'Daniel Levy: 'The modern history of human settlement here is only 30 years old. I think that's pretty exciting' Arava Oasis Former Detroiters have found a good life in one of Israel's most undeveloped regions. . DAVID HOLZEL Israel Correspondent Sam Levy: 'We're removed from a lot of things. There's not a lot of connection with the rest of the country.' 24 FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 1989 am Levy remembers when Eilat's central bus station was a wooden shack. The 30-mile stretch of the lower Arava Valley was home to three kib- butzim then. One was Levy's kibbutz, Grofit. It had a single sidewalk. Fifteen years after the Yom Kippur War brought Levy from Detroit to Israel with a group of Habonim Labor Zionist youth, life in the country's southern most region has changed. Eilat is a growing port and tourist center, bustling with hotels, restaurants and shopping malls. The road to the city is lined with 10 kibbut- zim espousing Reform, Conservative, S anarchist and old-fashioned socialist doctrines. Grofit is one of the latter. Now 22 years old, the kibbutz is a crisscross of sidewalks connecting homes, a kindergarten, a Kupat Cholim health clinic, a swimming pool and a dining room perched atop the kibbutz's highest point. Sam Levy, 40, lives in this hilltop village with his wife, Yaffa, and their two sons. In 1977, Levy was joined by his brother, Michael. Two years ago a third brother, Daniel, made Grofit his home. Another Detroiter, Naomi Blumenberg, moved to the kibbutz six years ago. These former Detroiters comprise 4 percent of Grofit's adult population — larger than the percentage of Jews in the United States or kibbutzniks in Israel. Over the years, Grofit has become the first destination — if not the final home — of Habonim members from Detroit. The kibbutz was adopted by Detroit's Labor Zionist Alliance, which is trying to raise $30,000 for Grofit's new communications system to im- prove radio and television reception. "Communication is taken very seriously here," says Muki lelman, who oversees the system's installation. "Without it, we're cut off from most of the country and the rest of the world." lel Aviv is about as far from Grofit as Detroit is from Benton Harbor. But unlike Michiganders, the Arava's 1,000 adults, excluding Eilat, feel detached from the rest of the country because of the intervening desert and mountains. Some enjoy the isolation; for others, it is an adjustment. Levy says this feeling of detach- ment isn't common even to other Israelis who live far from the center of the country. The travel time between Kiryat Shemonah on the northern border and Tel Aviv is the same as bet- ween Eilat and Tel Aviv. "But Kiryat Shemonah is a part of Israel," he says. "Eilat is not. "We are, in general, removed from a lot of things. We don't have the same weather or landscape. There's not a lot of connection." For Levy, the draw of the Arava is powerful. "This is one of the areas where you can settle, feel that you're doing something constructive and not stealing land from somebody else," he says. Levy was born in Israel while his parents, Ralph and Jean, were living here shortly after independence. The family returned to Detroit in 1949