Page 4-THE NEWS-February, 1985
WORLD BEAT
.edited by Marta Garelik
Negev Becoming Produce
Basket Of Israel And Europe
NEW YORK (JTA) - The
Negev, Israel’s arid desert in
the south, is not only blooming
but is also increasingly becom
ing the fruit and vegetable
basket of Israel £md Europe.
In fact, an Israeli expert sug
gests, the Negev can turn in
to a major source of vegeta
bles and fruit export not only
for Europe but for the United
States as well.
Menachem Perlmutter, the
engineer chiefly responsible
over the past 30 years for
bringing Israel’s desert to
bloom, said that this was
possible, mainly by the Israeli
invention of drip irrigation.
“With drip irrigation we are
able to water the Negev’s
sands with brackish water,”
he explained, noting that the
ability to use brackish water,
which is available most easily
in the Negev, saves the need to
use the expensive fresh water
that is brought to the desert
from over 100 miles away, in-
the north of Israel.
“We also use the hot sun of
the desert, which for genera
tions was considered a curse,
for growing summer crops in
the winter without additional
energy and artificial heating.”
The curse of brackish water
and scorching sun has become
a blessing.
“In the Negev and the
Arava (the region between the
Dead Sea and Eilat) we are
growing all kinds of fruit and
vegetables, including green
peppers, tomatoes, cucum
bers, dates, melons, eggplants,
peanuts and more.” Perlmut
ter contended that, in fact,
Israel achieved records in
growing cotton and peanuts.
He noted that while farmers
in Arizona grow 1,200 kilos
of cotton per acre, Israeli
farmers in the Negev grow
twice as much. In Georgia, ac
cording to Perlmutter, farmers
grow 1,120 kilos of peanuts
per acre; in the Negev the yield
is 2,600 kilos per acre.
“Israel sets the best exam
ple on how to change the
wasteland to life-supporting
land,” he said. There £u*e 189
agricultural settlements in the
Negev.
Emergency Contributions
Aid Ethiopians
SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) -
A special $10,000 emergency
contribution to aid famine vic
tims in Ethiopia has been
granted by the Jewish Com
munity Endowment Fund
here, with unanimous ap
proval of the Jewish Com
munity Federation of San
Francisco.
The funds will be utilized by
the American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee
which, along with Catholic,
Protestant and non-sectarian
agencies, has been providing
humanitarian assistance to
disaster victims in Ethiopia
and other countries. To date,
the JDC has shipped 70 tons
of new clothing, cloth and
medical supplies valued at
$500,000 to Ethiopia.
•
NEW YORK (JTA) - The
National Board of Hadassah
has authorized a grant of an
additional $200,000 over and
above its current levels of sup
port to Youth Aliya to provide
for absorption of Jewish youth
from Ethiopia now arriving in
Israel in record numbers.
Campaign Launched To Attract
Jews/Others Abroad To Buy
Homes In Israel
TEL AVIV (JTA) - Israel’s
housing industry, in its worst
slump since the 1966/67 reces
sion, is mounting a campaign
to attract Jews and others
abroad to buy homes in Israel.
About 25 of the country’s
largest construction com
panies will open joint sales of
fices, the first in New York
City in March and later, one in
London. Potential buyers of
apartments and houses wiU be
shown videotapes of the kinds
of homes offered along with
computerized printouts with
full details of size, location and
stages of constniction.
The builders are offering a
“fly-and-buy” package in
which persons who come to
Israel and purchase homes will
be reimbursed for their air
fare.
Prices range from $40,000
for a three-room apartment to
$250,000 for a two-story
house. The builders said they
have already interested
members of the Conference of
Presidents of Major American
Jewish Organizations in the
project.
B’nai B’rith has agreed to
sponsor a 200-unit complex for
its members in the Jerusalem
area, they said. The five-acre
site will include a swimming
pool, social club and other
facilities.
Jewish Marriage and Divorce
WASHINGTON (JTA) - A
Temple University psycholo
gist declared here that 40 to 50
percent of current marriages
involving Jews are mixed mar
riages and that in two-thirds
of such marriages, a Jewish
man marries a non-Jewish
woman.
•
A 1981 study showed that
the lowest rate of divorce
among Jews is among Ortho
dox Jews, with a slight in
crease in the rate for Conser
vative Jews. Reform Jews
divorce at twice the rate of Or
thodox Jews. Jews who do not
identify with any of the major
Jewish denominations divorce
at four times the rate of Or
thodox Jews.
•
Divorce rates in Israel have
risen to 1.3 per 1,000, resulting
in a three-fold increase in
single-parent families in the
past decade to 12,000 — 89
percent of them headed by
women.
The recent past has witness
ed drastic changes in divorce
patterns — with a big drop in
divorces occurring during the
first year of marriage and an
increase in later divorces by
couples with children. The
higher Israeli divorce rate,
however, is still below the 5.5
per 1,000 in the United States
and 2 to 3 per 1,000 in
Western Europe.
Task Force on
Addiction Organized
WEST PALM BEACH,
Fla. (JTA) — The biggest
problem regarding addiction
to alcohol and drugs among
Jews is the denial by the
Jewish community that the
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problem exists, according to
Jewish leaders who met
recently at Fort Lauderdale to
establish a task force to act on
the problem.
A1 Golden, president of
Riverside Memorial Chapels,
said “no one would believe the
number of Jewish youths I
have buried in the last ten
years because of drug
overdose.”
Ivan Goldberg, administra
tor of the Center for Recovery
at the JFK Memorial Hospital
in Atlantis, declared the prob
lem appears in all age and in
come groups. He said, “There
are even rabbis and airline
pilots who are alcohol and
drug dependent.”
Goldberg added that about
30 percent of a group aged 18
to 30, at a drug treatment
center which he knew about,
were Jewish. “We probably
have a greater higher rate of
drug dependency among Jews
than any other group in the
world.”
Arabs Turning Geneva Into A
Mideast City
GENEVA (JTA) — Geneva,
European headquarters of the
United Nations, has become
the favorite haunt of wealthy
Arabs. They squirrel away
their money in numbered bank
accounts and have opened a
dozen Arab banks and some
50 financial institutions in
Geneva. They sdso try to buy
villas. The latter is generally
frowned upon. Switzerland
has strict laws limiting the
purchase of real estate by
foreigners.
Nevertheless, King Fahd of
Saudi Arabia owns three
palaces in the country and
Saudi Oil Minister Sheikh Zaki
Yamani has a villa and an
apartment. He spends more
time in Geneva than in
Riyadh.
Dutch Ashkenazi Council Will
Meet With Pope
AMSTERDAM (JTA) -
The Council of the Ashkenazi
Congregations after months of
emotionally charged debate,
decided by a single vote that
its representatives would meet
with Pope John Paul II when
he visits The Netherlands next
May.
The 23-member Council im
posed two conditions, how
ever, that the Vatican must
promise in advance that the
Pope wilU utilize the meeting
to announce the Vatican’s
recognition of the State of
Israel; and that he must con
cede to the Jewish represen
tatives the co-responsibility of
the Catholic Church for the
persecution of Jews for 2,000
years and specifically, for the
absence of a public reaction to
that persecution during World
War II.
Tid-Bits
(JTA) — The Jewish
chaplain’s insignia depicts the
tablets of the Ten Command
ments. Until recently, these
appeared in Roman numerals
(a sly twist of history). Now
that insignia has been
redesigned with the Com
mandments represented by
Hebrew letters, ready for wide
distribution throughout the
Army, Navy and Air Force.
Poetic, as well as linguistic,
justice.
•
TEL AVIV (JTA) - Com
puters at Israel’s financial
centers can no longer cope
with soaring inflation. The
electronic chips function but
the screens on the display ter
minals can contain only 15
digits, hardly enough for the
billions of Shekels that repre
sent relatively modest sums of
money.
•
TEL AVIV (JTA) - About
300 of the young Israelis
recruited into the £irmy each
year are rejected because they
can neither read nor write.
Defense Minister Yitzhak
Rabin was informed during a
visit to the Israel Defense
Force special training center.
He was told that about 90 per
cent of the illiterate youths are
native-born.
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