The film tells a hellish story but Tantura was my heaven

SHARON OFFENBERGER: For Israelis the once-Arab village is now an idyllic beach for making family memories.

Tantura is a hard name to place. Too exotic for Hebrew or Arabic, too oriental for French or English. When friends invited us to join their annual Succot holiday at Tantura, I was immediately entranced by the untouched and almost unpopulated coastline that looked more like the Maldives than “somewhere between Caesarea and Haifa”. The sensual name fits the scenery.

A wide-open stretch of sand and the clearest water I’d ever seen. No urbanity interrupting the view, and no one was playing Matkot – the paddle ball game that features on so many Israeli beaches which is either a hoot if you’re playing or a headache if you’re trying to relax. Tantura beach was serene.

We stayed in basic holiday huts surrounded by very un-Israeli lush green lawns but as we walked through the carpark, I noticed a line of caravans at a time when caravans weren’t featured in Israel the way they are in regional Australia.

Tantura is now called Hof Dor (Dor Beach) or Dor-Tantura. An Arab fishing village up until 1948, it is now a pricey holiday village, situated in a nature reserve that stretches northward to Habonim, and the subject of a frightening documentary by the same name. Tantura, directed by Alon Schwarz – who will speak at a Q&A after a screening of the film in Sydney this Sunday - has generated intense debate over its interrogation of an alleged massacre of Palestinians during the 1948 war.

A couple of kibbutzim have now staked their claim in the area, and if you aren’t from there, you’ll simply pass by a small sign on the main highway that you’d never think leads to heaven.

The holiday village is leased out and privately managed. On one end there are Maharishi-inspired concrete igloo huts and at the other end, the basic holiday cabins described above.

Just beyond a boom gate, with near-exclusive access to the beach, 40 small land parcels make up what we call the “caravanim” (Hebrew plural for caravan). The “owners” rent the empty lots each year for six months a year, from April until November, and set up their own “zoola” (Hebrew slang for a place to chill) under massive sunshades. Airconditioned caravans for sleeping quarters and outdoor kitchens, bathroom, couches, surfboard racks, garden, you name it.

The Hof Dor caravanim is a gem known to a privileged set. With a bit of luck, some insider contacts and at great expense, we managed to put our hands on one of these plots in 2016. My husband built our caravan himself and thus began four memorable years of having a second home on the best beach in Israel, with matching Instagram content. It was our Bonnie Doon.

This makeshift village was the perfect backdrop for parents to relax while the kids had plenty of effortless outdoor time and wandered freely. Flimsy bamboo fences elevated the communal atmosphere with collective meals, outdoor movies and sleepovers, and in August a private surf camp. Friends would come and stay the weekend.

When I’d leave the office on a Friday, saying “I’m going up to the caravan this weekend", it belied the socio-economic standards of the villagers. The caravan plots were legally temporary dwellings, so they had to be dismantled at the end of the season, which was its own ritual.

But every year, we added improvements – wi-fi, mood lighting, coffee machines, splash pools, and massive air coolers to make afternoon cocktails more comfortable. The largely family-oriented experience didn’t mean the parents weren’t there to have fun of their own. It was a permanent summer camp for kids and adults alike.

Wandering through the village, wafts of cigar or marijuana smoke punctuated conversations about water sports, psychedelic drug therapies and high-level business dealings. It was a “what happens at Hof Dor stays at Hof Dor” kinda-place. We’d shout over the bamboo fence to our neighbours even when they were hosting family BBQs, and even when that involved a former prime minister and his security detail.

At Hof Dor, one could forget everything outside – stressful jobs, family issues or stifling heat and traffic. After arriving with huge grocery bags, you’d rarely leave unless desperate for supplies. First, you’d send the kids out to check whether anyone had eggs, milk, coffee, chicken, soya sauce, pita.

We improvised. Anything not to interrupt the simple bliss or actually get dressed. Clothing was basic and mostly we wore swimmers all day, but pedicures were well maintained. Life was a beach and leaving Hof Dor was always a shock to the system.

Occasionally we were reminded that it wasn’t really the Maldives and was still “somewhere between Caesarea and Haifa”. Jellyfish season left scars. One year I invented a funny underwater dance to ward off biting fish, and in 2019 a massive gas processing platform appeared before our eyes, 30km off the coast, which would spit fire at night. A local horse-riding guide was bringing groups and leaving horseshit behind. Footballers-in-training from the nearby Arab villages would run past leaving clouds of aftershave in their trail.

But it was a blessing for the long two-month school holidays, when we’d live there for weeks at a time. Only an hour-plus drive from home, it provided relief for mothers that needed a night and bottle of wine to themselves, and was a godsend to fathers that often struggled to enjoy kid-centred activities. Sunset walks on the beach and naps in air-conditioned beds when it got too hot. Massive watermelons were slaughtered and consumed in a day.

Spending so much time in the one spot surrounded by the same people creates a sense of belonging and ownership which develops over time. But who did it really belong to?

Every year, a small demonstration with a large Palestinian flag took place in the carpark.

It is a tradition for the descendants of Palestinian citizens of Israel, internally displaced in 1948, to return to their original village even if nothing remained of it.

This tradition never affected the enjoyment of the beachgoers who looked on curiously, too chilled to care about the size of the Palestinian flag which tends to rile up the masses in other settings.

When we left Israel in 2020, it was directly from Tantura where we had been residing for our final six weeks. It was one of the hardest things to leave behind. The kids still dream about it. I guess we aren’t the only ones.

Antenna Film Festival

Sunday, October 16, at 2pm, Ritz Cinemas, Randwick. Alon Schwarz will be in conversation after the screening with Michael Visontay, The Jewish Independent Commissioning Editor  

Jewish International Film Festival

Wednesday, October 26, at 6:30pm, Classic Cinemas, Elsternwick. Alon Schwarz will be in conversation after the screening with Deborah Stone, Editor-in-Chief of The Jewish Independent

All photos courtesy Sharon Offenberger