When 78-year-old Hélène Zucman returned to her home at Kibbutz Baram last week, she was both relieved and anxious. While displaced the grandmother had been living in a Tiberias hotel for nearly 18 months alongside other members of her kibbutz and residents from Kiryat Shmona and other northern communities.

“We were evacuated on October 7, 2023, and I hadn’t been home since,” she told The New York Sun in an interview. “I never imagined I would spend over one year of my life in a hotel room.

“By the time we returned home, I had forgotten how to turn on the dishwasher or TV. It was very disorienting to be back. I had to re-learn how to live my life again on the kibbutz.”

Like thousands of northern Israelis, who returned home on March 7 following the IDF’s decision to lift restrictions, Ms. Zucman found her home and garden neglected and in dire need of care and maintenance. The 78-year-old couldn’t do all the work on her own. 

Volunteers from a pre-military academy in the Negev Highlands, Mechinat HaNegev, proved to be the angels that Ms. Zucman needed. The volunteers, who spend a year before their mandatory military service strengthening their social engagement and leadership skills, have spent many hours traveling to northern Israel from the south in order to help out residents like Ms. Zucman.

“I was so happy that we could help Hélène out,” a volunteer, Gali Cohen, 19, said. “She’s a sweet grandmother who was just so thankful to have our help. We did all the hardcore gardening and tree pruning. It took hours of hard work but it was worth seeing Hélène feel more at home.”

Ms. Zucman, who is originally from Paris, made aliyah to Israel more than five decades ago. She has been living in Kibbutz Baram for 45 years and raised her family there with her husband, Dani, who died in 2013. 

Ms. Zucman noted that it was also thanks to her dog that she finally managed to acclimate back to kibbutz life. “When we were evacuated from the kibbutz, I had to give my dog, Guerlain, to my daughter to take care of while I was living in the hotel.” 

When her French-named dog was returned to her two weeks after she was back living on the kibbutz, everything began to fall into place again for Ms. Zucman.

“I was having panic attacks in the beginning,” she said. “I had lived for so long outside of my home and experienced such a strange period of life in a hotel with total strangers who became good friends. I had to get used to being on my own again and to the house itself.”

Ms. Zucman has two children as well as grandchildren who live on Kibbutz Baram. They were also evacuated, but because her grandchildren are now going to school in Tiberias, her family cannot yet move back to the kibbutz until the school year is over at the end of June. 

More than 61,000 Israelis had to evacuate their homes in northern Israel under a government mandate in October 2023 following almost daily rocket attacks by Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah in Lebanon. There were also thousands who evacuated independently. Schooling and civilian infrastructure were disrupted and residents suffered heavy financial losses. While Israeli authorities stated that it was safe to return home on March 1, some local mayors and heads of northern communities and towns opposed the decision.

Kibbutz Baram experienced several rocket attacks during the war, including one on the youth section in the kibbutz. As the kibbutz was largely evacuated at the time except for the local security team, no injuries were reported during the attack. 

While Kibbutz Baram will hold a traditional Passover seder in the kibbutz cafeteria this year, Ms. Zucman will celebrate with her children and grandchildren at Tel Aviv. 

“The most important thing I can ask for this Passover is that all the hostages be returned home,” she said. “There is nothing more important than this — they all deserve to be home.”