My Personal Environmental History
September 8, 2021 By: Student Example
My grandparents emigrated from Eastern Europe to Israel in the 1940’s. In this paper, I will focus on my grandparents’ from my mother’s side, since I believe that they represent attitudes of the generation of Holocaust survivors that arrived to Israel after World War II. These attitudes had major impact on how they viewed and changed the environment to serve their needs. My grandparents were born and raised in small villages on the Poland -Russian border. When they entered their adult lives, War World Two broke. As a Jew, my grandfather was sent to a labor camp in Siberia. My grandmother was sent to a concentration camp, from which she escaped and spent the rest of the war years hiding in the forests as a partisan. At the end of the war they met each other in Munich, in a refugee camp. Having lost their loved ones and everything they owned, during the war, the only thing that kept them going, as my grandfather later wrote, was their desire to leave their mark on the world by creating a family, and becoming active participants in building a homeland for the Jewish people in Israel.
They arrived to Jerusalem, shortly after the establishment of the state in 1948. At that time, Jerusalem constituted of a small built area surrounded by many open landscapes that were sporadically occupied by Nomads and small Arab villages. The land served the native population mainly as grazing area for livestock, and many of the local trees were cut off and used as a heating source. The north western part of Jerusalem was cultivated by Jews for agriculture. When my grandparents arrived, they received land at the edge of the city from the Israeli government. Since establishing, developing, and expanding Jewish settlements and industries was viewed as a primary objective, my grandfather used the land to built a flour mill, which set the stage for building and expanding this part of the city as an industrial area.
My grandparents lived off produce, dairy and meat products that were manufactured and produced locally, mainly by Kibbutzim at the north western area just outside the city. However, the Kibbutzim were not able to accommodate the needs of the growing population, and there was a great shortage in food that lasted well into the 1950’s. As a result, the government issued rations per family to prevent selling of food in black markets. Wheat and cotton, after failed attempts to grow them in the area, had to be imported. Trees were also imported at the time from Southern Lebanon. These were fern trees that were planted in many of the lands surrounding Jerusalem. Later, in the 60’s, these trees were infected by parasites and are in the process of dying to this very day.
During my parents’ time, the Jewish population in the area greatly increased. As a result of the growing manpower, expansion and development of cities occurred at a much higher rate. In the building process little attention was paid to environmental concerns. Additional stress on the environment, inflicted by my parents’ generation, was the mass importation of private transportation. During the 60’s and 70’s there was no shortage of food but there was very little variety. As in my grandparents’ generation, most of the food was locally produced and very little raw materials were imported.
Abundance of food and variety are new phenomenon of the 80’s and 90’s. The best example to illustrate this is the fact that, to this very day, Corn Flakes is a generic name in Israel for cereals, because up until 10 years ago, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes was the only brand of cereal available on the market. However, today, big corporations that offer great variety and many choices to consumers have replaced many of the small grocery stores that had been functioning as main food suppliers to local areas. McDonalds’s, Burger-king, Pizza Hut, and other foreign franchises can also be found in many places across the country. Another difference between my generation and the former generations is the growing awareness of the need to preserve and protect the environment. Only in recent years have environmental organizations been established. These organizations act to increase awareness and take action on issues such as the protection of coral reefs in the red sea (that by now are greatly destroyed by pollution), and other marine biota that are in danger. Attention has also been focused, in recent years, on air pollution caused by factories and automobiles. Hopefully, this growing awareness will shape future development of the country.