From Gush Katif To Rebuilt Ganei Tal And The Moringa Forest
In rebuilt Ganei Tal
Credit: Courtesy of Moti and Hana Sender
By Moti and Hana Sender, as told to Toby Klein Greenwald
Part II
Moti: We worked in agriculture for many years, and we were looking for something different, for something with [additional] value, and one day a man came to visit us, with moringa seeds, and said, “Listen, I have something interesting here, try growing it.”
Hana: We don’t know his name.
Moti: I’ve never seen him since then. He was a Chabadnik. I know he also tried to grow moringa and didn’t want to talk about it; perhaps he did not succeed. He was a shaliach. There is a shaliach of Chabad in Hong Kong and there is a shaliach of Chabad for moringa.
So I did some research at the Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot; we had researchers there who had worked with us in Gush Katif.
Then we went to the Volcanic Institute, and they assigned me someone who today is a professor, they said he was responsible for all the research on moringa…We turned over seedlings we had to IDF camps, schools, to yishuvim (small communities). People came and took seedlings. And that’s how we began.
We didn’t think it would become such a big thing. But what we did know was that moringa is grown all over the world, there are a number of products, mainly natural, which are the dried leaves, for brewing tea, and they grind it, and there is the powder created by it, and the seeds; those were the basic items.
And we thought we need to move forward, and that we could also make cosmetics with it, and today we have many testimonies from people, and stories, that any challenge that is thrown at moringa, moringa can help.
I never thought I would be a kind of “Baba” [a Sephardic rabbi, with sometimes miracles assigned to him], but people come from all over and tell me what problems they have, and moringa can do everything. It doesn’t mean that there is one pill for cancer, and one for back pain, and one for blood pressure. It’s the same moringa, it helps all of it, you just have to believe and start taking it.
We made a connection to a factory that deals in natural cosmetics. We agreed that we don’t use any chemicals, everything we use is produced in Israel, everything is self-production, done here in Ganei Tal.
We grow on our own grounds, like every other moshav farmer in Israel. We call it “Moringa Forests” so it sounds huge, but it’s 20 dunams [close to five acres].
{Sustainability
Sustainability is important to us. We plant trees in the forest that are meant to produce oil; those are planted farther apart. And there are some that are planted more densely together and after we harvest from those, we grind what we harvest and make it into powder.
After we planted the dense area, I said, let’s also try to make it a tourist attraction.
So we began to plan on paper how to create a maze and based on that, we planted. As opposed to what they did a long time ago in England, where there are stories that the king would throw people into the maze and it was like a death sentence because they didn’t know how to get out, we want to give people the tools to know how to get out.
It was very popular and then the pandemic started. During COVID, it was impossible to meet, but in agriculture, it was possible. It was possible to bring in workers and others, so there were families who came, and they were able to meet in our Moringa forests.
Our products include tea leaves, capsules, powders, and in the cosmetic area, a face mask, peeling soap, face mousse, and a variety of healing creams and serums.
We see a major part of our mission today is giving; that is our shlichut. It’s not just a commercial business, it’s very simple. You know, people come from all over, and it’s kind of like a Chabad house.
If people come before chag or Shabbat I get everyone together and say, Shabbat shalom and chag sameach, and I ask if they know what to do, if they need help. People sit here for a while.
Once a woman came here and sat, but she didn’t look straight at us. It turned out that she was from the left-wing side of society, because then she revealed that for the first time she was talking to people with a different point of view, and she saw that we won’t “devour” her; we are regular people, and we live, and we can help each other. So moringa has created a kind of connection between people from different communities.
Here we also have a big center for visitors, and we are always happy to tell people the story. My story is in Hebrew, but tour guides [who also speak English] come and show the place and tell our story.
And just like you (Toby) heard me speaking on the radio, there are no coincidences in life. And one never knows who needs to hear our story.
Moti and Hana (from the website): In 2005, the “shelter” was taken down, there was nothing left to do…only to look ahead and pray to Hakadosh Baruch Hu “hashivenu”—bring us back. From the lowest point we reached, we decided to raise our heads and move forward and ascend. To rejoice in what we have and know that thanks to faith and trust in the Boreh Olam (Creator of the world), we were able to ascend because He is the leading force that drives us.
The writer has close and extended family who lived in and were uprooted from, Gush Katif. She is an award-winning journalist and theater director. A shorter version of this article originally appeared in Jewish Action (Summer 2025).
