facing Israel. His Ph.D. is in political science. He is very knowledgeable about many current events in Israel and educated us about them. The main topic of his lecture to us was about the Negev, but he also explained to us other problems facing Israel such as illegal immigrants and the borders of Israel.
The main problem of the Negev desert is that it is quite underpopulated while much of the rest of Israel is overpopulated. This is a problem because it is unproductive to have so much unused land. The Negev is also the biggest geographicarea of Israel. The reason many Israelis are pushing to have more people living in the Negev because there is proof that successful towns can be built. An example is Beer Sheva. In the 1990s there was a large Russian immigration to the city of Beer Sheva. That had a big impact on the city as it from a city of 60,000 to a quarter of a million.
Here are some of the questions our group put to Dr. Ben Porat
Q: Tell us about issues that young people face in the Negev
A: Right now people who grow up in the Negev do not want to stay when they are adults. They think there is less opportunity compared to other cities such as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Today I also interviewed a woman named Elah Cohen. She is a woman who works for NGO (non-government organization)to help Bedouins. She was born in Russia, but moved to Tel Aviv when she was a kid. Now she lives in the Negev, and I got her opinion as to why she sees that it is necessary for people to move to the Negev. She said that since Israel is such a small country and in the Negev there are not many people, it only makes sense for people to live there.
Q: Wasn’t it more fun to live in a city like Tel Aviv than the Negev?
A: It was more fun, but it is necessary to have people living in the Negev. It is just a sacrifice that has to be made.
The reason we (AFU/WOFI) are learning about this, is because in order to understand how to better advocate for Israel, we have to have a better understanding for the problems, and controversial events. It is impossible to advocate if the problem is not established and understood thoroughly. My understanding of the Negev was greatly enhanced by interviewing Elah Cohen.
Another AFU-WOFI participant , Ben Jaffee also interviewed Elah Cohen and he added the following perspective:
For 10 years she lived with her husband and two kids in Tel Aviv. Last year however, they moved to a small caravan community by the name of Har Emtzah. This community only has 25 families. They all share the ideal of growing the desolate parts of the country. All of the families in Har Emtzah work together to improve the town as well as improve the roadway system. Recently, she found a passion that goes along with her ideas of improving the people in Israel. She works with several other couples work along with Bedouins to improve their living conditions. The healthcare at the villages are subpar or nonexistent. She saw that if a doctor told a Bedouin family that their child needed to go to the hospital, they would often ignore the advice. Elah is working alongside Bedouin women teaching them how to become a nurse. The group sees this as a way to fix the healthcare problem. They hope that a Bedouin family will be more open to accepting medical advice from one of their own rather than an outsider. The NGO helps the people learn how to become self-sufficient in order to continue improving their society without outside help.