ISRAEL

Alex Braaf, Ephraim Weiss and one of the school gardens.

Growing Bridges

A unique partnership beautifies
a Rehovot religious school.

NECHEMIA MEYERS

Special to The Jewish News

T

he close friendship
that has developed be-
tween confirmed secu-
larist Alex Braaf and ultra-
Orthodox Ephraim Weiss is
little short of amazing in a
country where relations bet-
ween the religious and non-
religious have reached an all-
time low.
It was gardening that
brought together Mr. Braaf, a
senior El Al steward, and Mr.
Weiss, principal of a Talmud
Torah for boys, and it was the
Council for a Beautiful Israel
that served as the
matchmaker.
Mr. Braaf, mainly because
of his Dutch background, has
always been a keen gardener.

Nechemia Meyers is on the
staff of the Weizmann
Institute of Science.

So when he and his English
wife Lesley moved into a
Rehovot apartment house, Mr.
Braaf decided that it should
have the most attractive
garden in the area.
It soon did. Thanks to Mt
Braaf's imagination and hard
work, that garden was soon
judged by the Council for a
Beautiful Israel to be the top
one in Rehovot.
Thus, when Ephraim Weiss
turned to the Council for help
in beautifying his school, the
Council put him in contact
with Mr. Braaf, hopeful that
the Talmud could be
transformed as the apart-
ment house had been.
Mr. Braaf arrived at the
school (typically bare-headed
and clad in shorts), where Mr.
Weiss (no less typically clad
in dark clothes and with a
large black skullcap on his
head) received him with a
mixture of warmth and

uneasiness. That uneasiness,
shared to some extent by Mr.
Braaf as well, soon disap-
peared. Indeed, as sometimes
happens with opposites, the
two hit it off extremely well.
The first project decided
upon, just over two years ago,
was a cactus garden at the en-
trance to the Talmud Torah.
When that succeeded, flowers
were planted in several cor-
ners of the school and potted
plants put in the classroom.
Mr. Braaf not only worked
side-by-side with the pupils
for hours on end, without
receiving a penny in compen-
sation, but also roped in his
friends. One of them, a
machinist, built iron fences
around the flower beds and
charged only for the material
he used.
A second, the director-
general of the Israel
Railways, agreed to supply at
minimum cost old wooden

railroad ties that could be us-
ed as dividers. Then a third
trucked the 200-pound ties to
the school for next to nothing.
This project eventually
came to the attention of the
press and of "Kolbotek," a
popular Israeli television pro-
gram. The subsequent
reports, and particularly the
TV exposure, brought admir-
ing visitors to the school as
well as offers of help (mainly
conveyed to Mr. Braaf by
businessmen he was serving
on El Al flights).
Thanks to this assistance,
the garden area of the
Talmud Torah will be expand-
ed and an outdoor recreation
corner created.
The example of this Rehovot
school has had a significant
influence on other ultra-
Orthodox educational institu-
tions, which have not hither-
to placed much importance on
aesthetics. Time spent on

gardening, it was typically
felt, could be better spent on
learning more Talmud.
Ephraim Weiss disagrees.
He believes that his pupils
are also serving God by mak-
ing their school more
beautiful, without, he
hastens to add, neglecting
their religious studies in any
way. This view has apparent-
ly been accepted by others, for
his Talmud Torah was
declared the school of the year
by the Atzmai (Agudat Israel)
system.

Mr. Weiss and the pupils at
his Talmud Torah fully ap-
preciate what Mr. Braff has
done for them. Each time he
comes to the school, he is im-
mediately surrounded by
youngsters eager to ask him
about his latest El Al flight
and to seek his advice on the
care and feeding of potted
plants.

❑

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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