Original post:
Zemira is a cashier at "Shefa me-ha-Teva" (Nature's Bounty). We call it the shmita store because it markets the produce of the organization Otzar Haaretz. Otzar Haaretz provides produce acceptable during the sabbatical year, while striving to protect local Jewish agriculture.
Whenever I visit I look for Zemira. She'll get my kids a drink of water, but my four-year-old will never use that store's bathroom again. Zemira knows that the cheaper melons outside the store are not heter mechira but are grown in the arava, just like the Otzar Haaretz melons. More on that in a separate post, bli neder.
Zemira noticed me photographing the produce. When I told her about my post last October, she brought me to the office to pull it up on the computer. Roni, the owner, was disappointed that I don't write in Hebrew. He made sure I photographed Zemira, but refused his own chance at immortality because he hadn't shaved recently.
Roni introduced me to two farmers visiting the store. I wasn't able to confirm the information they gave me.
Rami, pictured above, was a farmer in Gush Katif. He grew tomatoes, sherry (cherry tomatoes), and lettuce. He lived in Kerem Shalom, which is a kilometer from the Egyptian border and two kilometers from the Rafiah crossing to Gaza.
Rami recently moved to Petach Tikva to pursue an artisitic career. Next month his sculpture of the town's founder, Yoel Moshe Salomon, will be exhibited on a main street. In the famous song, The Ballad of Yoel Moshe Salomon [lyrics], Salomon sets out from Jaffa along the Yarkon river on his horse until he reaches the site where Petach Tikva now sits. After a false start, Petach Tikva became the first Jewish city founded in modern times, and recently chose the horse as its municipal symbol. But Rami depicts Salomon riding a motorcycle.
I offered to post a picture of his sculpture, but Rami demurred because "haredim don't buy art." A lot of secular Israelis confuse haredim and religious Zionists and Roni tried to set him straight. I asked Rami to call me when the sculpture goes up; he said he would.
Next I met David, an agronomist who came to assist Roni with a tripsim problem. Roni asked if I knew what tripsim were and I said they were tiny insects. He said they were not insects, but mosquitoes, or lice. I said that lice are insects and they agreed that tripsim (thrips) are also insects. I guess these guys are entomologically challenged, like my son's former ganenet. David diagnosed the problem as high temperature during transport.I didn't ask how thrips got into bug-free lettuce in the first place (it has nothing to do with spontaneous generation). The kashrut supervisor takes a number of lettuce samples and if they are clean, the lettuce gets an okay. Lettuce doesn't have to be 100% bug-free, kind of like my challah. So tripsim, once there, can multiply in the right conditions.
Like Rami, David has artistic inclinations and sings for the Oyf Simches band. I suspect Roni may have been pulling my leg about this and David's agronomic expertise, although I wouldn't have guessed by Roni's demeanour. My husband recognized David as the former owner of the makolet across the street. It's a strange country.
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