Friday, November I, 1957—THE DETROIT JEWISH NEW S-4f

Report from

(Editor's Note: The following reports from
Israel, published simultaneously with the De-
troit Free Press, contain the impressions
gathered by Mr. and Mrs. Philip Slomovitz
during their visit in Israel).

Life on the Frontier

BEERSHEBA—Americans who wish to recon-
struct the history of our pioneers, 300 years ago,
and to have a vision of the life of "frontiersmen,"
will do well to come here and to see how Israelis
virtually pattern their lives on frontiers after those
of the Pilgrims on the American continent.
Indeed, Uncle Sam has a big share in the fan-
tastic accomplishments that are being recorded here.
Through the U.S. Point Four Program, many experi-
ments are being conducted here, and former De-
troiters are playing an important role in one of the
most interesting scientific projects at work here.
At the Agricultural Research Station for the
Negev of the Israel Department of Agriculture, in
this ancient city whose name means "Seven Wells"
—from the term applied to the wells dug here
3,500 years ago by the Patriarch Abraham—there
is a sign which reads: "Joint Project of the U.S.
and Israel."

The director of this station is Gershon Segel-
man, former Detroiter who has studied at the
University of Michigan and later gained additional
knowledge about latest agricultural methods at the
Unitversity of California. He lived for several
years at a collective settlement—Kibutz Ein Dor-
before making his specialized studies, and re-
turned here from Detroit last February, with his
wife and three sons, to assume his present post
with the Israel government.
In addition to directing the Negev research sta-
tion, he is also on the research staff of the Institute
for Desert Research, a hobby of Israel's Prime Min-

ister David Ben-Gurion, where he is conducting
studies to solve the problem of salt water utilization
in the Negev.
Segelman, whose studies are in connection with
his work for a doctorate at the Hebrew University
in Jerusalem, under the university's vice-president,
Prof. Michael Even-Ari, one of the world's botanical
authorities, explained that one of the aims of the
research is to find ways of making salt water useful
for plant life and to make plants grow in salt water
areas. While ways have been found to desalt the
Negev water, he said that the process is too expen-
sive and the Israeli-needs call for utilization of the
salt water that is available in unlimited quantities.
• "We are crossing desert plants from California
and Australia with Israeli plants for the feeding
of sheep," Segelman said. "We are doing research
in the growing of cotton, corn, sugar beets, peanuts,
grain crops, grapes and a dozen varieties of fruits,
on 600 acres of experimental farms. Furthermore,
we are utilizing rain water. When the first rain fell
here, we accumulated, during the 40 minutes of
rainfall, enough water to fill three small dams with

7,500,000 gallons of water—enough to irrigate 250
acres of land for a full year. And similar efforts are
continuing uninterruptedly."
This is being accomplished in this city which,
only nine years ago, when Israel first became an
independent State, was a desert. At that time, Bed-
ouins came here with their camels and sheep to
conduct markets, and there were less than 300 Jew-

ish settlers here. Today, the Bedouins still conduct
their fantastic market, but there are 40,000 Jewish
settlers here now. They have built a flourishing city
with schools, museums, theaters, a night club, the
most modern hostel built by United Hias Service,
and the vision is for a city of 150,000 in
In
1949, Beersheba was a plot of 600 dunams 1965.
— 150
acres. Earlier this year the municipality was 27,000
dunams in size, and this month it was enlarged to
40,000 dunams. There is a flourishing flour mill here,
a ceramics factory, and many plants are applying
for licenses to operate here.
Segelman pointed to a most interesting experi-
ment in connection with his research activities—the
planting of Japanese bamboo for eventual furniture-
making. In addition,- the Jewish National Fund, the
Zionist land-reclamation agency, one of whose most
effective councils functions in Detroit, is experiment-
ing with the hemplike plant called sesile in the
hope of producting rope and sacks in Israel, thereby
eventually producing another product for export and
eliminating the present import needs for rope and
related articles. Segelman assists in experiments on
3,000 dunams of land for this JNF project. Israel
Bond investments assist in the production ends of
these industrial efforts.

Israel's new peanuts and cotton products,
which were entirely unknown here only five years
ago, are now being viewed as the best on the
world's market, Segelman stated. He also said that
California farmers are watching with keen inter-
est his experiments for the production of ,cactus
without thorns to serve as food for cattle.

This is a poor country, and we are utilizing every
available means to advance Israel's economy at
the lowest possible cost," Segelman said. "We have
begun to irrigate in ditches instead of using metal
pipes. We are heartened by the progress we have
made in this and in many other areas."
Beersheba is not the only spot were Detroiters
are pioneering as frontiersmen. At Urim, in the
Negev area, four Detroiters are participating in the
expansion of newly-reclaimed areas. It is an isolated
settlement, close to the Egyptian border, but its
settlers are continuously planting gardens, tilling
the soil, they care for their sheep and chickens and
are gaining a livelihood from farming. The De-
troiters here include Rena Silver Schwartzberg,
Wessel Goldberg Lipshitz, Marilyn Becker Sidewater
and Morry Silver.

smaller rocks for road-building. It also produces

sand for finer concrete and aggregate mixes for
concrete.

• • •

Mrs. Lipshitz has a sister, Judy Jacobs, in the
settlement of Gesher Haziv in Western Galilee.
Eleanor Wesley
is another De.
troiter at this
settlement.
There are 14
Detroiters in an-
other settlement
in Galilee, Ein
Dor. Three De-
troiters, Marshall
Rubin, Lionel
Maslowski a n d
Norman Shiff-
man, are at Kfar
Blum.
Jews are not
t h e only ones
who have come
here to partici-
pate in the fron-
tiersmen's thrill
of defending and
building a new
larid for refugees
from 70 coun-

tr i e s.

Graham

Hanna, who has
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
adopted the He-
brew name of Giora, has been here for five years
and is now working as a truck driver in Kibutz
Mishmar Haemek. This Christian Detroiter, son of
Mr. and Mrs. James Hanna, holds two degrees from
the University of Chicago. But he loves life in
Israel and is willing to do menial work to help build
this land. He is married to a settler from Cairo and

they are expecting their first child in November.
Another non-Jew who has come here to settle
with the Detroiters in Urim is Benjamin McKinley.
A six-foot, 250-pound Negro, who has had a uni;
versity education, he came here several years ago,
was enchanted by the idea of the reclamation of
the Holy Land by persecuted Jews, and asked if
he could stay on. He has been a member of the
collective settlement of Urim since then.

This love for and interest in Israel by peoples
from many lands, who belong to all faiths, stem-
ming from many contrasting cultures, who seek
freedom for the oppressed, accounts for the confi-
dence of Israelis that their libertarian aspirations
will not be destroyed—"not even by the attempts
at intrusion into the Middle East by Soviet Russia,"
as one Detroiter described the faith of his kinsmen
in Israel.

Detroit Firm Thrives

HAIFA—In the Evan Vasnid Building in this
Israeli port city there are offices of the Rock Prod-
ucts Corporation, one of the largest private invest-
ments made by Americans in behalf of Israel's
reconstruction. It is strictly a Detroit project in
Israel, and a number of the leading JeWS in Detroit
are participants in it.
While the major contribution towards the devel-
opment of Israel's economy is being made in the
United States through the sale of Israel Bonds,
numerous private investment efforts have been
made, and the Rock Products is proving one of the
most productive.
The plant, located in the Wilhelm district be-
tween Lydda and Tel Aviv, produces large rocks
for water retaining at beaches and breakwaters and

The Detroit group's investment is part of the
Israel America Aggregates Corporation, a com-
bination of two equal stockholders, the Evan
Vashid and the Rock Products. They own, to-
gether, five quarries and crushing plants, and
operate a large trucking service.

This project had its foundation in a study made
of Israel's needs by Leon Kay, Detroit engineer
who was one of the owners of the Keystone Oil
Refining Co. Upon his recommendations, after his
study of Israel's needs on the spot, he was joined in
initiating the Rock Products effort by Israel David-
son, of the Federal Department Stores; Abe Kasle,
of Kasle Steel Corp.; David and Hyman Safran, of
Safran Printing Co.; William Roth, of Frigid Food
Corp., who presently is president of the corporation;
Irwin I. Cohn, Louis Berry, Edward C. Levy, Joseph
Holtzman, Alfred A. May, Tom Borman, Philip
Lipson, Morris Schaver, Benjamin Wilk, Richard
Sloan and a number of other prominent Detroit
industrialists.
The Detroiters' investment in this project ex-
ceeded $600,000, and there was added to it a similar
investment by its Israeli counterpart. It was a strug-
gling enterprise for the first three years. This year,
however, the corporation hopes to net a profit of
400,000 Israeli pounds—the American dollar now
being valued at 1.80 pounds. Within a short time,
at this rate, the Detroit group hopes to wipe out
the losses sustained at the beginning of the enter-
prise and eventually to benefit from a profitable
concern.
There are other private investments in Israel
by Detroiters. Leon Kay has planted. more than 100
dunams (25 acres) of orange plantations with'the
Mehadrin Ltd. in honor of his son Barry S. Kay,
and he speaks with pride of the sign at the Mehad-
rin plantations with his son's name.

Similar investments have been made by Morris
Schaver, for his son, Isaac, and by a number of
other Detroiters who desire to assist newcomers
to Israel by helping them become self-supporting
—through industrial enterprises.
Israel's major industries are financed by Israel
Bonds, in whose campaigns more than 6,000 De-
troit Jews are counted as participants. A Detroit
delegation is part of a group of 100 American Jews
who are in Israel this week to study the results
of American efforts in Israel's upbuilding, through
the gift dollars given to the United Jewish Appeal.

Aid to Education

RAMAT GAN—Israel's universities won't open
until next week, but dedications of new buildings
are in progress this week, and in the area of educa-
tion Detroit Jews emerge in as prominent a role
as they have played in land reclamation and the
resettlement of oppressed Jews in Europe and
Africa.
One of the major contributions of the Jewish
community of Detroit is to the newest university
in the land—Bar-Ilan University, located in this
suburb of Tel Aviv. This university is sponsored by
the religious Zionist movement, Mizrachi-Hapoel
Hamizrachi.
At the formal dedication ceremonies of Bar-
Han, this week, the national president of Ameri-
can Mizrachi, Rabbi Isaac Stollman, of Detroit,
was among the participants, and honor was paid
to Phillip and Max Stollman, leaders in the De-
troit religious community, who provided the funds
for the first dormitory at the university, known•
as the Stollman Dormitory.
Another Detroiter, Abraham Nusbaum, paid for
(Continued on next page)

Bnai Brith Children's Home
Described by U. S. Visitor in Israel

By FRANCES SOLOVICH

(Editor's Note: Mrs. Charles
Solovich, prominent De t r o i t
Bnai Brith leader, visited Israel
with her husband - last week.
This article gives her impres-
sions of an important Bnai.
Brith project in Israel.)

* * *

Israeli children, many of
whom are heirs of physical and
spiritual instability of their
war-debilitated parents, have
been taken under the wing of
Bnai Brith women of America,
who have built a children's
home in Israel.
My husband and I visited
this home, just outside of
Bayit V'Gan, shortly after we
spent Simhat Torah in Jeru-
salem. The home appears to be
near a site of growing popula-
tion and industry. _
The children's institution is
approached by foot from the
main road. You walk and see
stones, gravel and soil, and
suddenly your eyes fall upon
a garden, green and colorful.
Beyond it is a beautiful build-
ing of stone, red tiled roof and
white framed windows and
doors.
Mr. Goush-Halav is the newly
appointed director of the home,
where 40 resident children are

placed through screening by
the social welfare department
of the ministry of health. Nine
children who need the care the
home offers are brought daily
for t h e r a p y and teaching.
Neither the children nor their
parents contribute financially
towards their care.
The home maintains four
teachers. The teachers live with
the _ children. As far as pos-

MRS. CHARLES SOLOVICH

sible, the children receive in-

dividual attention.
An administrative building

houses the director and his
family, several classrooms, a
storage room for children's
clothing, linens and other
equipment. A second building
contains the dining room and
-kitchen.
The kitchen, which is most
modern, includes a large re-
frigerator, electric stove, auxi-
liary gas stove, bread cutter,
toaster and spare generator. In
the building for staff and
student living quarters, some
sleep two in a room, others
four.
The emotionally upset chil-
dren need psychiatric super-
vision 24 hours a day. Some
children are destructive, others
introverted. Many are new-
comers to Israel. The home
aims to help children adjust so
they may enter normal Israeli
life.
The home, built at an ap-
proximate cost of $300,000, is
maintained by an excess of
$50,000 annually contributed
by American BB women. Is-
rael's ministry of education has
acclaimed the institution as
the only one specializing in

such children's aid.