Project Leket - CAARI gleans fields - Tuesday, Feb. 2

In the morning CAARI did their community service at the schools, Rehab Center and Botanical Gardens.  After lunch, CAARI boarded the bus and off we went to Rehovot, the site of the farm where Project Leket volunteers pick fruit for the needy. the skies were blue with temperatures in the 60's - perfect outdoor day!  We were met by Nechma who explained the Project Leket organization and what were were going to do.  We were going to pick oranges! Yeah, we were going to reach rather than get on our knees to pick beets! We had to walk  through sandy soil, similar to beach sand, to the orchards, passing fields of crops like potatoes, cabbage, carrots, avocado trees and other citrus fruits, until we reached rows for orange groves.  CAARI got right to work and  picked, filled baskets with the fruits, schlepped the baskets to larger bins which will be delivered to Israel's hungry.
CAARI also got to taste the fruit - what could be better than a freshly picked orange!    This is the 15th year for the CAARI group to pick fruit - this year oranges and we picked about 1.5 tons.

The following is a letter from Nechama, Leket's field coordinator.  She also was so happy to see us, as we were the only tour group she had Tuesday.  With tourism down, Leket is not getting the groups to come pick the fruit.  Thank you CAARI for being in Israel and supporting this valuable project for those less fortunate!

Susan,

What a joy to have your group for the third year in a row! I feel like we have a family reunion when we are together. Your groups are always so delightful, fun, and enthusiastic…and it shows in how much they picked!

This year was 4 containers at 880 pounds each- 3520 pounds. We will feed at least 350 families with the oranges that the group picked. AMAZING!

Thank you for always thinking of us and I will wait excitedly until next year's visit.

Be well, be happy, be safe.

Nechama Namal

Leket Israel Field Administrator

 By Rosalie Whitehill

Today, Tuesday, after another marvelous day at school with happy, smiling youngsters, we went on our annual Leket (gleaning) outing, where we pick fruits for needy people on a farm started for the purpose of providing food for the hungry and where I met a young woman, spending a year in Israel and also there to volunteer to help with the gleaning.....She has lived her entire life in Long Beach, NY where I was born and lived my first 13 years.....another WOW moment.  On our way back from the fields, we met another man and in talking found out he was from Scranton, Pa......and when I mentioned my mother was born there....he asked her maiden name and almost fell over when I told him and remembered Ruth (my mom)....is that another WOW moment or what?
rosalie

Horshim Forest Day - Feb. 1

Yashkeh is a survivor from the Lutsk Ghetto in the Ukraine and has written 2 books one about the liquidation of the Lutsk ghetto and one about one of the battles of the War of Independence fought after the cease fire in February 1949. Yashkeh and Miri directed the CAARI participants in painting signs and tables, raking and cleaning up nd planting trees. 


We enjoyed a picnic lunch and traveled to our last destination in Um El Fahem an Arab Israeli city of 60,000 in the Iron valley. The CAARI program arrived in Um El Fahem at the Art Gallery of Said Abu Shakra who gave us the narrative of the Arab population in Israel and their concerns and fears and problems in Israeli society today where the Jewish population is approximately 75% and the Arab population is approximately 20%. . It turns out the Said's daughter Melek was a student of one of our CAARI participants who is a professor at McGill. We toured the Art Gallery and drove back to Tel Aviv.  


In the evening CAARI was privileged with the first of 2 lectures by Miri Eisen on Israel's internal situation against the background of the current uprising and why it was started largely by Arab Youth from East and south Jerusalem. Even though everybody was tired from the forest work  -  no one fell asleep and the lecture provoked many questions.
Scroll down and enjoy all the pictures!