Lehigh Valley Columnists

Greetings From Israel: Ushering Autumn

By BARRY STEINBERG
Special to Lehigh Valley Source

Eilon,
Hello friends

If we rush things along, then perhaps we can usher in autumn. Temperatures are just a little cooler, and of course the days are perceptively shorter. At work I drive off into a gray dawn. There is an occasional friendly intermittent breeze that erupts from the sea. Long and sleek, slate gray clouds stretch above the landscape, and goodness knows what shadows they raise, first napping and then emerging tall against the hillsides.

If we rush things even further we may even inaugurate the first substantial harvest of Ettingers [avocados]. The men come to work, feeling that they are at last producing work that has a direct impact on their incomes. Some of them are still laboring under the duress of the monthly Ramadan fast. Anticipating this early jump on the initial harvest, one thief breached the fence in the western Khorshah, proceeding to pick into a nice pile some twenty kilograms of Ardit avocados that are neither in season or marketable..... except to the unsuspecting consumer. The fruit was left beneath the first tree closest to the fence, where the pilferer conveniently disposed of his labors. The fence was stitched up and our manager suffered a justifiable case of pre-harvest jitters.

As the haze of summer sometimes disperses, our pale view extends edgeless beyond coasts; it is a reiteration of those minor customary seasonal shifts.

Earlier in the week, sensing the new season, a field trip was organized through the auspices of Milo-Pri, our regional packing house, into Upper Galilee where we visited the orchards of Gadot, Mayan Baruch and Dafna. This is also a very large avocado growing area. The region has its own special problems because summer temperatures are torrid, rising above 35-36 C daily while the humidity drops to about 25 %. The area's avocado orchards require at least a third more water than Western Galilee, but unlike most of the nation, fresh water is readily available because of the proximity of the Jordan and its tributaries. Still, all farmers are awaiting the national conversion to desalinated water, which will occur, it is hoped, within two years. This will free up the historical reserves, [one major underground lake, deep within the earth, has been detected recently and will be tapped] and decrease pressure on all consumers. Because of winter frosts, all avocado orchards are planted on the highest ground, on hills and hillsides, while citrus groves are planted beneath them and deciduous orchards are grown in the valley's lowlands. Attempts to successfully grow avocados beneath certain elevations are always doomed to severe frost damage which can even kill off an orchard.

Because of the growers' tenacity, and the great encouragement of their field consultants and researchers, many experiments are conducted in order to produce consistent yields of optimum size. For among other detracting factors, the hot dry days negatively impacts fruit size. We noted that the fruit was comparably smaller than that grown in Western Galilee. According to  one such field consultant, fruit tends to grow in the spring and winter prior to cropping. Many of the farmers are experimenting using an instrument known as a dendrometer for measuring fruit size, and gauge their crop's progress with different watering regimes, including the use of cytokinins, a hormone used to regulate stomatal conductance [ Their main function is to allow gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor and oxygen to move rapidly into and out of the leaf.] The stomata normally seal themselves when the trees are placed under heat stress.

Generally speaking, many of the growers disparage the overall results of such experiments, either because there are numerous variables that reduce the ability to control the results, or because more rightly, I believe, the great proclivity of avocado trees to readjustment themselves to changing climates, a little more water or a little less, a little more fertilizer or a little less.

Usually these visits to fields are interspersed with jaunts to historical sites or other points of interest. We visited Mishmar HaYarden, the original agricultural community that had been laid waste by the Syrian army advance into post-mandatory Palestine in 1948. The original inhabitants, who had resided at this location since the late 19th century, along with a small reinforcement of Irgun fighters, were unable to fend off the Syrian assault. In recent years some of the ruins of the destroyed community were cleaned up and a series of monuments commemorating its existence and honoring its casualties were erected. It is easy enough to drive past the ruins without taking any notice of it. We also visited the Hula Valley Nature Reserve, where the original swamps, drained in the 1950s was partially restored. The area is part of the migratory route between Europe and Africa. In late October and November, hundreds of thousands of birds take up temporary residence there; such as storks, pelicans or cormorants. As many as 240 species of birds take up permanent or temporary residence on their intercontinental journey.

In other news, more than just rumors have circulated about the wedding of Yaniv Aran, Bob and Naomi's son and also the wedding of Noa Bruck, Michael and Evi's youngest daughter. Our congratulations to all the families! Claudia Chaves has been visiting in the country for much of the summer but will soon be returning home.

In sadder news a memorial program will be held for Anita Wlody. Here are the details as it was forwarded to me by her friend Lynn:

The memorial for Anita will be held on Sunday, October 18th at 6:00 PM at Gilda's Club - 195 West Houston St. (between 6th and 7th Avenues). Anita planned it herself before she died. She also had requested in lieu of flowers that donations could be made to anyone of three charities:

American Brain Tumor Association: http://www.abta.org/
Gilda's Club: http://www.gildasclubnyc.org/
ASPCA: http://www.aspca.org/

Also -  Last year, Anita led a group of us on the Have a Chance Walk. She had hoped to walk again this year. A group of us will walk this year in her honor. Please join us - those who can. October 18th can be Anita Wlody Day. The following is from the site:

http://www.haveachancewalk.org/site7.aspx

Join us for the Have A Chance Walk to Fight Brain Tumors in Battery Park in lower Manhattan on Sunday, October 18, 2009 for a great day of support, community and hope.  Proceeds will help Have A Chance and the National Brain Tumor Society fund research and treatment programs and help families who are battling brain tumors with comfort, advice and financial assistance.

Take care everyone and see some of you soon!

Greetings From Israel: Unwonted Embrace

By BARRY STEINBERG
Special to Lehigh Valley Source

Eilon, 2009
Hello friends

After noting that a pool full of water that should have emptied its contents as quickly as it received them overflowed, one might conclude that this was nothing short of a miracle at work. We are still trying to decipher its meaning. It seems, along with the absence of clouds, or the abstinence of a fervent Moslem during the month of Ramadan, to be a cantankerous month. If anything unplanned and unforgiving should happen at work, then it will. Pipes burst with increasing frequency, and we are just concluding that this year's innovative fertilizer-ammonium nitrate sulphate, while very helpful to our crop, and according to Sharif, especially with the Ettinger avocados, is also especially corrosive.
This of course is just an observation, one amongst many unproven theories that was validated just yesterday and compromised today.
Suddenly the irrigation flow rate in Ya'ara decreases, or the injector pump failed to move the intended quantity of fertilizer as its piston is in the greatest need of greasing.

I arrive home, always hopeful that the latter part of the day will remain just as uncomplicated as the earlier segment had been fraught in perplexities. By shedding my work clothes I am disentangling myself from its unwonted embrace.

I am enclosing last weekend's column The Guns of August by Frank Rich in the NY Times. [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/opinion/23rich.html]
Aside from the malicious appellations directed at the president, the administration and the Democratic Party what is the point of demonstrators appearing at public gatherings armed? What purpose is there behind this manifestation of "constitutional expression" other than to intimidate those people with whom one is disputing? How can a so-called respectable politician even begin citing the Constitution defending these citizens as though the intent behind the brandishing of firearms is clearly an act of pre-emptive defense? Defense against whom?
People who favor health care reform? Senators and congressmen who are hectored into voting against their conscience?

In a nation where there are so many incidents of individuals having gone berserk and massacring their fellow citizens, what more encouragement does someone or some militant organization require when  politicians or news talk hosts blandly recite constitutional rights to brandish arms in the midst of their fellow citizens? As a spectator I was especially "regaled" to see one fellow with a handgun and what appeared to be an M
16 assault rifle [or its M 4 carbine variant] dangling from his shoulder. I understand that its  display was perfectly legal provided that those gladiatorial weapons were unconcealed and publicly exposed for the public to marvel over.

Residing in a nation where there is nothing unusual about seeing such weapons I still tend to relate to this visage within an American context with mounting alarm. What is to prevent one of these armed militias opposed to the administration's agenda from showing up at the steps of a town hall meeting to greet the public as it proceeds into the auditorium? Who will, as some overzealous debaters have alleged, the Nazis be then?

My first reaction, despite my experience, both as an army veteran and a civilian who has wielded military weapons would be to flee the site as expeditiously as possible. I don't want to learn how responsible the said bearer of arms is with any undue passivity. My opinion is that someone who appears at such assemblies armed to shoot [and kill] has already progressed to a level beyond civility with me.

I recall that curiosity attracted me to an assembly that gathered to hear what the African-American militant H Rap Brown had to say after the days when the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee ceased professing its pacifism. It was in 1968 and the venue was the Village Theater in Lower Manhattan. Brown was nothing but  antagonistic and did not engender much sympathy with me because of his aggressive presentation. He was almost as hostile to the young assembly of people who had come to empathize with his cause as he would have been with those who would have vociferated against his beliefs.  You would want people to rally to a reasonable cause, but Brown was exclusionary defining what role whites [and honkies] might perform while brashly asking for donations. He stood between some mean looking toughs decked out in belligerent leather, dark berets aslant, their cryptic sunglasses not necessarily enhancing a  future vision of things.  It was a free country, so they say, and I gave nothing. I didn't like being intimidated.

In  contrast to all this I attended a speaking tour of Yitzchak Rabin in
1976 while he was serving as prime minister in his first government. A large crowd from the region had assembled to hear the prime minister speak in Eilon's communal dining hall.  At the time a considerably large segment of the the rural populace in our region was armed. There had been a number of infiltrations by Palestinian Liberation Organization [PLO] operatives from Lebanon into our region and most nights were fraught with alerts and  surplus community guard duty. During the day we would commute to our fields armed with automatic weapons: usually Uzi submachine guns, M 14 and M 16 assault rifles. We even carried our weapons into Nahariya, prepared as it were for any unexpected contingency. Attending the prime minister's speech, the audience consisted of a huge throng of civilians armed to the teeth with automatic weapons. In those days there was virtually no security. It was still considered unthinkable that a Jew would contemplate assassinating his own prime minister. Perhaps we had to flash our ID booklets to someone at the door. After the speech, we were all invited to chow. Long tables had been set up and I sat about a table ahead of the Prime Minister and his entourage. The submachine gun was set by my feet under the bench, its fully loaded clips jutting out from  my pants pockets!-Barry

Greetings From Israel: Rain!

By BARRY STEINBERG
Special to Lehigh Valley Source

Eilon, 2009 Hello friends

It has been hot and dry the past two days. The weather for the remainder of the week promises to be varied. Our field consultant arrived as the harbinger of rain. He announced that the agriculture meteorologist insists that we will receive typhoon like quantities of precipitation on Friday. Pardon me for my skepticism. The experts are predicting an exceedingly wet winter, yet it is not enough to deter a major increase in water tariffs or the reorganization of all residents in the various kibbutz communities who will comply by law to pay directly for their own water consumption. As such, most kibbutz communities will begin to redress the problem of water meters. The problem looms large because the old infrastructure was not designed for provinding a meter per housing [and garden] unit.

As I look forward to some inclement weather, I still recall how the rain day [when farm work is curtailed or postponed] has figured so prominently in our lives. Brooding clouds coil and converge,  lightning which had illumined an inky pre-dawn horizon  clash over a deep and swollen sea, and as if on cue, billowy clouds surge, like a frontal assault against a mistakenly impregnably parched landscape. The crew had arrived that morning, with some prospects of continued sun, and had set to work training the juvenile apple trees in the famed palmette configuration. Training the trees with a minimum amount of pruning, and tying scaffolding branches onto a wire cordon. We busied ourselves with our famous techniques for cutting cord, and along with a panoply of pruning appliances, including oil and a possible hydraulic chain saw, came the real essentials. These included the styrofoam thermos with  the hot water and plastic bag used as an insulating sealant beneath its lid.
A handy ammunition box replete with coffee, tea, sugar, cups and spoons.
A radio that sat in a portable wooden carrier that the carpenter had fashioned for the crew, often attached to a pack of 8 volt batteries.
The wooden carrier cushioned the red or blue plastic radio from those jarring vibrations while it sat in the wagon towed across the fields of Irbin. Often when the ominous deluge came, with no ark or local shelter to resort to, we retired to wait out the squall, breaking out the ammo box and preparing coffee as the rain pelted and lashed our little red Vauxhall chuck-wagon. At such times the orchard seems such a lonely lightless place with those churlish clouds overhead, and the distinct sound of fallen rain shattering like just so many dreams in the mud.

The manner in which our coffee break was arranged was timed to coincide with the passing of each squall. It took just so much time to reach the wagon, prepare coffee and discuss the latest local topic of interest, an unending catalog of parochial issues. More often than not, the storm would wither, passing its commotion eastward. Sometimes the downpour continued, its obstinacy defying expectations. Someone volunteered to drive the crew the two and a half kilometer distance back to Adamit. On the tractor, exposed to the storm, utterly drenched despite rain gear, anticipating an aborted work day, I once plied the hill in a driving rain. A precipitous crashing of lightning exploded overhead, like two colossal biblical sparring rams colliding. The sky poured forth in fury, its electrical contents oozing in one finite breathtaking moment. As I parked the tractor, the rain had begun to sputter.

When I entered the communal kitchen and described my enlivening revelatory moment beneath the "celestial chariots",  a much animated Dora barely described that at that very moment she had opened the oven door where "out of nowhere" a repressed flash of lightning sprang forth from the day's simmering meal, escaping as if imprisoned through the rear door.  This recalled a famous cartoon where Popeye is wheeling a sleeping Sweet Pea through the noisy byways of the city. Despite Popeye's remonstrances, the noise goes on. Men wielding jackhammers, musicians practicing their cacophonies settle for a non-spinach Popeye wielding resolution to their unabated clamor . Popeye and slumbering Sweet Pea pass a shop with a vibrating Atwater Kent radio blaring Johnny Green and Edward Heyman's Out of Nowhere by a  triller likely parodying Bing Crosby's inimitable crooning. Popeye, perhaps unfamiliar with the volume dial, lands a punch on the radio with such force that a bolt of lightning follows the path of the air waves, leaps from the microphone in the radio studio and just "out of nowhere" delivers a terrific punch to the much bewildered and self-absorbed crooner.

Addendum: November 2, 2009

We've wrapped up four days with nearly 200 mm (4 inches] of rain which is the most for this period in seventy years! Danny Roop, who presents the weather on Israeli TV said. In some places as much as a third of the annual average had fallen within this three day period. It is estimated that a whopping 15,000 metric cubes of water flowed or rained into our reservoir. It sounds incredible! With that, the forecast is for hot weather by the end of the week.-Barry