B"H

Individual Farmsteads in the Negev

"The Arandel Farm"

Further south, outside the chain of farmsteads constituting the ancient Nabatean “wine route” KKL-JNF is already busy reclaiming land for another farmstead, the first of its kind, to be set up in the Arandel vally near Eilot, Southern Arava . In this vast, empty land stretching to Eilat, a new farmstead is being built on an area of some 60 dunams. Its residents, the Cohen Family and their children, are living at the nearby Kibbutz Yahel, eagerly waiting to move to the site, planting the first olive trees on 20-dunams recently reclaimed by KKL-JNF. The olives in the Arava, exactly as in Ramat Hanegev, will flourish when irrigated with saline water, which can be found in vast quantities under the surface throughout the Negev .

Danny and Keren came here from the city with pure Zionist motivations. Danny is in hi-tech and still works in Tel Aviv while Keren, waiting for the settlement authorizations, works in the coffee shop of Kibbutz Yahel. They belong to a new breed of true pioneers, who are leaving the overcrowded center of the country, exactly as Shimon Peres defined it, in order to merge wide open expanses with Zionist action.

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