Over the Sukkot holiday, hundreds of thousands of visitors from both Israel and abroad set out to spend time in the heart of nature in KKL-JNF forests and parks. All over the country countless KKL-JNF events were underway: family excursions, guided tours, visits to heritage sites, handicraft sessions, outdoor celebrations, and, of course, sukkah visiting. On October 10, we sample the special activities underway in Yatir Forest.
Hundreds of people from Haredi (ultra-orthodox) communities in the Negev took part in the Sukkot celebrations at the KKL-JNF Field and Forest Center in Yatir Forest and enjoyed guided tours of the area, and inflatable play equipment and pita-bread baking for the children.
At the same time, hundreds of members of the French Scout Movement, who are active in Israel, were engaged in a variety of activities at a Sukkot camp at the field center, as were teens from the Noar HaOved VeHaLomed youth movement.
The Haredi family group was escorted by Rabbi Doron Vaknin from Yeruham’s Haredi community, who declared: “Today is a breakthrough event that has been made possible thanks to the open-minded attitude of KKL-JNF. We support unity, we’re building bridges between the worlds and we’re contributing to our community’s knowledge of the country.”
The event was attended by about three hundred members of the Yeruham, Dimona and Beersheba Haredi communities, as part of the KKL-JNF Education Division’s MAOF program, which is designed to promote leadership in Israel’s peripheral areas.
“Our objective is to help the Haredi sector to connect to KKL-JNF values, while at the same time accommodating their special requirements,” explained Southern Region MAOF Coordinator Ro’i Marciano. “By focusing on the things we share, we communicate values that are important to us all, such as love of the land, Jewish heritage and our connection to nature and the environment.”
Yatir Forest, which lies to the northeast of Beersheba, is the largest planted woodland in the Middle East: it extends over an area of 30,000 dunam (approx 7,500 acres) and comprises over four million trees. KKL-JNF began planting it in the 1960s, back in the days when forests consisted mainly of pine trees. Today, however, the emphasis is on local species and on the combination of ecological services the forest provides. The runoff-water harvesting methods developed by KKL-JNF foresters, which involve the use of limans, embankments and dams, enable floodwater to be contained and collected, and so prevent soil erosion, enable the forest to survive in an arid desert area and helps combat desertification.
When KKL-JNF guide Bustan Farjun welcomed the group, he was dressed in Biblical garb and he told the children how the Patriarch Abraham had trodden the ancient pathways of this desert region as he made his way up to Mount Moriah (now Jerusalem). When the explanations were over, the active fun began and the children went off to enjoy bouncing up and down on the inflatable equipment provided, scaling the climbing wall with the help of ropes, and kneading dough and baking pita bread in a tabun oven. Between activities, they sustained themselves happily with helpings of popcorn and cotton candy.
After their exertions, the children met up in the sukkah to share and eat the pita they had prepared for themselves. “It’s fun to spend time in the forest with all the family,” enthused six-year-old Moshe Deutsch of Yeruham as he summed up his experiences.
The Yatir Field and Forest Center, which opened around a year ago, offers a variety of outdoor educational experiences, tours and land-and-nature activities. While the event was in progress, hundreds of members of the French Scout Movement’s Israeli branch were likewise present at the educational center, where their Sukkot camp was underway.
“There’s a special atmosphere at a camp like this, and it connects us to the desert, the forest and nature,” said Ariel Zarbiv, a guide with the French Scout group.
When fifteen-year-old Hillel Ohion of Jerusalem joined the Israeli branch of the French Scouts he was following in the footsteps of his grandfather and grandmother, who had belonged to the movement in France. His parents immigrated to Israel twenty-five years ago, before he was born, but he has remained attached to his roots nonetheless. Describing the Yatir Field and Forest Center campsite, he said:
“There’s a special atmosphere when we engage in activities like this in a woodland deep in the heart of the desert. Being together in nature is the most fun thing in the world, and there is never a dull moment here. These team-building activities are making us into a cohesive group.”
Adam Uzan (13) of Netanya was born in France and immigrated to Israel with his parents when he was just two years old.
“This is my first time in Yatir Forest, and I was surprised to see such a beautiful green forest in the Negev,” he said. “We’re getting in touch with the spirit of Sukkot, the holiday when we leave the house and get out into nature.”
The HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed youth movement was also spending part of the Sukkot holiday camping out at the Yatir Field and Forest Center.
“We’re having two days of outdoor activities here. It’s fun to spend time in the forest and get in touch with the outdoors,” said fifteen-year-old Lir Haddad of Beersheba.
Just as the four species - the lulav (palm branch), etrog (citron), hadas (myrtle) and arava (willow) – are brought together in the sukkah to symbolize the different kinds of people that make up the Jewish nation, so too, visitors from different countries, cities and backgrounds came together in Yatir Forest. As we know, nature is shared by us all, no matter where we may come from.