. . . may the
New Year
be one of joy,
happiness and
prosperity
for all mankind

An Apple A Day
Is Good Business

LYDIA AISENBERG

Special to The Jewish. News

s symbolic fruits,
vegetables and spices
go, the apple is a
relative newcomer on the
Jewish festival scene. Sym-
bolizing, for some, the circle of
life and for others a good
omen for fertility, slices of the
fruit alongside the honey
bowl used for the Rosh
Hashanah customary dipp-
ings, are synonymous with
the traditional Rosh
Hashanah wish for a sweet
new year.
Apples are plentiful in
Israel today and due to the
unusually cold winter, con-
ducive to apple growing,
Israel managed to get a little
nibble of the European
market with 1,000 tons of
Granny Smith.
So appealing was the shape,
color and all important taste
of the Galilean Granny that
growers are ensured a larger
bite of the market, with
orders for 2,000 tons and high
hopes of doubling that again
next year.
"There is little chance of
our being a serious com-

Extensive orchards
of Granny Smith,
Jonathan, Star
King, Orleans,
Grant, Red and
Golden Delicious
apples are near
the Israel-Lebanon
border.

petitor in Europe. Our total
annual yield of about 100,000
tons is a si-r2 .1 nercentage of
Euro7 - — but
it is definitely a good start,"
said agronomist Moshe Shani
of the Israel Fruit Marketing
Board and one of the coun-
try's leading apple experts.
Israel's apple industry is
mainly concentrated in the
mountainous north of the
country, where the climate is
colder.
Extensive orchards of Gran-
ny Smith, Jonathan, Star
King, Orleans, Grant, Red
and Golden Delicious apples
run along Israel's security
fence with Lebanon from the
Mediterranean coast to the
Druze villages of the Golan
Heights, literally an apple's
throw from the current border
with Syria.
Druze farmers Tahar Abu
Saleh and his cousin Nabi of
Majd El Shams have grown

up with the trees in the fami-
ly orchard. Tahar's father,
Ahmad, brought their first
experimental saplings from
Italy in 1945. The climate
was conducive to apple grow-
ing and the local volcanic soil
was an added bonus. Majd El
Shams and two neighboring
Druze villages now account
for 15 percent of the annual
apple crop handled centrally
by the Fruit Marketing
Board.
Applemania is in full swing
from the end of June until Oc-
tober. Picking, sorting and
packing of the harvest is done
in local packing houses, most-
ly co-operatives formed by
area kibbutzim, or groups of
families such as those in the
towns of Rosh Pina, Metulla
and Majd El Shams.
Workers from south
Lebanon, who are allowed to
cross over into Israel through
the Good Fence checkpost at
Metulla, commute daily to
pick and pack. They work
shoulder to shoulder with
new immigrants from the
former Soviet Union and
Ethiopia, Israeli students and
local residents whose
livelihood depends on the
industry.
Mort Lehman, a former
New Yorker who settled in
Kibbutz Malkiya 16 years
ago, used to have daily con-
tact with the Lebanese tobac-
co growers on the other side
of the then somewhat "open"
fence from his settlement's
orchards.
"Actually, I used to throw
apples over to them. But
these days, with an electronic
fence and security road, I
don't dare to do it anymore,"
said Mr. Lehman, recalling
that the last time he did
throw his offerings over the
fence, his neighbors scattered
in all directions thinking the
apples were grenades.
With a reputation of one a
day keeping the doctor away,
apples seem to be a definite
apple of the consumer's eye.
Can you imagine the
Americans without their ap-
ple pie, or the British without
their apple crumble? William
Tell split one with an arrow
. . . the Beatles split one on
their Apple label . . . Apple
computers split the world of
high-tech . . . and as for Adam
and Eve, that apple certainly
split the differences! ❑

THE JEWISH NEWS STAFF

And Their Families

Extend heartiest greetings to the entire
Jewish Community of Michigan with
gratitude for the splendid cooperation
that has enabled us to work together
for good community spirit.

Charles A. Buerger
Arthur M. Horwitz
Philip Slomovitz
Gary Rosenblatt
Marianne Taylor
Brian Lawrence
Alan Hitsky
Elizabeth Applebaum
Phil Jacobs
Kimberly Lifton
Glenn Triest
Seymour Manello
Lesley Pearl
Gail Zimmerman
Christina Laskey

Danny Raskin
Rick Nessel
Kathy Johnson
Susan Brooks
Laura Siegel
Betsy Leemon
Lisa Marshall
Art Shafer
Patty Zorlen
Steven Levin
Dharlene Norris
Marlene Miller
Percy Kaplan
Pauline Max
Leslie Kantor

Lisa Ferstenfeld
Dena Jacobs
Sylvia Stafford
Lisa Marks
Donald Cheshure
Cathy Ciccone
Curtis DeLoye
Joy Gardin
Ralph Orme
Gayle Baldi
Debbie Schultz
Carla Jean Schwartz
Bert Chassin
Bud Davis
Linda McCarthy

WZPS

"Operation Babylon" was
the code name for the 1981
Israeli mission to destroy
Iraq's nuclear reactor.

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