It wasn’t hard to find Amirim in the North. In the village of Rama, we asked a Druze man in a restaurant to describe the way. “When you see the bulldozers, it’s a sign you’ve come to Shefer,” the Druze man said. Let us return to our subject, Amirim in the North. When we saw the bulldozers, we turned right, as the Druze man had instructed, and passed a group of small white houses\u2014two rooms and a kitchen in each house\u2014the typical houses of the Jewish Agency. Not a living soul was seen. Then a man appeared out of a cloud of dust, holding a bottle with a brown liquid. We stopped and asked where the secretariat was. The time was before noon<\/strong>, and all the men were working outside the village on JNF projects\u2014planting trees or clearing stones from the mountain slopes. Women were preparing lunch in the houses, and the only human being we saw was a small boy, his hair golden-white, playing alone among the stones. “Hey kid,” we called out, “where is the secretary?” The boy didn’t answer, just stood and stared at us with large eyes. “Don’t you understand? We want to speak with the secretary.” No answer. “What is this, don’t you understand Hebrew?” Finally, we got a response\u2014the boy shook his head no. We tried addressing him in eight European languages in total, including Slavic and Nordic ones. We didn’t succeed. Finally, out of desperation, we said, “Do you understand English?” “Yes,” the boy said, “why didn’t you ask right away? I’m from Texas and I live here. Do you want me to call one of the adults?” And he called toward one of the houses: “Yosef, come out.” A tall, thin Black man came out of the house. “My name is Yosef, Yosef Park,” he said, revealing his white teeth in a wide smile. “God bless you, my friends, and welcome to Amirim.” He spoke Hebrew without mistakes, though with a foreign accent. Copied with thanks from the National Library of Israel<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the village of Amirim in the Galilee, vegans and vegetarians gathered from all corners of the globe, dark-skinned and fair. Jews and Gentiles, and even members of the lost tribe from Texas. Written by N. Pundak, Photography by B. Karmi, Davar Newspaper 04.09.1959 It wasn’t hard to find Amirim in the North. In the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5228,"parent":1834,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5227","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zimmernorth.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zimmernorth.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zimmernorth.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zimmernorth.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zimmernorth.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zimmernorth.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5227\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zimmernorth.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zimmernorth.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zimmernorth.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n“From there, turn right and you will reach Amirim.” An Arab man standing by a stall, waiting for a passenger car, heard the conversation and asked: “Do you both intend to travel to Amirim in the Galilee?” We replied in the affirmative.
\n“It is a strange place,” the Arab man said thoughtfully. “A man from Safed told me yesterday that everyone who lives in Amirim is destined to live more than a hundred years. He said the vegan healer from Amirim is 117 years old, maybe more. No one from our village has reached such an age.”
\n![\"Amirim](\"https:\/\/www.zimmernorth.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Amirm-1959.jpg\")
Amirim<\/strong> is only nine months old in total, but it has already managed to firmly plant a stake on the map of the Upper Galilee in the North. Few people in the North know much about Amirim. However, in the mountains, things are different than on the plains, and news does not travel so quickly. On the plains, people talk more; often they know more than they should about what is cooking in the neighboring village. In the mountains, life is simpler, harder, and shorter. People choose their words with more care, move slowly, and remember better. And they do not stick their noses into their neighbors’ business. Great works of culture were born in the mountains or the deserts and were destroyed by the dwellers of the plains, who talk more and say less. If Moses had lived on the plains, he would surely have failed because he was slow of speech; in the desert, he became a leader. <\/p>\n
\n“Shalom,” he replied, “it’s a hot day, would you like to drink a little water?” he said, handing us the bottle. “No thank you,” we said, “we just drank tea in Rama.” Tea? He turned cold and offended. “This is not tea, it’s cognac.” “Cognac in Amirim?” we asked, a bit surprised, “we thought you never drink alcohol in Amirim.” Then our mistake became clear to him. “Ah, but this is not Amirim, this is Shefer. Here we drink cognac when we have money, and water when our pockets are empty. In Amirim, they always drink water.” He said goodbye and moved away from us in a cloud of dust, just as he had come.
\nFrom afar, Amirim looks like any other mountain village in the Galilee. It sits at the foot of Mount Meron (Jarmak) and overlooks a breathtaking view\u2014part of the blue violin of the Sea of Galilee. There are approximately fifty houses, and next to each one is a dunam and a half of rocky mountain land. A chicken coop is attached to every house, but the coops are empty and the smell of chickens does not carry in the village air, for Amirim is like all villages on the outside, but different on the inside. <\/p>\n
\n![\"Amirim](\"https:\/\/www.zimmernorth.co.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Amirm-1959-1.jpg\")
“What brought you to Amirim?”<\/strong>. Amirim is the only vegetarian village in the world. The village was founded nine months ago by three families\u2014a young couple who were members of kibbutzim for several years, one came from Neve Ilan, the abandoned kibbutz in the Jerusalem corridor established by young people, former Maquis members in France. One was a member of Mishmar HaNegev, and one a former member of Kfar Szold. The Jewish Agency agreed to take part in the experiment of establishing a village whose residents would engage in regular agricultural work, while in their private lives, they would conduct themselves according to the principles of vegetarianism and veganism. The founding group turned to Amirim, one of the mountain settlements planned by Yosef Weitz of the JNF. His idea was that the residents would become foresters, but the plan did not come to fruition. The settlers, new immigrants brought to Amirim straight from the immigrant ships, left the village of Amirim one by one, and it seemed that Yosef Weitz’s idea about establishing villages through forestry work was impractical. Now only three families of the original settlers remain in Amirim, and they too are supposed to leave. And since it is clear and known to them that the vegetarians are interested in their departure, they are demanding all sorts of benefits from the Agency as a condition for their leaving.
\nToday, approximately one hundred people live in the new Amirim in the North\u201415 families and 20 singles. The secretary of Amirim, Menachem Paldi, told us that in a short time, twenty families of Sabbath-observing Adventists will come from Texas. Most of the residents now are former city dwellers who came to Amirim to live as vegetarians and avoid the temptations of the metropolis. The oldest resident is a vegan healer from England, 73 years old, who hopes to live many more years. Menachem himself is one of the three founders; he was a member of Kfar Szold and lived there for many years with his wife. “Why did you leave the kibbutz?” we asked. “The truth is that I have nothing against kibbutz life, but we realized that a person can only with great difficulty live in a kibbutz and be a vegetarian. Perhaps adults can achieve this\u2014they can go into the kitchen and choose the foods that are good in their eyes. But the children must live as is customary in children’s houses, and one cannot expect the caregivers to worry about preparing vegetarian meals for one or two children. We had to choose, then, between kibbutz life and vegetarianism; we chose vegetarianism.”
\n“What is vegetarianism?”<\/strong> “In truth, I cannot answer you. In fact, we do not yet know what we are, but we are trying to discover it. In the doctrine of vegetarianism, there are no dogmas. It is not a religion, and every person must understand the nature of the doctrine for themselves. There are vegetarians among us who do not eat meat or anything from animals like butter, eggs, or milk\u2014vegans; they prepare their food only from plants. They do not drink liquor, tea, or coffee, and they do not smoke. Others do not refrain from drinking milk. All kinds of vegetarians and vegans are found here; there are also raw vegans among us. They are more strict with themselves and do not eat cooked food. They eat everything as given in nature. And we are tolerant; let each one act according to their way. Any person willing to accept the basic principles of vegetarianism can come to live with us. They must only undergo a two-week trial period, and if we find out that the candidate violates one of our basic rules during the trial period\u2014eats meat, for example\u2014we ask them to leave the place. If you are unable to take upon yourself rules of abstinence for two weeks, you will never be able to be a vegetarian.”
\n“Why are you a vegetarian?”<\/strong> we asked Menachem. “I became a vegetarian under the influence of my wife. Perhaps you know that a mixed marriage of a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian is almost as complicated as a mixed marriage of a Jew and a Gentile, as it was in the Diaspora. Too many opportunities for misunderstanding. And so I became a vegetarian. In the first year, it was a bit difficult for me, but I have never felt better than I do now. No illnesses, no headaches, no signs of fatigue, and I feel like one who has been brought back to life. Of course, you cannot expect that a person who becomes a vegetarian will immediately be a model of health, we say. Only if the grandmother is a vegetarian are her grandchildren destined to be perfectly healthy. We carry the poison within us because of our ancestors’ mistakes. The stomach is the source of diseases; they stem from digestive difficulties, and if you can ensure that your stomach functions properly, everything will be fine.” “But why do you believe that one can maintain stomach health only by eating plants?” “We believe that science has gone bankrupt, and instead of humans becoming healthier and healthier, they are attacked by an increasing number of diseases. There are many people here whose doctors despaired of the chance to save their lives. They were saved because they changed their lifestyle. We do not need doctors and we do not believe in surgeries. Amirim is surely the only village in Israel where the health fund makes a profit. The doctor comes to us twice a week, but he only spends ten minutes here. We do not need medicines, but one of our members sowed medicinal herbs in his garden. We get the seeds from Switzerland, and we use the herbs for natural healing.” There are people who take upon themselves the rules of vegetarianism because of attacks of illness, and there are those who arrive at vegetarianism from moral motives. The latter believe not only that it is healthier to eat plants, but also that this is the only moral way of life. Man is a creature standing on the highest step of the biological evolution ladder and must not take part in the struggle that takes place in nature among animals. Man must not raise a hand against a living creature; he must build and not destroy. This is the essence of the moral conception of vegetarianism.
\n“Who brought vegetarianism to the Land of Israel?”<\/strong>. Some say German Jews; this is a mistake. The first vegetarians in Israel were the people of the Second Aliyah, A.D. Gordon and some of his students. Today people tend to forget that vegetarianism was very common in the first kibbutzim\u2014Degania, Ginegar, Kinneret. Until about the mid-twenties, more than a third of the pioneers were vegetarians. Many of the Second Aliyah pioneers saw vegetarianism as an integral part of their aspiration to return to the land and nature. They were greatly influenced by Tolstoy, mainly for moral reasons (Tolstoy himself turned to vegetarianism at the end of his life). By the way, they say that the Prime Minister follows a moderate vegetarian diet to this day, and Knesset member from the Mapai faction, Yisrael Guri, a man of the Second Aliyah and chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee, built a house in Amirim and hopes to settle there among his vegetarian friends. One of the people who came to Amirim out of moral motives is Yehuda Carmel, a native of Bnei Brak. He is nearly thirty, and his face is hidden behind a small screen\u2014a thick, black, wild-growing beard. “I believe that vegetarianism is likely to save the world from destruction,” he said seriously. “If we cut back on our material demands and stop attributing supreme importance to food in daily life, people will stop fighting one another. Today people live to eat instead of eating to live.”
\n“Are you religious?”<\/strong> “I wasn’t always religious, and I am not religious according to the traditional conception, but I believe that vegetarianism is destined to return humanity to religion. I also believe in the Torah laws regarding the Sabbatical year (Shmita), for example. These days we are destroying the earth; chemical fertilizers are like poison to the soil. We must let the land rest in the Sabbatical year as stated in the Torah. This year I did not cultivate my land, but I was forced to eat the produce of other farmers; I had no choice.” Yehuda’s wife from Paris set the table for lunch, and we were invited to join the couple. Amirim is a paradise for women provided they love vegetable dishes because cooking takes almost no time. We ate coarsely ground wheat, sesame seeds, other kinds of seeds, tomatoes, peppers, and for dessert, grapes. Yehuda and Yona ate with appetite and did not say a word during the meal. “We don’t drink much,” Yehuda said. “Sometimes we drink water at natural temperature, but never water that has been artificially cooled by ice or a refrigerator. During illness, we drink mint tea, without sugar of course.” “And you never feel the lack of an egg or a glass of milk or a piece of meat? A cigarette or a candy?” Yehuda shook his head no and looked at us in wonder as if he didn’t understand how such a question could even be conceived. Can a person feel the lack of poison? That is what his eyes said, and Menachem the secretary told us:
\n“Once at a wedding feast I tried to eat meat. I thought, what could happen to me? The next day my whole body was covered in eczema.” The manager of the cooperative store in Amirim is a former merchant marine officer. He is thirty years old and has spent most of his years since finishing school at sea. He advanced gradually, and a few months ago he was given a captain’s certificate of authority. Then he left his three-room apartment in North Tel Aviv and his comfortable life as a captain and settled in Amirim with his petite English wife. A kidney stone brought him to vegetarianism and to Amirim; the stone disappeared and the vegetarianism remained.
\nYosef Park, the Hebrew-speaking Black man, belongs to the group of Sabbath-observing Adventists who settled in Amirim a few months ago. He came from British Guiana with his wife Teresa and their three children, David, Rimon, and Ruti. Before settling in Amirim, he was at an Ulpan in Kfar Vitkin. “Yosef is my name from birth,” he says, “and I also gave my children biblical names at their birth. Members of our sect believe in the Old Testament and the New Testament together. We keep the Sabbath, circumcise our children, and strictly observe kosher laws. The only difference between us and Jews is that we believe the Messiah has already come, while you believe he is yet to come. However, Yehuda and I believe in almost the same things.” “Who is Yehuda?” “Our neighbor near our house, a religious Jew. Yesterday I spoke with him and it became clear to us that we both believe in almost the same things.”
\nAnd what is the connection between Sabbath-observing Adventists and vegetarians?”<\/strong> “We belong to a special wing of the sect that preaches a life of simplicity, physical labor, and vegetarianism. We are not vegans, for example; we cook our food and in winter when there are no vegetables, we drink milk. We came to Israel because we are Adventists and to Amirim because we are vegetarians.” “Will others from the sect come from Guiana?” “God willing. My brother and his family and Teresa’s brother and his family want to join us, but the government does not allow them.” “Our government?” “No, the government of Guiana. I do not wish to say that we are better than others, but at least we are no worse than them, and the government does not want good workers to emigrate from Guiana. I traveled with my family to England and did not know if I would receive entry permission to Israel in London or not. We took the risk upon ourselves and invested all our money, 4,000 dollars, in the trip. I said in my heart: God will help you reach Israel one way or another.” <\/p>\n