Not by bread alone

It’s that field across the road again. We, the field and I have developed a bond. I pass it every morning just after dawn during my “constitutional” walk. Later on I watch it through the landscape window of our factory breakfast room. Even when it lies fallow for a few weeks I visually probe its dry soil examining the colour and texture. Of all the crops grown in the field wheat is my favourite. Wheat makes a statement! It provides the "staff of life" and its cultivation that started in Neolithic times impelled civilisation. Admittedly more people in the world are nourished by rice and barley competes strongly with wheat in some places, but wheat and its product bread have a special significance “and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely...” promised Leviticus. Like the fallow field the wheat field has a unique texture. Stalks, leaves and heads of grain combine to create a dense succulent growth.

On the other side of the valley a local artist commemorated the kibbutz centennial by “writing” a line from the Book of Proverbs in a wheat field “He that tilleth his land shall not lack bread…”

All day long a fleet of yellow trucks has been hauling “green chop”, freshly cut wheat to two large pits by our dairy where it will be ensiled. Our wheat crop won’t put bread on our tables. Some of it will feed our cows and the rest will be harvested for seed. One small symbolic patch will be kept for the “Cutting of the Omer” ceremony at Pesach.

In an area that stretches across the hills above Ein Harod and Tel Yosef an ancient community thrived and farmed the fields around us. The people who lived here planted vineyards and olive groves. Their wine and olive oil was sent via Beit Shean to the markets of Rome. Maybe they grew wheat in the field across the road, not for Rome but to put bread on their own tables.

North Africa was Rome’s bread basket and its vital importance was reason enough to go to war when that supply line was threatened.

At one time bread or grain was doled out free or sold at a subsidised price to Rome's poor. Bread and circuses “panem et circenses” was a political strategy.

Nineteen hundred years later botanist Aaron Aaronsohn discovered a wild strain of wheat growing near Rosh Pina. He identified it as Emmer or mother wheat the same ancient cereal first cultivated by man. Aaronsohn's discovery caused a minor sensation in the scientific world.

Ten years later in 1915 Aaron Aaronsohn his sisters and friends formed the clandestine Nili group. The ill-fated group provided the British forces with valuable intelligence information. The opportunity to spy on the Turkish forces in Palestine was bread-related. That year a devastating plague of locusts afflicted the region. The Ottoman authorities were short of grain and concerned about feeding their troops. They enlisted Aaronsohn to help fight the locusts. Aaronsohn exploited his frequent work tours to spy on Turkish army movements and relay the information to the British. The Turks discovered the espionage activity and liquidated Nili. Aaronsohn was visiting the US when members of the Nili group were arrested. He survived but was killed in a plane crash two years later.

Aaronsohn's Emmer wheat discovery helped research workers develop improved strains of wheat. Today more and more short-stemmed “dwarf” wheat is grown throughout the world. It produces more grain/bread to the acre than the older tall-stalk varieties.

Two years ago I wrote of our “Cutting of the Omer” ceremony – “Excluding a few minor changes the ceremony is much as it was when I first saw it here at Ein Harod 43 years ago. It embodies the essence of the Jewish cultural-agrarian renaissance, the revival of an ancient custom.

It also accentuates some of the changes that have taken place in the kibbutz economy. The cereal crops, cotton, citrus and livestock branches provide only a marginal profit. The bread on the tables of this kibbutz, one of the most affluent in the country, is provided mainly by its successful industrial enterprise.”

Living in a weight-watching age we eat less bread, maybe adding a modern significance to the biblical phrase - “… man doth not live by bread alone…”

The great value we place on human life especially saving life is difficult to equate with the cabinet’s decision to relocate the Barzilai Medical Centre's future emergency room further from the main building because of the ancient graves found at the original site. The possibility that Jews were buried there concerned religious groups, and Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman threatened to resign unless the building site was moved.

The motion to relocate the site was approved by a majority of 11 to 10 ministers and drew furious protests, both because of the prohibitive cost of the move - NIS 135 million – and the fear that the move would leave patients vulnerable to rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip.

At the height of the Cast Lead Operation in January last year I wrote -

"The Barzilai Medical Centre in Ashkelon has been on an emergency standing since the beginning of the Gaza offensive. The emergency room staff has been treating people injured by the rocket attacks in the now extended Gaza periphery which includes Ashkelon. More recently soldiers wounded in the clashes in Gaza have been brought to the hospital.

The hospital is in dire need of an underground emergency room and surgical theatre. It has the funds to build, an official approval to go ahead with the construction but the project has stopped. The building of the new facility has been halted because an Orthodox Jewish (Haredi) activist organisation opposes the exhumation and relocation of Byzantine era bones discovered during the excavation work."

Well the Byzantine era bones, pagan, Christian or both, are still delaying the construction work.

Wherever you build in this country you run the risk of discovering a grave. Building projects are halted and highways end abruptly till some “council of sages” decides what can be done. Changes in building plans and road detours due to the unearthing of long forgotten graves bring about unnecessary delays and added costs.

The week before Pesach is the worst time for political and diplomatic crises.

Most people are busy with the holiday shopping, organising the Seder if they are the hosts and all the many details that have to be attended to.

The tiff with her majesty’s government about forging a few passports barely caused a ripple of interest here. The news media people thrashed it to death but the Israeli public remained apathetic. Our Mossad man in the UK was packed off home. It was merely a diplomatic rap over the knuckles.

The Economist dispensed with it in the following words -

“Besides, diplomatic expulsions are an old game with rules well understood by both sides. Israel may throw out a British diplomat but the row is unlikely to go much further. And the ejected Mossad man—or his replacement—may well be back at his post within a few months.” Well we didn’t expel one of their diplomats and the replacement was packing his bags by the time our “disgraced” diplomat returned home.

How the current brouhaha precipitated by the East Jerusalem (not geographically correct but loosely used to describe areas of Jerusalem occupied by Jordan prior to 1967) building programmes is serious.

There were bad omens, unmistakable signs that all was not right. Immediately after securing the healthcare reform’s approval, the US Administration’s moment of truth in its ties with Israel arrived. It was a day before Prime Minister Netanyahu arrived at the White House.

Journalist Yitzhak Benhorin gave this account of Secretary of State Clinton’s AIPAC address.” America’s top diplomat entered the lion’s den, the stronghold of Israel support in Washington, at a time of tension between the Obama Administration and Netanyahu government. She touched and softened up the 7,000 members of the audience and drew loud applause, a moment before she told Israel’s staunchest supporters what no American leader had ever said in this forum: A peace treaty premised on a return to the 1967 borders, hints of international administration of the holy sites, and demands for improved ties in the West Bank and an improved humanitarian situation in Gaza. “

Benhorin elaborates “ In fact Clinton said nothing new. Anyone who has been monitoring the conflict, with the exception of the Israelis themselves, realises that the solution will come in the form of a return to the 1967 borders with territorial tradeoffs, rejection of the Palestinian right of return, the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state, and the introduction of shared administration of the Holy Sites.”

In her speech, the Secretary of State mentioned “the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the ‘67 lines, with agreed swaps.” The objective here is to maintain the large settlement blocs in Israeli territory while handing over alternate land to Palestinian control.

A confident Netanyahu speaking to the same assembly said, “The Jewish people were building in Jerusalem 3,000 years ago, and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today. Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capital.”

Later on at the White House the meeting with President Obama was understandably strained. The whole format of the meeting was unusual. No photographers, no statements at all. Not even a bland statement such as “a useful and productive meeting” was released to the waiting journalists.

This evening a reticent and glum Netanyahu touched down at the Ben Gurion international air terminal.

Maybe some day the prime minister will write his version of the White House meeting. In the meantime the best we can do is to speculate regarding the meeting’s content.

Some people argue that Netanyahu should have opted to form a more centre of the road coalition government. However he doesn’t relish the idea of power sharing with Tzipi Livni. A coalition with Labour and Kadima might pull him more to territorial compromises including accommodating a Palestinian presence in East Jerusalem. For the time being, he would rather compromise with his Orthodox partners than consider the prospect of a coalition shuffle. According to some reports the Obama Administration would prefer a more compatible Israeli coalition government. For now it remains a pipe dream.

Considering the construction imbroglio in East Jerusalem, our inability to make any progress towards a settlement with the Palestinians and the present crisis in our relations with the US I wonder where all this is leading us.

I don’t know the answer and I don’t know if anyone else does. I see “facts on the ground.” Once, the people who subscribed to the Greater Israel philosophy claimed that that Israeli peace camp was giving away the Land of Israel “piece by piece.” Now it seems we are accomplishing the Greater Israel dream “piece by piece.”

I hate concluding my letter in a dismal mood so I’ll return to the Pesach Seder..

For many years I have been in charge of the seating arrangements at our communal Seder. This is no mean task. Trying to accommodate hundreds of members and their guests requires special skills. Admittedly the computer has made my work more routine and automatic and less of a mentally trying task.

Satisfying all our members’ idiosyncrasies ranging from gammy legs to infant carriers that have to positioned strategically near an exit is indeed challenging.

Somehow it all works out well.

I wish everyone Chag Pesach Sameach.

Beni 25^th of March, 2010.