Jewish sightseeing in Bror Chail, Israel

2003-08-01 Bror Chail, Israel—Profile

From Brazil, historical
gifts of independence

San Diego Jewish Press-Heritage, Aug. 1, 2003

By Donald H. Harrison

BROR CHAIL, Israel—Two items from one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the Middle East are lodged in a small museum on this kibbutz in the Sha'ar Hanegev
region of Israel, near the Gaza Strip.

One is the gavel wielded by Brazil's ambassador to the United Nations, Oswaldo Aranha, when he announced that by a vote of 33 to 13 with 11 abstentions and one absence, the United Nations General Assembly had decided to partition British Mandatory Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab.

The second item is the actual roll call card that the former Brazilian foreign minister kept and signed on Nov. 29, 1947, as United Nations member nations cast their votes whether to create in the Middle East the first Jewish state in nearly 2,000 years along with a new Arab state and an
internationalized Jerusalem.

The neighboring Arab states immediately denounced the vote, setting the stage for Israel¹s Independence War upon the expiration of the British Mandate on May 14, 1948.

Aranha's nation of Brazil was in the majority of countries that favored partition.*

Why are these two historic items exhibited at a local museum at Kibbutz Bror Chail and not at, say, Israel's Independence Museum in Tel Aviv?

The reason stems from the fact that although Bror Chail was founded by Jewish refugees from Egypt a month before independence, it later was settled by Brazilian Zionists.

When Aranha¹s son subsequently paid a visit to the Israeli kibbutz, he presented kibbutz leader Benjamin Roisman, known by the nickname Jimico, with the gavel and vote roll call as a token of enduring friendship. In 1966, the kibbutz opened a Brazilian cultural center dedicated to Aranha's
memory. Today, several Brazilian-inspired art works grace the kibbutz's public places.

Bror Chail's name, meaning "Selection of Soldiers," was chosen because the Jewish revolutionary Shimon Bar Kokhba, who led an unsuccessful revolt against the Romans from 132 to 135 CE, near this place reportedly chose the troops who would serve him.

Besides being foot soldiers in the modern Zionist cause, members of the kibbutz enjoy a reputation for political activism, having produced both the first and second mayors of the Sha'ar Hanegev region and other political figures.

The two mayors, Dov Rosenhaq and Arie Meliz, both were Ashkenazic Jews whose
families had settled in Egypt and later fled to Israel. The late Rosenhaq's son, Ori, is still a member of the kibbutz and, true to the pioneer tradition, works in the fields.

Meliz is a patient at Beit Chail, the kibbutz's 36-bed hospital for senior citizens, whose director, Israel Kasmon, expresses interest in exchanging information about geriatric treatment with the Seacrest Village Retirement Communities in Encinitas and Poway.

Edelgard Bulmahn, a student who spent 1972 working at Bror Chail, in 1998 become Germany's federal minister for education and research. Kibbutz member Bernardo Cymryng served as an assistant to Yitzhak Rabin during his 1974-1976 term as Israel¹s prime minister.

Jaim Averbuck was among the settlers who came to the kibbutz from Brazil in the 1950s. "We had seven groups from Brazil," he recalled. "The first group decided to come here to Sha'ar Hanegev because of their Zionist ideals. The others followed."

Averbuck, in 1958, was a member of the sixth such group to immigrate from Brazil. "I was a teacher of economics and I came here to grow potatoes," he said. "We wanted to make the Negev into Manaus (a large Brazilian city carved out of the jungle on the Amazon River).

"In the beginning, it was hard for the people to live in houses without toilets or air conditioning, and to be working in the fields, picking cotton by hand. It was incredible that people from rich families came here to work. We were here to build a new country."

Fueled with idealism, the kibbutz at first devoted itself mainly to agriculture. Kibbutzniks raised chickens to eat, cows for their milk, and all kinds of vegetables, especially potatoes, as well as such fruits as avocados, oranges and persimmons.

Averbuck recalled his first 25 years as a kibbutznik as socially idyllic. But in 1984, he said, came a crisis.

"There was big inflation," he remembered. "The kibbutzim didn't have the capital to pay off their loans and balloon payments were pending. When (Israel Prime Minister Menachem) Begin came in there had been a change of government, there was no longer the Mapai (party of David Ben Gurion), and a lot of members of the kibbutz decided to leave, rather than pay off the
loans."

From 350 voting members, the kibbutz dropped to its 200 voting members today. Another 400 people live on the kibbutz either as dependents or as renters.

The economy prompted some changes on the kibbutz. It abandoned its near-communist system (of each contributing according to their ability and each drawing according to their needs) for one that Averbuck described as "something between socialism and capitalism."

"We were one of the first to change," he said. "With privatization, members paid for their food and their electricity. They got paid overtime and for working on Shabbat. After some time, they even approved a differential payment in salaries," reflecting the fact that on the outside a manager can receive more money than a worker.

At the same time, declared Averbuck, "we didn't forget our mutual responsibility for the people who live here."

In 1980, even before the crisis, the members of Bror Chail decided to branch out into industry. They chose a vegetable dehydration factory that dried out potatoes and onions in a manner suitable for export and reuse in soups.

Pinhas Sapir, a long-time minister of finance who later served as chairman of the Jewish Agency, told the kibbutz that this business was impractical and not in Israel¹s best interest. "He said 'you have to buy the water, and then it takes energy to dry the water,'" Averbuck recalled. So the
equipment from the dehydration factory was sold and the kibbutz next went into baking pizzas. which were frozen and sold throughout Israel. Later, a meat packing company that makes hot dogs and bourekas merged baking operations with the pizza factory.

The outside company owns 85 percent of the factory and the kibbutz owns 15 percent. The kibbutz collects rent and has 15 workers employed by the factory, including the manager. Other workers are from the nearby city of Sderot.

Another kibbutz enterprise is ANAT/Keshev, a company that writes software for agriculture. It helps users manage the planting of their fields and the raising of chickens and cows. "It works in Israel and now we are trying to export this software, especially to South America," said Uzi Dory, a non-kibbutz member who was hired to serve as its business and management
consultant.

The software is being translated not only into Portuguese and Spanish for the South American market, but also into English and Russian, Dory reported.

A larger project the kibbutz has in mind is a mineral hot springs resort to be developed above the underground aquifer serving the Sha'ar Hanegev region..

"We could build it for $2 million," he said. "We would also like to do a little hotel, together with someone."
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*Brazil was joined by Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Byelorussia, Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Sweden, the Ukraine, the Union of South Africa, the Soviet Union, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Such Arab countries as Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen led the opposition, joined by Afghanistan, Cuba, Greece, India, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey.

Siam (Thailand) was absent for the vote, while abstentions were cast by the United Kingdom, which then was the mandated ruler of the area, and Argentina, Chile, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico and Yugoslavia.