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Zev Gelber has turned into a wellness facilitator, turning his spacious backyard into a business called Pines Retreat Space.
By ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN DECEMBER 7, 2024 08:30
Zev Gelber.
(photo credit: Hagai Ptashnik)
Kfar Pines is not one of the usual destinations for Anglo immigrants. However, this religious moshav in northern Israel, next to Pardess Hanna-Karkur, has proven a lovely landing spot for Zev and Cara Gelber and their four daughters.
“The moshav was established in 1933, and some families have been here for five generations,” Zev Gelber said. “We found here sweet, down-to-earth people, and it felt like this is where we are meant to be.”
Gelber is a social worker, musician, and certified cold water therapy coach with a love of the outdoors. Putting all this experience together, he has morphed into a wellness facilitator, turning his spacious backyard into a business called Pines Retreat Space.
“I’ve also put on a festival three times called Shabliss, and I am one of three co-founders of the Achva men’s retreat, where 50 men come together in Mitzpe Ramon. We did it in March and we’ll do it again on December 11-13.”
What brought Zev Gelber from Australia to Israel?
Gelber, 45, grew up in a Zionist, Modern Orthodox suburban home in Melbourne, Australia. Although he was a member of the Religious Zionist youth group Bnei Akiva, spent half a year with his family in Jerusalem at age 10 in 1988, and attended a gap year yeshiva in Israel after high school, making aliyah wasn’t in his plans until he met Cara, who is from New Zealand.
“Before we got engaged, she said she wasn’t interested in marrying unless I was keen on moving to Israel. I liked that, but I didn’t know what I would do there.”
In his 20s, he’d started a wedding band, working as a social worker with at-risk families during the day and playing at local simcha venues at night.
In January 2015, a decade after the Gelbers got married, they made aliyah together with Zev’s close friend and musical partner, Moishe Feiglin, and his family. For the first few years, Gelber and Feiglin continued their band. Gelber also gave private music lessons in a big dome built eight years ago in the family’s garden.
To this day, musical instruments – such as mandolins, banjos, harmonicas, and drums – are part of Gelber’s “Dr. Seuss kind of setup” in Pines Retreat Space, where he hosts group events and private clients.
“Every year, I’d add another layer to the dome. Now fully enclosed, it fits 50 people, and we do concerts there, as well as sessions in breath work, yoga, and dance. We also have a swimming pool, ice bath, hot tub, and wood-fire sauna. We host kids’ birthday parties and healing circles. Every month, I add more activities, and I rent them to other people to do retreats as well,” said Gelber.
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“I’m especially passionate about ice baths along with breath work; they go hand in hand as a therapeutic protocol.”
While not everyone can take a cold plunge (such as pregnant women or people with cardiac issues), this practice is used – for example, in professional sports – to reduce pain and inflammation and for weight loss.
Gelber likes its emotional/mental benefits. An ice bath, he says, causes a 200% increase in the “feel-good” hormone dopamine, released by the brain. Some clients come two or three times a week. Others attend weekly workshops on cold exposure.
Inspired by Tasha Cohen, founder of the Chayal’s Angels volunteer organization that brings complementary healthcare practitioners to treat soldiers stationed in the North, Gelber has provided his services gratis to soldiers during the current war.
“Seeing this have a positive effect on a soldier is deeply fulfilling for me,” he said.
“A neighbor’s son in Golani spoke to his officer, and they started bringing groups of 15 to 20 soldiers for a free workshop and smoothies. I got volunteer masseuses to come in and work on them. Soldiers then often came back on their own, bringing their girlfriends, too. I always give soldiers a free pass.”
Gelber said that volunteering runs in his family, and he’s proud to carry on that tradition. At the same time, he acknowledged that making ends meet can be difficult in Israel, especially if one isn’t in a typical profession. “I’ve been lucky, but it still isn’t easy. Making a living is very unpredictable,” he said.
Gelber recently ran a Friday morning wellness expo, advertised on an English-speakers’ WhatsApp group, where holistic alternative health practitioners and others offered about 80 ticket-holders services or merchandise such as handmade granola, juice, jewelry, and artwork. There were yoga and dance workshops and a half-hour session of The Rage Club, which trains participants to channel their anger consciously and productively.
“I have a lot of tools in my kit,” Gelber said. “I want people to get out of their minds and into their bodies, to be in the present moment and to experience less chatter of the mind… to feel things, to wake up their system. And from that place, they can experience calmer and more positive states of mind.”
As a musician who favors a mind-body-soul approach, Gelber enjoys the Carlebach style of worship that “can inspire and connect your soul and mood and bring people together.” He also takes frequent jaunts to the nearby beaches of the Mediterranean shore, which he said is “big for my mental health.”
“The sea here is much more warm and inviting than the sea where I was from. And it represents the part of living in Israel that’s really open, with no highways and checkpoints. I have a kayak, and I spend a lot of time in the sea feeling free.”
By design, Gelber’s schedule permits him to be home when the kids finish school at 1:30 and need to be shuttled to and from after-school activities. His wife works full time as an occupational therapist.
Their daughters, aged 17, 15, 12, and 7, have experienced a range of education settings readily available in their area, from Montessori to “anthropodosi” (a religious anthroposophical school) and even homeschooling.
All in all, choosing an out-of-the-box location for aliyah was a wise move for this warm Australian family. ■
English (US) ·