, defiant and very much alive.

An Israeli company, My Tree in Israel, has now launched a campaign in the United States to help the winery with funding for the rebuild. It aims to sell some of the thousands of bottles of wine that the family managed to save.

While his wife is afraid to return home, Meir’s 18-year-old son, Itai, who is about to enlist in the IDF’s elite combat unit, said that he is determined to help rebuild his family’s legacy together with his father when he completes his three-year military service. Convincing his wife to return, Biton said, is still a work in progress.

“I am coming back, though I fear things will not be OK again in the future, but I have hopes in Trump in changing the Middle East,” he said.