62
Friday, August 5, 1983 •
Lubavitch Camps
NEW YORK (JTA) —
More than 30,000 children
are enrolled this year in
Lubavitch summer camps
around the world, according
to Merkos L'Inyonei
Chinukh, the educational
arm of the Lubavitch
movement.
New Post
for Hurwitz
WASHINGTON — Harry
Z. Hurwitz, minister of in-
formation at the Embassy of
Israel in Washington, has
been appointed advisor to
Prime Minister Menahem
Begin on world Jewish
communities.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Holy Land Presents A Rosey' Picture to Horticulturists
By JERRY BARACH
Israel Government
Tourist Office
JERUSALEM — Israelis
love roses and roses love Is-
rael.
Roses thrive in the coun-
try's long dry season, which
allows them to blossom up
to nine months a year —
from April to the end of De-
cember. During the cool,
wet respite in the winter
they recharge themselves
for the next arid spell.
"There is no kind of rose
that won't grow here," says
Israeli rose expert David
Gilad, immediate past
president of the World Fed-
eration of Rose Societies,
which recently held its fifth
international convention in
Jerusalem. Gilad, who was
the convention's chief host,
cultivates some 700 varie-
ties of roses in his own gar-
den.
Roses have a long his-
tory in the Holy Land. Al-
though it was known for
its barrenness over the
centuries, visitors hun-
dreds of years ago fre-
quently wrote in their
diaries of having seen
roses.
"Vered" in Hebrew, the
rose is also mentioned in
Talmudic and other ancient
KEEPING THE
DREAM ALIVE
By Don McEvoy
IMMIGRATION - THE THIRD PHASE
T
he first phase of American
immigration came to an end
in 1921 when President Warren Har-
ding put his signature on the Johnson
Act, which for the first time establish-
ed national quotas favoring one
country over another. The bill, which
had been vetoed earlier by Woodrow
Wilson, permitted the annual admis-
sion of 3 % of the number of nationals
who had been in America in 1910.
Congressman Emanuel Cellar,
who was one of only 58 members of
the House to vote against the
Johnson Act, later described it this
way: "It was deliberately adopted to
proscribe not only Southern and
Eastern Europeans, but also
Catholics and Jews. That is the un-
varnished truth. I heard it stated time
and time again on the floor of the
House, afid I have been battling ever
since to wipe out that abomination."
Except for special dispensations
made in the immediate aftermath of
World •War II, such as the War
Brides Act and the Displaced Persons
Act, this remained as basic US policy
until the passage of the McCarran-
Walter Bill of 1952. The great Red
Scare of that post-war era had
rekindled the old nativist fears. It
kept the old quota system and added
provisions which made it possible to
refuse admission to, or deport, per-
sons for political reasons. President
Truman vetoed the act, but it
garnered the necessary two-thirds
majority in the Senate to override. It
listed 31 countries of persons who
were ineligible for visas, described by
John Kenneth Galbraith as those
"who couldn't pass a saliva test for
political purity.''
The. McCarran Act 17i6ame a bleak
chapter in our history in 1965 when
President Lyndon Johnson signed
Public Law 89-236, which did away
with the nationality limitations. It is
one of those delightful ironies that the
discriminatory - quota system which
was instituted by one Johnson in
1921 was buried by another, Johnson
44 years later.
While the new immigration policy
was being debated, Hubert Hum-
phrey received a letter from the
leaders of five Indian tribes. They
wrote in Opposition to the McCarran
Act, but added the postscript that
they sometimes wished they had had
- a similar law in 1492.
America's immigration today
conies from the Third World, and
this may be its final phase. When the
nations of Africa, Asia and Latin
America are able to provide their
citizens with' human rights and
economic opportunity, the tide may
cease. But don't hold your breath.
For the foreseeable future the move-
ment to these shores will continue.
There doubtlessly is going to be
new legislation on immigration
policy. , There needs to be. I don't
know precisely what shape it ought to
take. It is a very complex situation.
But I am convinced that it must not
be restrictive or discriminatory.
"Mongrelization," as the nativists
call it, has served us well. 41 % of all
of America's Nobel Prize Winners
have been foreign born. The way
Asian young people swept this year's
Westinghouse Science Awards for
High School Students suggests that
trend will continue.
Jewish literature. Accord
ing to Jewish sources, roses
were cultivated during the
reigns of the kings of Israe
and Judah, primarily in the
gardens of the First Temple
in Jerusalem.
The roses seen by the an-
cients might have been the
most conspicuous of the wild
roses around today, the
Rosa Phoenicia, with its de-
licate white clusters of blos-
soms.
In time, more varieties
were introduced by monas-
tic orders, which brought
them from their mother
countries in Europe to
adorn chapels and monas-
teries and for rose' water
used in baptism.
In modern Israel, roses
line the highways,
enhance vestpocket
parks, and are even the
stars of gardens devoted
entirely to their species.
This is particularly the
case in Jerusalem, and
the latest addition is the
Wohl Rose Garden, being
planted -on a picturesque
hillside overlooking Is-
rael's parliament build-
ing, the Knesset.
When completed, the
garden will encompass
more than 1,000 varieties of
roses, rock formations,
trees, paths and a pond, as
well as a display on the his-
tory of roses.
For Israel, roses aren't
just for looking; the combi-
nation of the Holy Land's
rose heritage with the bene-
fits of its slick agritechnol-
ogy has turned the blooms
into big business. The coun-
try now exports some 800
million flowers a year,
mainly to Europe— and 200
million of them are roses.
Flower exports, worth
about $82 million at
wholesale prices in 1980,
are Israel's second most
valuable agricultural ex-
port, after citrus: Roses are
Israel's biggest cash-
producing flower, although
in volume they are outpaced
by carnations. Chrysan-
themums, gladiolas, gyp-
sophilas and various de-
corative greens are among
other popular export -Varie-
ties.
Gilad, a former official
of the Israel Ministry of
Agriculture, is now a der
partment head for the
semi-public board that
handles the gathering,
packing and marketing
of Israel's flower exports.
He notes that Israel has a
25-30 percent share of
total flower sales in
Europe, all concentrated
into a season that
stretches from the begin-
ning of October into early
May, when cold winter
weather grips most of the
European continent.
During this season, a
jumbo jet filled with flowers
leaves Israel's Ben-Gurion
Airport every night, and
with the approach of
Christmas, two jets leave
daily.
Israel's flower export in-
dustry only began on a
commercial scale in 1964.
Today the country has 6,500
growers, including many in
the Negev Desert. Farmers
have found that flowers
bring in a higher cash yield
per acre than any other
crop.
The country's unique
forms of rural society lend
themselves well to flower
growing, observes Gilad.
While at first the collective
settlements, the kibutzim,
went into flower growing,
most of the production today
comes from the semi-
communal villages, the
moshavim, where families
each live in their own homes
and work their own plots or
hothouse*, but market col-
lectively.
This system, in which
each family is able to de-
vote all its energy and
time to-its own hothouse,
is perfectly suited to
flower growing, which
requires intensive ac-
tivity and long hours and
close attention.
All commercially raised
flowers in Israel are grown
indoors
in
plastic
hothouses. Instead of waste-
fully sprinkling water into
the air, growers use drip ir-
rigation, pioneered and de-
veloped to a high art in Is-
rael, in which water and
nutrients are dripped di-
rectly to each plant. (Water
is a precious commodity
here, since all rainfall is
concentrated into a rela-
tively brief winter rainy
season, and the country cur-
rently uses 95 percent of its
water supply.)
Nearly 100 years ago,
Baron Edmond de
Rothschild, who might be
called the grand patron of
early Jewish agricultural
efforts in the then desolate,
remote, sparsely settled,
Turkish-ruled territory
called Palestine, thought
that flowers, especially
roses, might be a good crop
here for use in making per-
fume.
The Baron's dream of
turning the wilderness into
a flowering Garden of Eden
did not work out then. But
what a surprised man he
would be today to discover
that in the great capitals of
Europe, those lovely
bunches of roses gracing
public occasions or private
dining room tables come
from — of all places -- the
tiny Middle Eastern nation
called Israel.
Flower Power from Israel
From Israel Scene
JERUSALEM — On a
wintry Thursday morning,
in a little shop in Nurem-
burg, Germany, a man
selects a dozen long-
stemmed red roses for his
wife. The bouquet looks as
though it had just been
picked.
To sell a flower in Europe
on a Thursday morning, the
story begins the previous
Sunday some 3,000 miles
away along the shores of Is-
rael's Dead Sea, on the
slopes of the Galilee and in
the Jordan Valley.
There, the growers of Is-
rael cut the flowers they
have cultivated for months.
They sort them according to
color, type, quality and
length of stem. Then they
wrap them in paper and set'
them in cold water.
Next morning, the Is-
rael Flower Board — the
organization which
presides over the coun-
try's growers — takes
over. Trucks are dis-
patched to each moshav
— cooperative farm — to
collect the flowers for
transport to a packing
house, where they pass
through quality control.
They are also graded,
treated with protective
"Over 65 years of traditional service in the Jewish community with dignity and understanding."
HEBREW MEMORIAL CHAPEL
chemicals and packed for
air shipment throughout
Europe.
The Flower Board has
some nine packing houses
throughout the country,
handling up to 6,000 boxes
of flowers a day.
Anna Belensky
Anna Belensky, • a
member of Jewish com-
munal organizations and
the daughter of the late
Rabbi Ezekiel Aishishkin of
Cong. Bnai David, died July
31 at age 84.
Mrs. Belensky was a
member of Cong. Bnai
David, Cong. Beth Tefilo
Emanuel Tikva, Jewish
War Veterans and Women's
American ORT.
She is survived by a son,
Dr. Maier Bolen; a daugh-
ter, Mrs. Sam (Sarah) Got-
tesman; a brother, Joseph
Askin of Brick, N.J.; five
grandchildren and eight
great-grandchildren.
Josiah DuBois
NEW YORK — Josiah E.
DuBois, Jr., a prosecutor at
the Nuremberg war-crimes
trials and a leader-in -efforts
to rescue Jews during the
Holocaust, died Aug. 1 at
age 70.
543-1622
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