Insight
Remember
When • •
Above The Fray
From the pages of the Jewish News for
this week 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50
years ago.
Politics aside, Israeli and Palestinian scientists
are working together for a common cause — water.
Denise Alexander of Southfield was
appointed executive director of the
Domestic Violence Prevention and
Treatment Division of the Michigan
Department of Social Services.
Detroiter Marla Chadwick Scafe
was named director of the Masters
in Science Management Program at
Walsh College of Accountancy and
Business Administration.
HARRY KI RS BAUM
Staff Writer
B
attles have raged, borders
have changed and the
region's politics have become
unstable. Yet Israeli,
Palestinian and Egyptian scientists have
been working quietly together in the
Middle East to solve wastewater prob-
lems.
This is a different battle, apart from
the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian strife.
Dr. Sheldon Tarre, a research associate
at the Technion-Israel Institute of
Technology, said Monday at the Jewish
News offices in Southfield, "We all
know what the stakes are in terms of
the water resources — in terms of pol-
lution of the resources."
Dr. Sheldon Tarre
Simply put, they have been looking
for ways to convert wastewater into
water good enough for irrigating crops,
like olive trees.
"We want to eliminate the pollution in the wastewater as
much as possible in the West Bank because it can endanger
the mountain aquifer, one of the main sources of water in
Israel," said Tarre, who is in the midst of a two-week
national speaking tour. He grew up in Long Beach, Calif,
graduated with a degree in chemistry from the University of
California in 1975, made aliyah to Israel in 1976, and has
worked with Technion, based in Haifa, for 23 years on
wastewater issues.
"We want to treat and reuse the water for Arab agricul-
ture, especially olive trees. We're concerned about their
wastewater and the danger it poses to our water resources,"
he said. A second issue is public health in Arab villages.
The Palestinian Hydrology Society is designing the sewage
infrastructure for a model town called Beni Zeit. They are
working to figure out how to connect each house to a main
sewer line, and determine where conduits from the sewage
treatment plant to the olive orchards will be placed.
Technion is examining what type of treatment plant will
go into Beni Zeit, and has built a relatively large pilot plant
in the Israeli Arab city of Sakhnin to test three different
types of filtration systems.
The Egyptian team is investigating the effect of treated
wastewater on olive trees.
"When we complete the research and decide what alter-
natives we want to put into the first demonstration village,
then we'll go into that village for one or two years of work,
then start implementing on a large scale," he said.
The idea came out of the Oslo
peace accords, he said. Conventional
wisdom at the time felt that coopera-
tion between scientists working on
water issues would start bridging the
peace process.
1991
1981
Peaceful Coexistence?
Nancy Gad-Harf, the Farmington
Hills-based regional director of the
American Technion Society, said the
project has profound implications.
"Raw sewage runs through the
streets," she said. "The joint effort will
dramatically enhance the quality of life
in the West Bank towns that have to
deal with this. These connections will
hopefully have implications for peaceful
coexistence."
The threat of war hasn't helped, and
recent events have forced the scientists
to adapt.
"During the intifada and the Arab-Israeli uprising in
October, we did not visit our installation for about two
weeks because of the rioting in that area," Tarre said. "We
will continue to work together quietly. Our lines of corn-
munication are open. That's not to say there isn't tension."
The fear is that the political climate will cause Palestinian
Authority chairman Yasser Arafat to shut down the project.
About two-and-a-half years into a three-year contract for
the U.S. aid research grant that helped to form the Israeli,
Egyptian and Palestinian consortium, the question is
whether Technion will go on alone, he said.
Lebanese Problems
Work on the Lebanese side of the Israeli border to build a
water pumping station on the Hatzbani River also is cause
for concern, Tarre said, because about 30 percent of the
flow into the Jordan River comes from the Hatzbani.
With no formal water agreement between Lebanon and
Israel, Tarre considers it a strategic problem affecting only Israel.
"When the Syrians tried to move the sources of the
Jordan away from Israel before the 1967 war, they were
bombed," he said. Although it's highly unlikely that they'll
pump all the water out or pollute it, if they do "we'll have
to do something about it.
"In the next 10 years, we will have a sufficient desaliniza-
tion capacity (25 percent) in Israel to lessen the threat of
war about water," he said. "We should have been doing this
a few years ago." 1111
Professor Jacob Katz, an Israeli his-
torian from the Hebrew University,
was named the recipient of the B'nai
B'rith International Literary Award.
Eliav Barr, a student at Birmingham
Groves High School, was selected to
participate in a national Junior
Science and Humanities Symposium.
1971
Detroiter Alan E. Schwartz was
chosen to head the committee for
special individual gifts to the
Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Mayor Norman Feder of
Southfield was presented with the
key to the city of Rehovot, Israel.
Leo Knight Studios in Southfield
received 14 ribbon awards at the
Professional Photographers of
Michigan Convention.
1961
The Wayne State University Board
of Governors accepted a $323,000
grant from the Helen L. Deroy
Foundation for the construction of
a teaching auditorium.
Detroiter Shirley Zaft, soprano,
appeared in a concert at the Raven
Art Gallery.
1951
Detroiter Marsha Weisman was
among the group from Girl Scout
Troop 409 at Congregation B'nai
Moshe to contribute to a clothing
drive to aid people in Israel.
Ernest Victor Wolff, head of the
piano department at Michigan State
College, appeared as soloist with the
Center Symphony Orchestra at the
Davison Jewish Center in Detroit.
—Compiled by Sy Mandl°,
editorial assistant
3/23
2001
29