First time back in Israel for almost 3 years, decided to visit some friends who live in the Negev (desert) in Israel, on Kibbutz Ketura. A kibbutz has traditionally been a collective community and this one, founded in 1973 is one of the few left still practicing the collective idea of sharing everything as equally as possible. Dates are grown in the Negev because it is hot and dry. The date palm you see here has an amazing story.

On the left our friend Howie who is an early kibbutz member and on the right is Nadav the first child born on the kibbutz. Nadav wears two hats, mostly recently working to produce Argan oil commercially. That's another story. He was our guide for this fascinating journey of 2000 year old date seeds.

Dr. Elaine Solowey is Nadal's mother and he is definitely following in her footsteps. So here's the story. Roman writings tell of the medicinal power of Judean date pits, in their ability to cure wounds. Pits from dates grown in Israel were sent for analysis and it was not a success, no medicinal results. It was determined that the date palms the Romans were talking about probably went extinct. The life span of a date palm is 30-40 years and if they aren't replanted there are no more. Meanwhile, some archaeologists found date pits that were 2000 years old. Dr. Solowey (who by the way grew up in Modesto, California) was not hopeful but planted the pits and waited. Nothing happened, then all of a sudden the pit spouted and grew!

Voila, 17 years later here is Methuselah, a date palm grown from a 2000 year old date pit. Now, this is a male palm (white flowers), and it needs a female to produce dates. Too bad. Then they found more seeds and managed to secure 6 of them.

Here is Hannah, yes a female date palm grown from a 2000 year old date palm. If you look closely you will see the dates. It's too soon to tell if these dates will have the medicinal power the Romans spoke of but it's still a remarkable story. The Argan story is also pretty amazing, and briefly Argan trees only grow in Morocco and are not cultivated. They produce an oil that can be used for cooking but mainly for cosmetics that are wonderful for dry skin. Dr. Solowey and her son Nadav planted 1000 Argan trees at the kibbutz and are engaged in trying to have a commercial extraction of the oil.