Back to Be'eri: How Baker Yaki Sagi Rebuilds Life and Business in the Gaza Envelope
Baker Yaki Sagi returned to Be'eri kibbutz after running a successful pop-up in Tel Aviv. Despite the trauma of October 7 and ongoing security threats, he remains fiercely optimistic about rebuilding.
Yaki Sagi never stops for a moment. He rushes between his bakery and the adjacent office as if possessed. Later, he admits that this is his way of not thinking, and there is a lot to think about. "If I am not busy, I sink. I wake up in the morning, come here, put on music, it keeps me the healthiest." He cuts me a slice of the wonderful poppy seed cake, while Paz Dror, his employee, slices biscotti that just came out of the oven.
It was not easy to get to the Lelouche bakery. Not only because Be'eri is far, but also because even when you reach the gate, the soldiers stopping you wait for a phone call from someone inside to confirm you are expected. If you managed to pass the gate, you will have to find the bakery located inside the dining hall building, which also houses Be'eri's famous dairy and winery. Despite accessibility difficulties, Sagi says: "There is endless tourism here."
A Greek Pastry That Became a Hit
And yet, Sagi is optimistic. He is counting on the tourism center expected to open within a year or two at the entrance to Be'eri. His products will be sold there, alongside the products of the winery and dairy, Chaim Jelin's beers, and the whisky he produces with the people of the Milk & Honey distillery. In the meantime, the "La Medavesh" bicycle shop is already operating there, and at the adjacent stall you can buy some of Be'eri's produce.
On the way out, I stop there and sit in the emerging center to watch the chilling yet full of optimism video about Be'eri of the past and present. 102 members of the kibbutz were murdered in the massacre and captivity. Most of the community currently lives in Tze'elim, and everyone, except for a few, intends to return to the kibbutz. On that Black Saturday, Sagi and his family were not in Be'eri. He and his wife were in a guesthouse in the north, and the children were at their grandparents', and thus they were saved.
A few weeks later he arrived in Tel Aviv and joined Uri Scheft, the owner of Lehamim bakery. That is when I first interviewed him. "Uri saved me. Not only financially. It was supposed to be a pop-up of a few weeks. I stayed a year and a half and only then returned to Be'eri." Together they developed spanakopita, a Greek filo pastry filled with spinach and cheese, and later also strudel.
Building a New Future in the South
"For Rosh Hashanah I prepared two thousand strudels for Lehamim. We are already working on a third product." The year and a half at Lehamim made Sagi a familiar name in the food scene. He is grateful and says he learned a lot, especially on the technical side of mass production, but not only. Lelouche doubled its production volume because of, or thanks to, Lehamim's orders.
Do you feel guilty for staying alive? "There is survivor's guilt. It exists. But we are being treated, and it calms down a bit. The work of course helps. Yesterday we got the keys to the new house. We started building it even before the seventh [of October], but everything stopped. We will enter only in a year, together with everyone, among other things because there are no frameworks for children here right now."
In our previous conversation you said you didn't know if you would return. "I was in a sort of shock. In denial. I was on autopilot, to survive. After half a month [months] in a hotel at the Dead Sea, to which we were transferred at first, the whole family already knew we would return. This is our home. We have nowhere else to go. I am not afraid. I will tell you what bugs me - that I will return, and I know there will be missiles."
It is horrifying what you are saying. "It is horrifying but realistic. I do not tell myself stories, nor to my children. I cannot lie to them. I know it is a matter of time. Because what? A burst of peace? Hamas disappeared? They don't have missiles? It won't return in the same volume, but there will be something."
And yet you decide to live here. "I am connected to this place, this is my home. I do not see myself leaving for another place. There is no safe place today. It is like in Danny Litani's song, 'At the Opening of a Volcano'. Those who sit at the opening of a volcano do not leave, despite knowing. It can happen to you in Tel Aviv too."
