September-12, - 1MT •-•
DETROIT .JEWISH CHRONICLE
Page, .Tea
'fishuy's Pioneers Bring
New Life to the Dead Sea
Hebrew U. Aide®
Workers Washed Salt Out of the Soil
Before It Could Be Fit for Planting
TWENTY YEARS AGO the
Dead Sea really was dead.
Lying in the midst of an arid
wilderness, in which no one lived
and no plant grew, it rarely
saw life of any kind apart from
occasional Bedouin caravans
Making their way to the oasis at
Jericho.
It looked as if a curse had
been cast over the whole region,
and it was not difficult to be-
lieve the old legend that Sodom
and Gomorrah lay engulfed in
those salty waters.
In recent years an amazing
transformation has taken place.
The finest hotel in Palestine
stands close to the flying-boat
base on the western shore. The
potash works at the northern end
of the sea employ 1,000 Arab
and Jewish workers—side by
side filling the huge drying pans
and operating the mixers and
scrapers which in the course of
a single day produce two hun-
dred tons of the world's most
valuable fertilizer.
At the southern end, one of
the hottest spots of a hot coun-
try, a new Sodom has arisen—a
settlement of Jewish workers
employed in servicing the potash
company's special chemical
plant. The correct postal ad-
dress, incidentally, is just "So-
dom, Palestine"—but the place
is not as forbidding (nor as sin-
ful) as it sounds.
• • •
ash works, at Bet Haaravah.
This is one of the famous Jew-
ish collective villages, of which
there are more than 300 in Pa-
lestine.
In these villages, while the
privacy of the individual is re-
spected, work is organized on a
collective basis. There is no
money in circulation. The people
eat in a common dining hall,
the babies are tended in the
communal nursery.
Leo W. Schwartz, author
who recently returned from a
DP post in Europe, was ap-
pointed director of the Ameri-
can Friends of the Hebrew
University.
What the colony needs is
bought collectively, and not for
each individual family; and the
produce is similarly sold col-
lectively on behalf of the mem-
bers as a whole. This has been
found the ideal method of colo-
nizing a derelict country, and
the private profit motive is com-
pletely eliminated. The basic
principle is "from each accord-
ing to his strength, to each in
accordance with his needs."
There are no landlords, em-
ployers or shareholders to reap
rents or profits or dividends.
The community reigns supreme.
• • •
'WASH' TIIE EARTH
BET HAARAVAH, down by
the Dead Sea, conforms to this
general pattern, but it is unique
because it has found itself faced
ONE OF THE MOST remark-
able experiments is being tried
out on a few hundred acres of
land just north of the main pot-
WHEN I VISITED Bet Haara-
vah in February, I found the
tomato crop just being picked.
In the adjoining fields there was
an extensive flower garden in
which roses and sweet peas were
in full bloom. It seemed im-
possible to believe that we were
at a depth of 1,300 feet below
(Continued on Page 15, Sec. 4)
SAMUEL5 BROS.
Restaurant
2493 Russell St.
d.
3686
l
ti
New Year's Greetings
•
New Year's Greetings
GEO. J. SEEGER
Company
1951 E. FERRY
V
and Family
4328 Clements
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POLLAK
PRINTING CO.
5801 GRANDY
Al Pollak
BORIN BROS. Inc.,
PLAZA 2700
2319 Gd. River
CH. 0895
COAL and ICE
•
1947
5708
HOLIDAY GREETINGS
For Quality and Price See Us
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Rosh Hashonah Greetings
To A!! its Members and to Jewry in General, for a
17400 RYAN ROAD
TW. 2-3530
HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!
New Year's Greetings
CITY HEALTH
FUMIGATING CO.
KOEPPLINGER'S
Famous Health Bread
Mrs. Morris Singer, President
Rich
18924 Pennington Drive
Extra l'itaimins and
Minerals
PETER LYNCH
New Year's Greetings
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Season's Greetings
in Vitamin
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It's a real health bread,
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RADIATED WITH ULTRA-
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• • •
FEBRUARY TOMATOES
ABE BROAD
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E New Year's Greetings
Delicatessen
garden.
with problems that exist no-
where else. Elsewhere Jewish
colonists have drained malarial
swamps and cleared rocky des-
RUBIN'S FURS
erts before cultivating the soil.
But only in the neighborhood of CA. 8745
1456 Broadway!
the Dead Sea, whose salt content
is greater than that of the Great G
IgH:8>tH:Hni-or.yo-o-o-o-ar,H)*****-r,vo
Salt Lake in Utah, was the soil
found to be so saline that it has
had to be literally washed be-
fore anything could be made to
A happy holiday season
grow in it.
The settlers have gone over
their land acre by acre, subject-
ing it to a special process. Fresh
water is pumped from the near-
by Jordan and allowed to soak
into the soil for weeks, thus
gradually making the salt de-
Roth Hashonah Greetings
FAMED COLLECTIVE
posits sink deeper and deeper
into the ground. When these
deposits have sunk to a depth
of about three feet, the soil is
fit for cultivation.
The whole process is a long,
tedious and back breaking job;
every square yard of ground has
to have "individual attention".
But when each square yard has
been washed and cleaned, the
workers have the satisfaction of
knowing that they have literally
created fertile land. This is land
on which nothing has every
grown before—not since the
world began.
Until 1938, when Bet Haara-
vah was founded this was dead
land on the shores of the Dead
Sea. Today it is a flourishing
UNIVERSITY 3.2021