Families Moving to the Northern Border Now: “We’re Not Ready for the Country to End in Haifa”

Nearly half of Kiryat Shmona residents who left during the war have not returned. Alongside them, there has been a trickle of several dozen families arriving for ideological reasons, to help with the city’s recovery and strengthen the region. They, like those who moved to other communities near the Lebanon border, admit they are afraid, but are certain the war will not last forever and that, in the end, the benefits will outweigh the drawbacks. The government has approved a budget of billions for reconstruction, but new and longtime residents, as well as professionals, say that without security calm there is little chance of long-term growth.

“The reactions are split between, ‘Wow, what Zionists,’ and discouraging remarks, often from Kiryat Shmona residents themselves. People say, what the hell are you doing to your children?” says Einav Cohen-Roizman. These days, the Cohen-Roizman family is in the midst of moving to the northernmost city in Israel, whose population has fallen by about half since the outbreak of the war. “You can’t just say, ‘I love the North, I always wanted to move,’ because in reality there is an exodus. We’re needed now, come on. Right now Kiryat Shmona stands at 10,000 people. I feel this is the call of the hour.”

There are about 25,000 residents registered in Kiryat Shmona, similar to October 2023. But according to figures presented by Mayor Avichai Stern to the state comptroller in January, only 15,000 returned to their homes after the evacuation, and today he is already speaking of estimates of about 10,000 to 12,000 residents only. According to the data presented to the comptroller, more than 40% of businesses did not resume operations, and the number of licensed businesses in the city fell from 720 to 470.

For Cohen-Roizman, the decision was made about a year ago during a visit to her mother-in-law, who returned to Kiryat Shmona after the evacuation, when she saw the catastrophic state of the city. “I turned on the TV and saw the Kotan family, pioneers who moved from Tel Aviv, saying how much the city needs them,” she recalls. “I said to myself, these are secular, educated people who do reserve duty, בדיוק like me. I felt I wanted to be their neighbor.”

Not long after, she told her husband they were leaving Har Adar and moving to Kiryat Shmona, the city where he immigrated from Ukraine in 2000. Cohen-Roizman owns a flower arrangement business, her husband Yevgeny is a mechanical engineer and tank officer who did more than 400 days of reserve duty during the war, and the couple has two children, Alona, 12, and Yarden, 10. How did they take the move? “At first, like any child being uprooted from home, but now they are very connected to the idea. I’ll stress that we are not getting anything, not a huge villa for 3,000 shekels and no moving grant, only tax benefits. We are simply people who are not prepared for the country’s northernmost line to be in Hadera.”

Aren’t you afraid? “It is frightening, but someone has to be there. My children are no more important than children in Kiryat Shmona. I understand that everyone is afraid. Everyone is traumatized by October 7. But we will not stay in a war forever.” Even the latest escalation and the rockets from Iran this week did not make her hesitate. On the contrary. “It was the only place where there were no sirens this week.”

Cohen-Roizman came with goals. “I know what excellent medicine, education and culture are, and I come with high standards. I can’t shout from Har Adar, why aren’t you building an emergency room and a train. I can shout that once I live there.”

Yevgeny started working last week at Plasan in Kibbutz Sasa. Einav was recruited by Danny Kotan, who himself moved to Kiryat Shmona about a year ago and founded an initiative working to bring new families to the city. Einav will serve in family support and absorption. “People say there are no jobs in the North? I need to give up on offers I’ve received,” she says. “Bringing amazing people to the city is the purpose of my life.”

A year ago, in July 2025, Kotan and his partner Aya-Gal moved from Tel Aviv to Kiryat Shmona. The house they live in, Kotan says, is larger than their apartment in Tel Aviv, with a garden where zucchini grow, and costs 70% of the price. But those were not the reasons for the move. “It was clear to us this is the city that needs the most human presence,” he explains. “We came here thinking this was what mattered, but we fell in love.”

Alongside his absorption work in the North, Kotan, a social activist, heads an initiative by Makom, the Council of Mission-Driven Groups and Communities in Israel, in partnership with the Ministry for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee. Its goal is to strengthen and grow the city by bringing strong, diverse families seeking quality of life and community. “Two months ago I signed on to the initiative, and finally the state came in and is helping.” The Ministry for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee allocated a budget of 10 million shekels.

“Kiryat Shmona had 24,000 residents before October 7,” Kotan says. “After the evacuation, 17,000 returned, and even then we understood we were in a demographic drama. Today, after the Lion’s Roar, the period with the lowest morale, we are talking about less. When my son asked when we were returning to the center, I told him our journey is to bring the city to 50,000 residents.”

In the two months since the ceasefire in Lion’s Roar, 67 alerts for rocket and missile fire and 29 alerts for hostile aircraft infiltration were recorded in Kiryat Shmona. In addition, there were several incidents of impacts without any warning. Kotan and the other interviewees in the article describe feelings of hope with the return of residents from the evacuation, but also renewed disappointment with the resumption of fire in March, which did not stop even after the official ceasefire.

“If the North continues to be shelled for years, I don’t believe the settlement will be able to hold on,” Kotan says. “There are people who have been swallowing this for 30 or 40 years. I’m young, it’s only been a year for me. I can’t criticize those who say, ‘I’m leaving here.’ And no one is claiming there’s no quality of life here. They just broke. If there is no one here, our border will be in Haifa. If the State of Israel wants to exist, there need to be people here, and it needs to be good here.”

Still, among all those leaving, there are also people choosing to move דווקא now. Mayor Stern says the same. The new families are arriving with encouragement from several communities, from Makom, through the young community of the religious-Zionist hesder yeshiva, to Anu Banu, in which senior citizens come for a year of service, and many of them stay. “There are those who come for Zionist reasons, to be part of history,” Stern says. “There will be a train here, a university, new neighborhoods, urban renewal complexes. By 2040 the target is to grow to 70,000 people, and the return on investment being made today will be seen in a decade.

“These are the first signs of hope, but real growth will come only when there is quiet. We were at a peak on October 6. We stopped negative migration, opened 26 startup companies in foodtech and 89 in the Upper Galilee region. Then October 7 came and kicked us back.”

Indeed, the North had big plans for construction, employment and development. Their goal was to turn the Galilee into a center of excellence in foodtech, with Kiryat Shmona at its core. Two new neighborhoods were built there, Yuvalim and Bimat Tel Hai, and they were fully populated. During the war, Tel Hai College, located north of the city, was declared a university. Promises were made for a train, and plans were approved for thousands of housing units and also hotels.

“There are amazing development plans,” Kotan says, “alongside two problematic things, the war that drives people away and a policy that does not give enough priority. If the state told every branch of a company that it would budget all the relocation costs, that would be a drama that could change the face of the city. I can’t promise a moving grant. But for those willing to live near Radwan forces, we will give them a great city to live in.”

Kotan’s vision is to create the feel of a moshav community in a developed, innovative city. “We provide employment support, create receiving communities and also build a doctors’ community to create infrastructure for all of the Upper Galilee. We are also establishing similar communities for people from anthroposophic education, musicians, social workers. The goal is to bring 300 families by next summer.”

“Since last summer, 30 families have arrived, and there are another 30 to 40 families in the pipeline for the coming summer. Recently, many of those interested are from religious Zionism. They say, we’ll live wherever it matters. Engineers, educators, hi-tech people, entrepreneurs, everything.” Kotan also wants to attract young people and remote workers, “instead of going to Koh Phangan,” he emphasizes. “You can’t wait five years for an industrial park. We need people who will come in the coming year.”

To make that happen, he says, “we’re building infrastructure and hubs, renewing the city’s appearance, and in the coming weeks we’ll turn abandoned shops in the center into a complex with performances and a café, with support from Bank Hapoalim. We’ll create a scene here like Levinsky Market and Mahane Yehuda.”

Last week, after many delays, the government approved the North Momentum plan. Under it, 5.6 billion shekels will be allocated for the rehabilitation and growth of northern communities within 9 kilometers of the Lebanon border through 2030. The sums are added to about 7.7 billion shekels already allocated since May 2024, bringing the total investment to about 13.3 billion shekels.

Aviad Friedman, head of the Tekuma and North Momentum directorates, explains the anchors on which the plan is based, and which are intended to lead to significant growth in the North over the next decade: 850 million shekels have been allocated to Ziv Hospital in Safed and the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya; the education system received more than 1 billion shekels, alongside 900 million shekels for academia and 100 million shekels as a private donation to turn Tel Hai into a university and create an academic center in Maalot. About 600 million shekels were allocated to improve the transportation system.

“The big dream is a train to Kiryat Shmona, something that will take 18 years,” Friedman says. Another significant anchor, he says, “is the issue of tax benefits and income tax. Tax benefits of 300 million shekels, as well as childcare centers, in which 300 million shekels were invested. For a young couple, this is very significant, it means saving thousands of shekels a month, which can be directed toward buying an apartment.”

To this are added 900 million shekels that will be devoted to business benefits and bringing workers, half a billion shekels from the Jewish National Fund, and an investment of 400 million shekels in tourism and 300 million shekels in agriculture. “There is interest in moving to the North, and despite the wartime period being difficult, I am optimistic,” Friedman says. “Once there is quiet, it will be easier. It will change all the momentum. And I intend to use every shekel, not leave money on the table.”

Yohanan Mali, director general of the Ministry for the Negev, Galilee and National Resilience, says that “until there is stable quiet in the North, there will be no growth trend. We will be able to prevent people from leaving. I believe it will happen quickly. We allocated resources so that when residents return, it will be to a better place.”

About a month and a half ago, the ministry invested 60 million shekels in renovating and rehabilitating border-area communities, including renewing streets and squares in Shlomi and repairing roads, the stadium, the cultural hall and the municipal pool in Kiryat Shmona. He also points to the digital wallet for city residents, intended to help small businesses. “This is 44 million shekels that will be distributed to residents, and they can only use it for purchases in businesses inside the city.”

“Some residents say they live in the best city in the world, others say everything is broken. The challenge of Momentum is to bring about a fast and effective implementation of all the clauses in this decision. The challenge of the residents and local leadership is to be partners, to believe there is hope.”

About 20 minutes’ drive from Kiryat Shmona is Kibbutz Yiftach, on the Ramim Ridge, just a few hundred meters from the Lebanon border. Yifat Schwartz-Trabulus moved there from Jerusalem in August with her partner Itamar and their three children. Her parents joined them and are also renting an apartment in the kibbutz.

She says that as a secular couple who worked for many years in public service, including more than 300 days of reserve duty during the war, the feeling that they needed to strengthen the North grew stronger. However, she emphasizes, the complicated task is not getting families to come, but getting them to stay.

“I started working at the Emergency Investment Fund of the Jewish Federations of New York, an organization that raised a lot of money at the start of the war for the South and the North and for broad issues like the families of the hostages and Nova survivors,” Schwartz-Trabulus says. “Because I got the North portfolio, I spent months in the area, under shelling, and saw what was happening to this region. Alongside Itamar’s reserve duty, it shook us very much.

“We decided to move to a border community because we wanted to be part of what is happening. There are people here from across the political spectrum who did thousands of days of reserve duty and made this move. These are our values.”

She clarifies that the communities in the area depend on Kiryat Shmona. “This is supposed to be the place where we consume medical services, culture, cafés. For the Eastern Galilee not just to survive but to thrive, Kiryat Shmona has to thrive. The Eastern Galilee is stricken by disaster. Someone needs to wake up, and the State of Israel needs to put everything it has into this area. A great deal can be done so that the place, even in an unstable security situation, can flourish. We must not normalize a situation of trickling fire, explosive drones and ‘cleared for publication’ almost every day.”

How does the move feel so far? “This is where we need to be. It helps that both of us deal with things happening in the area, my day-to-day work is about what can be done for the North, how to improve, how to connect the government with philanthropy and the social sector with the business sector. Despite all the chaos, the children are good here. But in the long term I don’t know whether it will be reasonable to keep living like this.”

“There are things that could have been changed yesterday, adding public transportation, establishing a cinema in Kiryat Shmona. Advanced emergency medical services are needed, investment in the best teachers and doctors, and this needs to happen now, not with philanthropic money.”

“Why are you moving here?” Meiram Harel, chief winemaker at Recanati Winery, located in the Dalton Industrial Park near Safed, was also thinking about a change like this. This summer he will move with his family from Zikhron Ya’akov to Maalot-Tarshiha in the Western Galilee, a few kilometers from the Lebanon border. The backdrop to the move is his work at the winery, which he started about two months ago.

“As a family we said, here is the real opportunity to move to the Galilee, to a mixed city, and it is important to me to educate the children about compassion, belonging and understanding that we are first and foremost human beings, regardless of race, religion or gender.”

The location may be different from Kiryat Shmona, but some of the problems, and the reactions, are not different. “True, there are explosions and sirens, but in the end we are all in the same boat, the North, the envelope or the center, and you can’t run away from it. In the future, at quieter times, I will be able to walk with my wife, children and dog and enjoy the good air. We’ll make friends, my children will be educated ideally in a mixed school. I grew up in Tiberias, my wife lived in Dganya Bet, the family is in the Golan Heights. We all in the family did a round through the center, but our heart is in the North.”

Isn’t it scary to move now? “Yes, of course, as a father of children. But when I put all the considerations on the scales, the ‘yes’ ones carry more weight. I’m not looking to stand on the fence and be the guard, and heaven forbid to be in a situation that will make me regret my decisions, but this is our country, and this was one of the easier decisions I’ve had in my life.”

Were the tax benefits a factor? “Without a doubt. But I’m moving to a more expensive apartment. This is not an economic opportunity. Even if they promise this or that, I don’t know how much of it will actually materialize.”

What reactions are you getting from people around you? “People raise their eyebrows, at school, in daycare and in activities. They ask, why are you moving here? I would like to see happier eyes.”

Also, Dr. Aliza Bloch, former mayor of Beit Shemesh, moved to Kiryat Shmona after the outbreak of the war, and divides her time between the northern city she fell in love with and Jerusalem, mainly because of her role as president of YASA, the Israeli Center for Excellence in Education.

She says that with government decisions still delayed and funding still not being disbursed, the city is not yet an attraction for families on a large scale. But she is sure that with help and proper management, that can change faster than people think. “There is sadness in me,” she admits. “There isn’t some big wave here. There are empty apartments, there are few families, some of them very old, without children. But some say they know the story will end and they want to be part of this Zionist creation. But I have even more hope. Not everything is fate.

“One-third of the families returned because they had no choice, one-third returned because they are ideologues who love the place, and one-third did not return. Of course, those who did not return are mostly younger families who settled, found work and community. Interestingly, there is an Israeli population that says there is an opportunity here, and to make such a move you need to be a very great ideologue.”

But ideology alone, she says, will not be enough. “I tell everyone who is interested, don’t come just because it’s important. You won’t survive. You need to make the decision because you fell in love with the place. Kiryat Shmona is a place that is easy to fall in love with.”

According to her, residents are not returning because of a combination of factors, the state’s eroded trust, the feeling of living on a battlefield, the lack of protected rooms in most homes, the taste of life in the center during the evacuation, and the fact that the war ended everywhere in the country except in the North. “It is not healthy for residents to feel like victims. The reality is hard enough, it is hard enough to function after one event after another.”

Her dream is to establish an Israeli civil-social cabinet, and she does not hold back criticism: “It is clear that if this were important to someone in the government, a ministerial committee for the North should have been established. A government cabinet needs to be created that deals with Kiryat Shmona, health, education, internal security, the economy, and removes all the obstacles. I spent hours with the director general of the Health Ministry because there is one ambulance in all of Kiryat Shmona. Why doesn’t every resident in a border community have a protected room? Why is the regulation insane for business owners? These are small things, but that is the story in my view.”

“Bring apartments with a protected room and an elevator”

Tal Bashiri, co-chief executive of the Kiryat Shmona real estate brokerage Bashiri Real Estate, notes that the critical problem today is the quality of housing and properties. “The families that want to move say it will only happen when there are good homes, with a protected room and an elevator, and that’s where we ran into a problem. They want to move, but there is nowhere to move to. National outline agreements and evacuation-reconstruction projects take time, and in the meantime we are missing many families and young people because of the poor housing situation.”

Despite the residents who left and despite the war, housing prices in the area have not fallen significantly. Proof: about two months ago the most expensive deal ever recorded for an apartment in the city was made, a detached cottage in the new Yuvalim neighborhood was purchased for 3.25 million shekels. Such homes are almost impossible to find.

“Forget the grants,” Bashiri says. “Bring apartments with a protected room and an elevator, and they will be occupied. New families will not come to old apartments. There are many evacuation-reconstruction plans, many interested parties who want to come and do projects, many families saying that in the first year they will live in the old housing project, with an option to buy a house, like guys from Samaria who have money. There are more opportunities in buying. In renting, there are not many.”

“Every day families contact me and say they want to move in July or August. They come for a tour, some compromise on an apartment and some give up because they didn’t find the right housing.”

“Will we return to the place we were before the war?” Stern asks. “Definitely yes. The question is when. For that to happen, there needs to be quiet. There are change-making anchors here, but it will take a decade, and our problem is tomorrow morning. The only thing that can be done tomorrow is to compensate these people for the lack.

“Kiryat Shmona will recover, it will come out of this stronger. This crisis will become our biggest opportunity.”