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![\"\u05e8\u05d5\u05ea\u05d9](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/B1GPYJO4dZg_0_0_1181_787_0_x-large.jpg\" "\\"Ruthy")
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Ruthy and Haim Mann, the ranch owners<\/p>\n
(Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)<\/p>\n
On a recent Monday morning, the small group of five men and three women is already at work. Bethany Strain and Lily Plucker haul wheelbarrows of stones, Lily\u2019s three-month-old son, Jethro, strapped to her chest. Her husband, John Plucker, the group\u2019s unofficial leader, builds the wooden ceiling of what will soon become a resilience and support center for soldiers coping with PTSD at the edge of the ranch.<\/p>\n
Yoss and Jedidiah work on the stone wall of the riding arena. Promise Strain washes laundry by hand facing the desert view. Eliora Ellis saws a wooden beam. Zach, who stands nearly 6-foot-7, reinforces the stable fence. They work in near silence, focused, as if fulfilling a commandment.<\/p>\n
By profession, Zach trains horses and riders for the film industry, primarily for Westerns, and has appeared in some of them himself. He worked on the TV series \u201cYellowstone.\u201d When I try to draw him into Hollywood gossip about Kevin Costner, but since there is a biblical injunction against gossip, all I can get out of him is that the horses on the series were the finest and most expensive available. They are reserved, almost shy. They speak sparingly. They appear unaccustomed to social company. Montana is about 18 times the size of Israel with roughly one-tenth its population. The nearest neighbor can be miles away. In the photos they show me, each home looks like it could have stepped straight out of the cast of \u201cLittle House on the Prairie\u201d, except for one detail: a giant Star of David mounted on the Strain family home.<\/p>\n
All of them are related. Zach, Yoss and Promise Strain are siblings (the fourth brother, Ezekiel, left yesterday). Jedidiah and Eliora are married. Yoss is married to Bethany, John Plucker\u2019s sister. Plucker is married to Lily. It is their last day in Israel, and they seem determined, more than anything, to make the most of every remaining moment. This is their last day, though not their first visit. For most of them, it is their fourth or fifth trip, and never a vacation. They come to work.<\/p>\n
Ruthy and Haim Mann, the ranch owners, are Israeli cowboys in their own right. Boots, hats and wide brims included. Haim, a lawyer by training, also carries a handgun. They live in the settlement of Alon, part of a cluster of three Jewish communities northeast of Jerusalem, which includes mixed, religious and secular residents living side by side. \u201cIt works beautifully,\u201d Haim says. The population is largely middle-class.<\/p>\n
Indeed, although several flashpoints of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including Khan al-Ahmar, lie not far from here, this specific area, located in Area C of the West Bank, is quiet and calm. Not quite Montana, but they manage with what they have.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n 4 View gallery <\/p>\n Riding against the backdrop of the new treatment center<\/p>\n (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)<\/p>\n Both are remarried. Together they have two daughters, along with four children from Haim\u2019s previous marriage and two from Ruthy\u2019s, and they are grandparents to five grandchildren. Thirteen years ago, they founded a small therapeutic horse ranch. (\u201cWe\u2019ve always loved horses,\u201d they say). Ruthy handles treatment, working with teens with autism, motor and social challenges and trauma. Haim manages the horses. Five years ago, they were told to evacuate their original site. \u201cWe gave service to the whole community and got a punch in the stomach in return,\u201d Ruthy said. With assistance from the Settlement Division, they relocated to the current hilltop. Haim closed his law office, Ruthy left her job at the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem, and they committed fully to the ranch, which officially opened to the public about six months ago. Five dunams, 13 horses and a sweeping biblical landscape. Beyond routine therapy for local youth, the ranch increasingly served teens who had left the ultra-Orthodox community, including girls who were victims of sexual abuse, “even at ages 12 and 13\u201d, sometimes within their own families.<\/p>\n About two years ago, they began hosting a joint Passover Seder for dozens of such teens. \u201cThe at-risk girls,\u201d Ruthy says, \u201ctaught us a great deal about treating trauma.\u201d That knowledge, regrettably, soon became urgently necessary. When war broke out after the October 7’s Hamas massacre, activity at the ranch halted. Ruthy began treating evacuees from southern Israel housed in Dead Sea hotels. \u201cEverything there was terrible,\u201d she says. At first, the therapy sessions were held in the hotels, without horses, using smaller animals instead. Over time, families began coming to the ranch to ride. \u201cWe started with 20 families. Within a month, 150 were coming,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Soon after, soldiers began arriving, some physically wounded, others psychologically scarred. \u201cIt started with soldiers who rode with us as kids,\u201d Haim said. \u201cThey enlisted, went to fight and were injured. They came back to us to rehabilitate, to regain control over their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n The Manns speak about the female and male soldiers who came, about the visible and invisible wounds, about trauma and post-traumatic stress. Tears well up in their eyes more than once. In mine, too. The fact that I pushed the subject aside for months does not mean it disappeared. Suddenly, the stories from the war resurface. You can feel the weight pressing on your chest. The word got around. An injured friend brought another wounded friend to the ranch, \u201cuntil we realized we needed to build something new here,\u201d Haim says. The existing ranch could not meet the scale or the specific needs. The couple decided to establish a separate resilience center for soldiers, to be named after Omer Van Gelder<\/a>, a former rider from the area who was killed in Gaza in June 2025. The center is steadily taking shape, John Plucker is currently standing on its roof, and they plan to launch a crowdfunding campaign soon to complete the project.<\/p>\n The need, they say, is immense while the supply is limited. Many soldiers from the West Bank have been killed or wounded, disproportionately to their share of the population. \u201cBut in all of the West Bank,\u201d Ruthy says, \u201cthere isn\u2019t a single ranch like this. There is a resilience center in Binyamin, but not everyone is suited to sitting in a closed room talking to a therapist about their feelings. It\u2019s also a community that is less inclined to ask for help. Still, many people need precisely this kind of therapy, with horses, out in nature.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 4 View gallery <\/p>\n Building a wooden ceiling on their last day in Israel<\/p>\n (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)<\/p>\n Demand is surging. \u201cWe feel the shockwaves of the psychological injuries from the war starting to hit with tremendous force,\u201d Ruthy said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just ripples. It\u2019s a tsunami.\u201d Everything mental health experts warned about during the war, that once it ended and there was no longer anything to suppress or conserve strength for, a major wave of psychological casualties would follow, is unfolding before the Manns\u2019 eyes. \u201cYou feel it everywhere,\u201d Haim adds. \u201cIn rising divorce rates, in pent-up violence. We know that what isn\u2019t treated today will worsen tomorrow. The country has to confront this by building more resilience centers, otherwise we\u2019ll be carrying it for years. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not like the trauma of October 7 is going to disappear anytime soon. We\u2019ll be living with it for years.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere are other injuries that aren\u2019t being talked about enough,\u201d Ruthy says. \u201cFor instance, girls who were already in very difficult circumstances before October 7 and had just started to rebuild their lives, only for the war to shift attention elsewhere and leave them sidelined.\u201d There are also many patients with older wounds and traumas that resurfaced, but there isn\u2019t enough time, enough therapists or enough resources to reach them.” The sound of a bell rings out to announce lunch. The group gathers in the ranch\u2019s main building for a modest meal of white rice and a tough steak. They recite a blessing over the food and eat in silence.<\/p>\n![\"\u05e8\u05d5\u05db\u05d1\u05d9\u05dd](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sywfd5Vd11g_0_0_1339_893_0_x-large.jpg\" "\\"Riding")
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![\"\u05d4\u05d1\u05d5\u05e7\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/HkwFJOV00be_0_0_1399_787_0_x-large.jpg\" "\\"The")
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