Sunday, March 3, 2019: A delegation of German-speaking members of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (ICEJ) spent a day with KKL-JNF on the Gaza Border and planted trees in a ceremony in Tzora Forest.
The International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (ICEJ) delegation to Israel spent their first day touring the country with KKL-JNF. The 22 participants, who hail from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, are all staunch supporters of Israel. Some had
visited Israel several times before while others were here on their first visit.
IECJ tour leader Stephan Lehnert said that they had signed up for the tour thanks to an article he published in their church magazine. “I have been leading these church tours to Israel for over twenty years and it has become a tradition”, he explained.
The visitors’ day began at Moshav Netiv HaAsara on the Gaza border, where they encountered local residents and explored the area. Waiting on the moshav’s eastern side - facing the Gaza Strip - to meet them was Danny Ben David, KKL-JNF Director for the Western Negev. He welcomed them warmly and thanked them for their support.
“The tall trees you see growing all along the edge of the moshav were planted just two years ago by KKL-JNF, following a donation from your organization,” he said. “Besides their beauty and their ecological contribution,
these trees provide enhanced physical protection for the residents of the area. They create a barrier so that snipers in Gaza cannot see what is going on inside the community, and they act as a solid buffer if a bomb explodes in the vicinity.” Ben David described in detail the
explosive kite and incendiary balloon terror attacks perpetuated from across the border in recent months.
After hearing the explanation about the security problems on the Gaza border, one of the delegation participants asked why Israelis chose to continue living there under the constant threat of terror: “Is it for economic reasons or is it because of ideology?”
Ben David suggested that she should wait to get that answer later in the day, from the people who actually live here.
The answer came in due course from veteran Netiv HaAsara resident Suzy Wax, now a grandmother, who was one of the founders of the community and has been living there since 1982. The delegates met with her in the community meeting room, over tea and cookies.
Suzy told them that the moshav was created following the historic signing of the peace agreement with Egypt.
“Israeli farmers in the Sinai, which was due to be returned to Egypt, were instructed to relocate and move back to Israel. We decided to create a new farming community here in the south of the country. At that time there was no border between Israel and the Gaza strip. Gaza city was our closest town. My bank was there and I would shop in the Gaza market. Tens of thousands of Gaza residents crossed into Israel daily for work and hundreds were employed here on the moshav. Today things are very different. Hamas took over the leadership of Gaza and they vow to destroy the State of Israel. We who are living on the Gaza border bear the brunt of their hate and violence.”
Suzy produced the rusty old remains of a Qassam rocket that had been fired into the moshav. “This is an example of what we have to deal with today. We have had days when 40 of them exploded in the perimeter of our moshav. All our homes are protected but when we are outdoors and the alarm is sounded, we have a mere 15 seconds to grab our kids and find shelter. That is scary! However, we will not budge from here. This is our country and we have every right to be here. Our strength comes from the fact that people who live here care about one another. Not one single person has left to live elsewhere.”
Amit Wax, Suzy’s son, said that there is a long waiting list of families that want to live in Netiv HaAsara. “Our new residential neighborhood under construction bears witness to that fact. The demand is greater than the number of houses that are available. Many of the new residents will commute daily to the center of the country but they want to live here because of the quality of life, for themselves and for their children.”
After meeting Suzy, the walk they took along the Gaza separation wall had a much deeper meaning for the group members. They stopped to take photographs at a huge mural calling for peace, which was created together by residents and visitors.
Delegation member Sonia Ulrich, who is a member of a Pentecostal Free Church in Germany and speaks some Hebrew, said that she was not surprised by the resilience of the Israeli Gaza border residents: “Their strength comes from their belief. They know, as I know from reading the bible that they are the chosen people and this land was given to them.”
Later, at the KKL-JNF Donor Recognition Center at Ibbim Park near the Negev town of Sderot, ICEJ’s Stephan Lehnert and Birte Scholz unveiled a plaque which stated in Hebrew, German and English: “A row of security trees were planted by supporters of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem to protect our friends at Netiv HaAsara”.
After lunch at the site, Judith Perl-Strasser, the director of KKL-JNF’s German Speaking Countries Desk, described the mandate of KKL-JNF since its inception 117 years ago: “For over a century, KKL-JNF, which is Israel’s Forest Authority, together with supporters like you from all over the world, has been promoting sustainable development and protecting natural resources to ensure the quality of life for all residents of this country.”
Later in the day, the ICEJ members arrived at the
Tzora Forest in the Judean plain region, where they took part in a tree planting ceremony. KKL-JNF forester Eran Zabadi, who speaks German, met the delegation and told them that Israel’s forests have developed in conjunction with the country’s population growth.
“In 1948, when the State of Israel was formed, there were 600,000 Jews living here and almost no forests. Within a couple of years, some 2 million immigrants arrived and needed employment. KKL-JNF took the lead together with the newly-formed government and put them to work planting trees. This was a win-win situation. They had work and they helped the country by creating forests. Today there are over
240 million hand-planted trees in Israel, and soon, there will be 22 more.”
Zabadi presented each group member with a sapling. ICEJ’s Stephan Lehnert read the Planters Prayer and the participants then went to work planting the trees by hand in the rain-drenched soil. For the delegates, this was clearly a high point of their journey.
Mission participant Julia Kissling, who came with her parents, said: “I decided to come on this particular tour and not on the Bible History Tour that was also available because here we are confronted by real people and real issues. I am very pleased that we started with a day devoted to the work of KKL-JNF.”
Claudia Kissling, Julia’s mother, said that she had been to Israel some 20 years ago as a youngster, and is happy to have come again on a guided tour. “It’s fun when you come on your own, but you miss a lot. For instance, it is impossible for a young person on his own to be exposed to all the things we did today and to meet the people we met. I am very happy that we were able to bring our daughter.”
While planting her tree, Silke Henschel said that she couldn’t count the amount of times that she had been to Israel already. “My romance with this country began in 1991 and 1992 when I worked in the town of Ma’alot as a volunteer with Holocaust survivors. On a later trip I met my husband here and after our wedding, we came back on our honeymoon to Eilat. We have 3 kids who have all been in Israel and our daughter Miriam was a volunteer at Kibbutz Lotan in the Arava in 2015.”
Tour leader Stephan Lehnert was digging and planting a tree with his bare hands while photographing the process and talking on the phone at the same time. Later he explained: ‘I was talking to someone in Germany, who especially asked me to plant a tree in their name and to send pictures.”