shabbat shalom 11.04.08

Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:43:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Linda Whittaker" ~olsvig2000@yahoo.com~
Subject: shabbat shalom 11.04.08
To: "Linda Olsvig-Whittaker" ~Linda.Whittaker@npa.org.il~

Hi everyone,

It has been an interesting week; I took off twice to get in the countryside for one reason or another, down in the Shefela (the rolling hill country between the Judean Mountains and the Mediterranean coastal plain). This is some of the prettiest landscape in Israel: gently rolling countryside with scattered small fields, orchards, and lots of forest. The Israel Forestry Service (Keren Kayemit) got started in this area, and it does show. Pretty little settlements of red roofed white cottages nestled in groves of forest, scattered old ruins, vineyards and olive groves--it looks like Tuscany in this area. Sweet and gentle, in contrast to the rough country up by Jerusalem where I live, and the bones of the mountains stick out.

On the first trip I was simply on an excursion to see what I could see, not having taken time in the spring to do that. A friend who only got Tuesdays free had joined me, and we cut through the Sorek Valley (find it in your Bible in connection with the Philistines). This gorge is unoccupied, thanks to the fact that for decades it took the open sewage of Jerusalem to the sea. I remember when it stank like hell; nobody would live there. Now the sewage is piped through the valley for modern treatment, and there is no odor. We took advantage of the situation and made most of it a nature reserve before developers snatched it. So one can drive from Jerusalem to Beit Shemesh through forested park all the way, really beautiful.

When we got to Beit Shemesh, I decided on a whim to visit the Hulda Forest. That was another pretty trip through more agricultural landscapes (like Tuscany) until we reached Kibbutz Hulda and the plantations of Keren Kayemit around Beit Herzl. This is an historic site, an agricultural school founded in 1907 to train new Jewish settlers who came to farm knowing little about the subject itself. The focus here soon turned to forestry and land reclamation, in an area totally denuded of trees at the time. The school flourished until it was destroyed by Arabs in the pogroms of 1929, and then was replaced by Kibbutz Hulda in 1931. The school building and grounds were a ruin until recently, but have been lovingly restored as museum. This is a wonderful place to learn about the more positive side of Zionism, the restoration of degraded land by people seeking restoration from their own degradation. Even my friend, who is married to an Arab, found the place inspirational.

I was doing this trip in lieu of an excursion with my department. I had dropped out of that; just could not face spending two days with one particularly nasty secretary who has declared war on me. I asked my boss to please deal with this on the trip and he promised to do so, but didn't. Now he promises to deal with it on Sunday. Obviously he doesn't want to, but even he agrees that he must. Harrassment like this impairs my work, which is the only reason the bosses must deal with it. I still don't know why this person dislikes me so much; it isn't anything I've done, it seems a matter of what I am. But since she is the departmental secretary, this has to be stopped.

I feel ridiculous; after all I am a senior scientist, with a doctorate more than 30 years, being hammered by a secretary with a high school education. Rather like a moose driven crazy by flies. I could handle it myself, but my own boss had told me not to retaliate in kind because I hit back too hard. So I've taken it for more than two years. Enough already. Okay, so now it is HIS problem.

The second field trip, on Thursday, was less happy. A member of our congregation had died of lymphoma. (The woman had refused to see a doctor, ever, and so was brought to the emergency ward just prior to her death from untreated cancer. I know we must respect the choices people make for themselves, but dammint, lymphoma responds well to treatment. She probably could have recovered with proper medical care. If it were me, I'd say I was being very stupid.)

Anyway, the drive down was throuh the same pretty landscape, this time to Kibbutz Netiv Ha Lame Hey (Path of the 35), a beautiful farm village set on the side of the Ela Valley (see the story of David and Goliath). The woman was an English Gentile, and it is hard to find a place to bury messianic Gentiles, like me. The kibbutz has a secular cemetery, very rare in Israel, which could recieve her.

I was enchanted with the setting for the little cemetary, nestled in the forest with a view of the Ela Valley. A kibbutznik told me that earlier in spring the area was full of flowers and flowering trees. This looks like a very good place to bury me when the time comes; my friends could come with binoculars and look for birds at the same time! Very appropriate place for a naturalist.

So I went home in a far more cheerful state of mind than one expects to have after a funeral. The setting was so pretty and soothing that it was impossible not to be cheerful, anyway for me. (I buried my husband and father in a similar setting of rare beauty on a farm we used to have near Ithaca, where the autumn trees are like flames, and the spring flowers are also beautiful.)

Now I have to prepare to travel to Holland next weekend.

shabbat shalom,

Linda

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