Volunteer Spotlight
Idan Shemesh, Manager, Moshav Sde Nitzan Community Healing Hub
When Idan Shemesh received a WhatsApp message about starting a community pub, he almost didn’t take it seriously.
“It wasn’t something I had thought about before,” he admits.
But Idan — a community activist and moshav representative to the regional council — read the room. His community, Moshav Sde Nitzan in the western Negev, had just returned home after six months of evacuation following the horrors of October 7, 2023. And something was wrong.
“After we returned, it was very hard to restart community activity. Residents didn’t want to go out. Many stayed inside. There was less and less interest in communal life.”
A pub, of all things, would change that.
Left Outside the Safety Net
Moshav Sde Nitzan is home to roughly 120 families. It sits 7.2 kilometers from the Gaza Strip — just 0.2 kilometers outside the boundary of the official “Tkumah” rehabilitation fund, which provides reconstruction aid only to communities within a 7-kilometer radius. That gap of barely one-eighth of a mile meant Sde Nitzan received no official government recovery funding in the aftermath of October 7th.
The community refused to wait. Residents fundraised through crowdfunding and personal appeals, rebuilding their village largely on their own.
Into that gap stepped NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief, working alongside Eitan Shahar, NATAN’s Psychosocial Lead, and Aviv of “Eretz Hadasha,” to help communities like Sde Nitzan access the support they deserved.
Surveying a Quiet Village
When NATAN’s team first connected with Idan, he had already done something simple and powerful: he asked his neighbors what they needed.
He sent out a four-question survey. Would you be happy to have a community pub? Would you participate? Would you volunteer to run it? Of roughly 100 families — including bereaved families — 80 responded.
“I understood there is a need and there is interest,” Idan says. “Beyond other activities, people wanted something to get them out of the house.”
Then, on one of the planning calls with managers of other community pubs across the region, a moderator posed a question that stopped Idan cold.
“She asked us to turn off our cameras, and then she asked: do you believe three generations would come to this pub?”
He pauses at the memory. “I got a shiver. I instantly understood — this is what I want for our community.”
Building It Together
The team found their space in an unlikely spot: a small, closed weapons storage room at the center of the moshav. They decided to transform it.
Volunteers broke down walls. They built an outdoor deck. They took over an unused plot of land beside the building and opened the pub to the outside, surrounded by trees. They cleaned, painted, re-did the plumbing, and hung photos of Sde Nitzan’s history on the walls. Roles were divided — one person for infrastructure, one for food, one for marketing, one for administration.
Much of the equipment was donated by residents themselves.
The pub opened on August 26, 2025. It was full. It was emotional. Nobody quite knew if it was just first-night curiosity.
It wasn’t.
Three Generations, Every Week
The pub now opens Thursday evenings for adults and Friday afternoons for whole families. Friday afternoons have taken on a rhythm of their own.
“The first to knock on the door on Fridays are the children, who come for the hot chocolate. The older generation sit outside on the deck. Kids play on the lawn. It’s always a family meetup.”
Musical evenings, holiday celebrations, performances — the pub has become the living room of Sde Nitzan. No one is paid. Every volunteer stays after closing to clean up. The community recently held a team-building evening just for pub volunteers and invests in their training.
“Our goal,” Idan says simply, “is that everyone arrives with a smile.”
Once a month, the pub opens a special evening exclusively for soldiers from the moshav — a space for them to come together, share experiences, and decompress. One soldier told Idan he had delayed his post-service trip abroad so he could celebrate Purim at the pub. He plans to come back and volunteer when he’s discharged.
What the Pub Means
For Idan personally, the pub has opened up a world he didn’t know existed in his own backyard.
“I was not born here. Until the pub, I knew only my own circle of friends. Now I feel I know many generations — and a deeper story of the moshav. I’ve learned about the founders, the original residents, those who came later.”
He laughs when he recounts that his wife jokes about his social life: his closest friends on the moshav, she observes, are all over 80.
“I am so glad to have found this opportunity,” he says. “I’ve been involved in many projects, but this one is special. The pub gave me a chance to build something from scratch — something that genuinely succeeds in bringing smiles and meaning to the community.”
The Role of NATAN and Operation Blessing
NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief and Operation Blessing have partnered to support the Sde Nitzan Community Healing Hub, providing infrastructure funding and ongoing guidance to ensure communities overlooked by official aid channels are not left behind.
“The regional council believed that nearby moshavim like ours should also receive help,” Idan explains. “NATAN and Eretz Hadasha became involved to help us — mainly to build resilience for all generations through community activity.”
NATAN Psychosocial Lead Eitan Shahar remains actively involved, and Operation Blessing has visited the moshav, met families who lived through the trauma of October 7th, and committed to supporting the project going forward.
The Sde Nitzan Community Healing Hub is open Thursday evenings and Friday afternoons.