Aliyah Entry 83: Citrus Orchard Museum, Rehovot

Pre-Game Pain

After my Israeli dental insurance hygienist visit, my teeth were like sandpaper. As it’s the same price as a private dentist and two separate appointments have to be made, it’s private dentist for me in the future. This does not bode well for eating citrus fruit as a developed a canker soar on the tip of my tongue. After a few days I went to the pharmacy to ask what to do – as dental wax wasn’t cutting it (unintended though warranted pun).

The pharmacist (all pharmacists speak English) suggested medicine 1. I asked what else he had … some natural medicine and some super strong medicine which you stick a Q-tip in a rub on the sore once and only once. “It will hurt though it works best.”

Walked to my car in the underground parking lot, sat down, door still open, looked at the medication … made in Minneapolis. Interesting. Followed the instructions, touch the Q-tip to the soar and involuntarily let out a scream in the middle of the parking lot. It was like I touched my tongue with a 500-degree metal nail. Looked more closely at this brand … never heard of it. Googled it … it’s not approved by the FDA for sale in the United States. Of course it isn’t. You could use this stuff to torture a confession out of someone.

“If you’re soar isn’t foaming white you haven’t done it right”. Took me many tries and agony to hold this to my tongue long enough to boil my tongue. What it’s like to be an Israeli.

Finding the Citrus Orchard Museum

Waze gets you kind of close … then there’s a lot of construction, roads you can’t go down despite Waze saying to … and driving around dirt roads until you find it. The entrance looks like this:

There are no signs on the museum. There are no signs how to get there on any of the dirt roads leading up to it. My clue that I found it was the handicapped parking signs … must be there for a reason.

This was, in fact, the main road back in 1904 – who knows when, when the citrus grove was founded by secular Jews from Odessa who came here to speak only Hebrew and live off the land without help from others, including Rothschild (which has a really funny pronunciation in Hebrew) who gave money to many surrounding settlements.

Tour in Hebrew

I work American hours which is great for avoiding crowds … anywhere. In the middle of a Tuesday, I was the only visitor, and the only guides spoke Hebrew. This is the first time since I moved to Israel that I actually got to speak and listen to Hebrew face to face with someone for a long period of time. There was no one there to help translate … or who understood Hebrew better so I couldn’t follow … it was great. I’ve gotten to the level, with a tutor six days a week, where when she spoke slowly and using simple Hebrew and pantomimes, I could understand almost everything she said. It was great though so tiring for me. Reminds me of ulpan class which was 8:30am to 1:00pm and why I couldn’t handle that along with working full time.

The Well

How do you get fresh water a few miles from the ocean with no rivers? Dig. By hand – 30 feet – and then have a pipe go down further connected to a pump. Pump all night, every night:

On a hike in Modiin in Canada Park (paid for by Canadian Jews) I happened upon another well dating from the 4th century-ish:

I need to work on my well picture-taking skills … these are the first two wells of this size I’ve ever run into. This second well is only about 20 feet deep though it’s amazing to me how the construction techniques didn’t change in 1500 years.

They pumped the water into this pool – and also swam there while keeping donkeys out:

When not planting and growing citrus – or other fruits/nuts nearby, they made horseshoes:

The Citrus Groves

After the owner of the citrus grove died, his kids weren’t interested in continuing to farm. The farm became a museum in the 1970s though the trees are still growing just fine:

They do a lot of school tours and have a cute train for the kids to take (background) and she told me that when lemon trees are planted, they have two grow together for strength:

They put these fly catching bottles near the train line because flies put eggs into kids’ cuts from citrus:

They’ve got oranges, red oranges, grapefruit, cumquats, clementines, lemons, sweet lemons, and Chinese lemon (never seen them in America – they’re like a one-time use lemon for squeezing into your drink).

Conclusion

It’s a fun place with a good guide telling you what you’re looking at … especially when you’re not there with a group and you get to eat the fruit off the tree.

They made some idols to show what it was like there back in the day … for example, there’s someone proposing in the back, kids playing tug-of-war, and an iron with a heavy chunk of metal heated in a fire before burning off canker sores.