Vision to Reality: The Reut Blog

Last week the Reut Institute held a study visit in the south of Israel, which focused on David Ben Gurion’s vision of the Negev and the Bible.

The study visit was part of Reut’s Strategic Leadership Training Program, which includes a component of Jewish history and tradition. This program is kindly supported by the Shusterman Foundation, through the Center for Leadership Initiatives and Melitz.

We began the visit at Midreshet Sde-Boker and Ben-Gurion’s Desert House Museum, where we discussed the centrality of the Negev in Ben-Gurion’s vision (“It is in the Negev that the creativity and pioneer vigor of Israel shall be tested”). Together with the local guide, Deganit, we examined the relevance of Ben-Gurion’s vision of 20^th century Zionism in today’s reality.

We continued to the southern town of Yerucham, in order to learn from the local leadership about the city’s socio-economic development and community resilience.

In Yerucham were were hosted by its “Culinary Queens” program, initiated by the Atid BaMidbar Foundation. Culinary Queens is a program empowering local women from diverse ethnic groups to host visiting groups in their homes for an enriching multicultural culinary experience. The team’s last stop was a vivid discussion with Atid BaMidbar‘s CEO Deborah Goldman Golan and local leader Michael Biton, dealing with Yerucham’s socio-political past and future prospects, as well as about the ethnic split between Ashkenazi and Sefaradi Jews that is still strongly felt in the Negev.