“When people or organizations get older, they often add extra layers of 'cushioning'. KKL-JNF’s 106^th birthday provides us with an opportunity to shed some of those layers, to return to our core values and to reconnect with the vision that led to the establishment of KKL-JNF.” According to Avraham Duvdevani KKL-JNF Co-Chairman, this should be our point of focus this year on 19^th Tevet, the date of KKL-JNF’s 106^th birthday.

The “birthday party” took place at Jerusalem’s Yad Ben-Zvi Institute, located at the historic site of the home of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Israel’s second President. Duvdevani went on to relate a story told by a national poet Haim Nahman Bialik: “Bialik once heard a lecturer ask his class, how much space a person needs to feel secure. Various answers were given. The lecturer then asked his students to imagine that this person is lifted high into the air. How much solid ground would he then need around him in order to feel secure? The answer, the lecturer said, is the measurement of the person’s height in all directions, so that if he falls, there would be enough ground for him to fall on.  As a people,” Duvdevani concluded, “we must have at least the amount of land necessary for our stature as an upcoming nation. KKL-JNF began by redeeming the land of Eretz Israel, and to this day, the land is still the heart of everything KKL-JNF stands for and believes in.”

Yigal Yasinov, KKL-JNF Deputy Chairman, went a step further: “Today, in addition to redeeming land, KKL-JNF must also redeem souls. We must teach the next generation to be proud Zionists and to support Israel as a Jewish state. This is the base that provides us with security. Unfortunately, this is far from self-evident. I was recently at a conference of over 700 young Jewish leaders in the former Soviet Union. After my remarks, a young Jewish woman who is responsible for a Jewish community center in Minsk came up to me. She said that my lecture had been very interesting, but there was one concept I repeated over and over that she didn’t understand. What did I mean by “Zionism?” At first I thought she was joking. My feeling is that the problem is not there, but here in Israel. Post-Zionism, anti-Zionism, all have become legitimate and popular. KKL-JNF, as an arm of the World Zionist Organization, must continue to exert all its efforts to promote Jewish and Zionist education.”

Dr. Bentzi Bar-Lavi, KKL-JNF’s Director of Education & Youth Division, highlighted the goals of KKL-JNF’s educational programs: “Our job is to create meaningful moments by use of original learning methods so that Zionist values will be inculcated on a long-term basis. I would like to thank the Yad Ben-Zvi Institute for hosting us today. It is really a good “match”, because we share a common goal of promoting Zionist history.”

In honor of KKL-JNF’s birthday, a special edition of the Yad Ben-Zvi periodical, Et-Mol, was devoted to KKL-JNF.  Reuven Gafni, Editor of Et-Mol, said that it had been a real pleasure for him to collaborate with KKL-JNF.  “It was such a relief for me to work with an organization where I do not have to explain my belief that the promotion of Zionism and Jewish values is critical!”      

Alexander Hefetz, director of KKL-JNF’s subsidiary Hemnuta,  addressed the issue of Israel’s lands in the past and at the present time: “KKL-JNF was originally entrusted with being the trustee of Israel’s lands as the representative of the entire Jewish people. The money collected in the famous “Blue Box” from Jews all over the world was used to purchase land in what was Palestine, from Arab landholders, many of whom did not even live in the country. KKL-JNF owns 2.6 million dunam of land, which constitute about 12.5% of Israel’s total landmass, which is about 21 million dunam. In 1960, the Israel Lands Authority (ILA) was established. KKL-JNF turned over its lands to the ILA, conditional on the provision that they were to be used solely for Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel, to be leased rather than sold. In exchange, the Ministry of Agriculture’s Afforestation Department was closed, and KKL-JNF became responsible for forestry in Israel. Today, forests cover an area of about one million dunam, mostly on land not owned by KKL-JNF.

“Israel’s Supreme Court is constantly being petitioned to allow non-Jewish settlement on KKL-JNF lands. In the past, land exchanges were made to ensure that there would be land for all of Israel’s citizens, Jew and non-Jew, while the right to establish Jewish settlements on Jewish land was upheld. Today, we are at a watershed, and the question of the day is: Do Jews have a right to Jewish land in the Jewish state? We may only hope that the Zionist vision will take precedence over self-styled champions of “equality” who are actually mouthpieces for the voices of "post-" and anti-Zionism.” 

The next lecturer was Professor Dan Yakir of the Weizmann Institute, an international expert on global warming and the forests' mitigation of its damaging effects, owing to their ability to sequester carbon emissions. “Global warming is a fact. It causes changes in temperature, climate and amounts of precipitation, changes in seasons, a rise of sea levels, and other problems. In the next 20-50 years, much of the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica will melt, causing the sea to rise by about six meters, which means that about 250,000,000 people will lose their homes. The main cause of all this is the sharp increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, primarily due to the use of fossil fuels, in addition to forest fires.

“At the present time, the human race is emitting about 8.8 billion tons of carbon. The interesting thing is that we measure about 4.1 billion tons of carbon in the atmosphere, so the question is: where are the remaining 4.7 billion tons? The answer is that 2.2 billion tons are dissolved in the ocean, while 2.5 billion tons are absorbed by the Earth’s green ecosystems, such as forests. So the seas and the earth are protecting us from experiencing the full effect of our disregard for our environment, and provide us with a little more time to change our ways and look for solutions.

“There is a worldwide network of scientific stations that measure changes and fluctuations in the atmosphere, but unfortunately, most of them are located in developed countries, which have relatively large amounts of annual rainfall. For this reason we decided to build such a station in Israel, and the spot we chose for it was KKL-JNF’s Yatir Forest in the Western Negev. Yatir Forest is unique in that it was planted in a spot that everyone said was absolutely impossible for a forest to grow. Well, here we are forty years later, and Yatir Forest is standing and is very impressive.

“We discovered that although Yatir is located in a semi-arid region, it absorbs almost the same amounts of carbon as forests in Europe and the Americas. As much forested area has been destroyed in the Mediterranean basin, the importance of reforestation cannot be over-emphasized. Each tree absorbs about a ton of carbon annually. KKL-JNF’s afforestation efforts have set a standard for the entire region, and we can only hope that other countries will plant more and more trees, as KKL-JNF has done here in Israel.”

Many of the teachers present asked for educational materials on the fight against global warming, and Dr. Bar-Lavi promised to supply them. After a short break, Nirit Shalev-Halifa spoke about “Forests and Dreams”, and screened a short movie on “KKL-JNF and Ecology”. Popular performance artist Jacki Levy told stories about Jerusalem and its unique characters and the evening concluded with Hatikva, Israel’s national anthem.