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Young Kibutzim Blossom in the Desert

By WENDY ELLIMAN

best help yourself because
no help will come to you
JERUSALEM — It is the from the land. The Arava
our friends
kind of place where you had Desert stretches 120 miles
from the vast salt lake of the
and relatives
Best wishes for a
Dead Sea all the way south
to the Red Sea at Eilat. It is
happy, healthy
a barren landscape of unset-
New Year
tling beauty, with Israel's
BLANCHE & MANNIE BAUMAN
Negev Desert on one side
BRENDA MOSS
and the Jordanian Desert
on the other.
It is a cruel land. Tem-
peratures soar into the
hundreds. through the long
summers, where the light is
glaring and the heat in-
Wishing all our family and
tense. The rare winter rains
friends a year of
are to be feared more than
health and happiness
welcomed, for they cascade
through the wadis in flash
THE LIFTONS
floods, sweeping roads,
KENNY, TERRY, ALLEN & SHERYL
rocks and homes before
them. The rocky sandstone
and limestone lies inert and
lifeless, except when stirred
by the winds into choking
clouds of dust.
Wishing all our family and
Israelis call it the Arava,
the Wilderness. - Yet 4,000
friends a year of
people live here in 15 rural
health and happiness
communities established by
the Jewish Agency, mainly
with funds from annual
United Jewish Appeal cam-
paigns. They went into the
wilderness because they
chose to. And they and the
A Very Happy and Healthy
land have prospered.
Out of the Arava last
New Year to All Our Friends
year came 470 tons of
dates. A quarter of the
and Family
crop was exported to
Europe and South
America, earning much
needed foreign currency.
From this cracked,
crusty moonscape came
thousands of bushels full
Truck Rental and Leasing
of onions, green peppers,
tomates and grapes to
swell Israel's own -mar-
kets and to help feed her
people. Roses the size of
grapefruits blossomed in
May the coming year be
the dust. And on this
harsh land, 750 dairy
one filled with health,
cows produced 5,285,000
quarts of milk.
happiness and
What makes such as-
prosperity for all our
tonishing achievements
possible is a blend of faith
friends and family.
and modern technology,
stubbornness, hard work,
the courage to take risks,
and — suprisingly — an
ample supply of water. Spe-
cialists in desert research
estimate that there is a suf-
ficient supply of under-
ground "fossil" water for 30
years to come.
"Fossil" water has a high
salt content. When the first
settlers in this region
used it to water
their crops, salt deposits
formed on the leaves, kil-
ling the plants. Break-
throughs in desert agricul-
ture have, however, di-
minished this problem.
Drip irrigation, an Israeli
innovation of the 1960s,
trickles controlled amounts
of water directly onto plant
roots, which are more salt-
resistant than the leaves
are. To rinse out accumu-
lated salt deposits at root
level, a procedure has been
introduced for "washing"
the soil once each season. In
addition, drip irrigation
permits farmers to feed fer-
tilizers and fungicides to
crops along with water so
that plants receive extra
nutrients and protection.

to all

United Jewish Appeal

-
VOLPE LEASING CORPORATION

11111111111WITURW1111111

BABY & ME
LORETTA & RITA, & THE GIRLS

May the New Year Bring

To All Our Friends

and Family

Health,

Joy, Prosp6rity

and Everything

ERADICO PEST CONTROL
& LAWN CARE COMPANIES

These
techniques,
combined with year-
round sunshine, favora-
ble temperatures and the
high degree of radiation
characteristic of this
region make two planting
seasons possible, thereby
doubling production and
earnings.
Boston-born Lesley Lit-
man, 25, is one of the older
settlers of Kibutz Yahel,
where she has lived for the
past four years. "I'm cer-
tainly not lonely here," she
says. "Yahel is a very close,
caring and loving commu-
nity. But we do feel alone
out here, and very much
thrown in on ourselves."
What is needed, for both
security and growth, is a
large infusion of money and
people — to expand settle-
ments already in existence
and create new ones. How-
ever, just when the need to
accelerate is critical, de-
velopment is slowing down.
The cause is pritharily a
shortfall in funds from UJA
/ community campaigns to
the Jewish Agency.
The only site scheduled
for building in 1981, Shiza-
fon, remains in the plan-
ning stage because the cash
simply wasn't available to
proceed. For lack of
$600,000, nothing at all was
built in the Arava last year.
Nonetheless, hopes are
high for the future. Near
Yotvata, now the
regional center of the
southern Arava, man-
goes, pomegranates and
papayas are being raised
on an experimental sta-
tion. At Kibutz Faran,
another experiment is
being conducted with
melons. Here, use of irri-
gation water from un-
derground hot springs
has resulted in a crop
ripe for harvesting three
weeks ahead of time, giv-
ing Israel a jump on the
international market.
And, most exotic of all,
are probes being made
along the Red Sea coast
to determine possibilities
for marine agriculture,
such as drilling holes in
rock and planting crops
in warm water pools.
Farming is not the only
business flourishing in the
Wilderness. Tourism is
growing, in a region becom-
ing more and more attrac-
tive to visitors from both Is-
rael and abroad. A network
of camping areas, picnic
grounds, roadside stands
selling souveniers and local
produce, and eating places
is developing. Tours to des-
ert and Red Sea sites are ex-
panding.
Light industry is also
being woven into the
primarily agricultural life
of the kibutzim and
moshavim. Yotvata oper-
ates a date storage and
packing plant which serv-
ices the entire Arava as well
as a regional dairy which
processes and markets milk
and other dairy products.

Not to enjoy life, but to
employ life, ought to be our
aim and inspiration.
—Macduff

Elot, the southernmost
kibutz, manufactures parts
for electrical transformers.

many, septemner

Best wishes for a
happy, healthy
New Year

IRVING LARRY

Wishing all our family and
friends a year of
health and happiness

,MR. & MRS. BRUCE M. PODOLSKY, ADAM & JACOB

Wishing-all our family and
friends a year of
health and happiness

Wishing all our family and
friends a year of
health and happiness

Wishing all our family and
friends a year of
health and happiness

4
Wishing all our family and
friends a year of
health and happiness

Wishing all our family and
friends a year of
health and happiness

SIMON & ESTHER TABACHNIK

Wishing all our family and
friends a year of
health and happiness

A Very Happy and Healthy
New Year to All Our Friends
and Family

THE HOUSE MOTHERS, INC.

SARAH WAYNTRAUB, director