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PAGE 16 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE September 19, 1986
Meet A
Real Jewish Hero
You are cordially invited
to hear
IOSEF
MENDELEVICH
Former refusnik and prisoner
of Zion
at a fundraising brunch reception
on behalf of the
Soviet Jewry Education and
Information Center
Jerusalem, Israel
Mr. Mendelevich, a prisoner in Soviet
Russia for eleven pears made Alipah in
1981 and has been chairman of the Center
since its inception in 1983.
Sunday, September 21, 1986
10:00 a.m.
Congregation Beth Jacob
1855 LaVista Rd., N.E.
Atlanta, GA 30329
$3.00 at the door
Rabbi Steven Lebow takes
pulpit at Temple Kol Emeth
Rabbi Steven Jay Lebow is the
new spiritual leader of Temple Kol
Emeth.
He comes to Kol Emeth from
New Orleans, where he served as
assistant rabbi of Temple Sinai.
Originally from Fort Lauderdale,
Fla., Rabbi Lebow received his
undergraduate degree from Kenyon
College in Gambier, Ohio, where
he graduated with honors. While at
Kenyon College, he helped found
the Union of Jewish Students and
edited the college newspaper and
magazine. Rabbi Lebow recieved
his M.A. degree from the Hebrew
Union College in 1982 and served
as president of the senior class of
the seminary. He is married to
Madeline Sable, an expressive ther
apist, and he is an accomplished 12
string guitarist and a published
Steven Lebow
poet.
The rabbi has initiated several
new programs at Kol Emeth: an
Introduction to Judaism course
for Jews and non-Jews, Tot Shab-
bat services, and a guest speakers
program called “The Other Voices.”
Rabbi Lebow strongly believes
in helping Jews find something
deeper. “Judaism has flourished for
2,000 years,” he says, “and I intend
to see that it continues. I really love
America and I love serving the
Jews of America.”
Temple Kol Emeth is a tradi
tional Reform congregation serv
ing East Cobb and North Fulton
counties. The congregation of over
120 families holds regular Friday
night services at the DeKalb Fed
eral Community Room, Johnson
Ferry and Upper Roswell Road in
Marietta. For further information,
call the Temple office at (404)
973-3533.
A mirage becomes a reality
by David Landau
JERUSALEM (JTA)—“Making
the desert bloom” has apparently
become too jaded a challenge for
the Jewish National Fund. Now
the JNF has made a reality of an
even more far-fetched mirage: a
swimming and boating lake in the
torrid and once-desolate Arava
desert.
To the visitor coming upon the
lake in the Timna Valley park after
driving for sweltering miles on the
ruler-straight Arava road, a sense
of the ultimate fata morgana is
almost inescapable.
The 17-dunam kidney-shaped
lake blends into the surrounding
rocky landscape dotted with acacia
trees, all in the middle of literally
nowhere.
The lake was formally pro
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nounced open July 29, in a water
side ceremony attended by JNF
officials, parents and children from
the settlements of the local Eilat
region, and Avram Chudnow of
Milwaukee, who has pledged $1
million dollars, the largest contri
bution made by an individual in
the history of the JNF, to make the
lake a reality. Chudnow summed
up his commitment to developing
the lake and the Timna park with
the words: “I am a man of the
Arava.”
World JNF chairman Moshe
Rivlin, speaking at the ceremony,
told Chudnow, who has already
paid $350,000 and plans to com
plete the rest of his pledge within
two years, that the JNF would do
all it can to turn the Negev into a
Garden of Eden.
Rivlin recalled David Be
Gurion’s vision of a blooming des
ert, which Israel’s first prime min
ister considered essential to the
survival of the state. “We can do
the unbelievable,” he said.
The JNF excavated the land,
lined the bottom of the hollow with
polyurethane to prevent the water
from seeping into the soil, and
piped in brackish water that is
plentifully present under the
ground.
Estimates put the total amount
of brackish water under the arid
ground of the Negev as high as
some 70 billion cubic meters, says
Menahem Perlmutter, director of
the Jewish Agency's Negev engi
neering department, the man who
first fired Chudnow’s love for the
Arava in 1983.
Perlmutter, who works in close
cooperation with the JNF, told the
JTA that as a result of research by
Israel Prize winner Yoel de Malach
of Kibbutz Reviv, local settlements
use the high salinity brackish water
to irrigate such crops as grapes,
peanuts and cotton.
One of the local settlements.
Kibbutz Eliphaz, also operates the
Timna park in addition to its gruel
ing agricultural work under the
fierce Arava sun.
Chudnow, in addition to donat
ing money himself, also travels all
over the United States, attracting
other donors “like a missionary,”
in the words of JNF U.S. executive
vice president Rabbi Samuel Cohen,
to raise the $3.5 million needed to
complete the park’s development.
A land developer and president
of a construction company back in
Milwaukee, Chudnow said: “I have
a developer’s eye and can see the
potential of raw land.” He believes
that the park will help strengthen
the local economy, providing jobs,
attracting more settlement and
tourism, and “making it possible
for people in the area to live hap
pily.”
The JNF created the park in the
Timna Valley some 30 kilometers
north of Eilat to encompass the
majestic King Solomon Pillars—
towering natural columns formed
by wind erosion over the millen
nia—and the ancient Timna copper
mines which date back to prehis
toric times.
The area also boasts serious
archaeological sites—an intact
copper smelting furnace, the oldest
one ever found, and ancient Egyp
tian wall drawings depicting the
goddess Hathor, chariots and men
hunting the local wildlife. All the
evidence points to the fact that
Timna was a busy industrial area
4,000 years ago.
So far, 11 kilometers of road
have been built by the JNF
throughout the park since 1977 to
enable the 130,000 annual visitors
to Timna to reach all the interest
ing sites. The JNF hopes to build a
further four kilometers as well as a
visitors center and camping site at
the lakeside when the funds can be
found.
The lake is divided into two sec
tions, with two dunams set aside
for swimming, and a larger section,
with its own wooden jetty, offering
boating and fishing facilities.
The Timna lake, which had only
been a dusty plan till Chudnow
pressed for its construction in 1983,
was full of young, splashing child
ren when the guests arrived for the
opening ceremony. After the local
Kibbutz Yotvata children’s choir
had performed an elegant undulat
ing dance entitled “Water.” they,
too, plunged in to cool off.
■hbhhi■mhhmhuh
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