Cattle for Israel – Part III

The Levinson livestock trips were known by the Israel Cattle Breeder’s Association as “Operation Cattle and Draught Animals for Israel.” Living near the Mennonite community in Denbigh, Virginia, and being acquainted with the service of Mennonite seagoing cowboys for UNRRA, it was to the Mennonites the Levinson brothers appealed to find their cattle tenders for this operation.

Mennonite seagoing cowboys to Israel, June 1951. Photo courtesy of Virgil Stoltzfus.

A February 1959 letter from the Israel Cattle Breeder’s Association to Melvin Gingerich of the Mennonite Research Foundation praises the work of these young Mennonites:

As you may know, altogether some 15 ships with 12,000 cows, heifers, and calves and some 5,000 horses and mules have been bought and shipped to Israel in the years 1950/1953.

Having been in charge together with Mr. Ben Levinson of Williamsburg, Virginia, I must say that the help, eagerness and devotion of these boys was so high; that I’m sure was a big factor in the success of my mission.

I take this occasion to express on behalf of the Members of this Association our thanks to all that took part in the Operation.

I’m sorry that I can’t give you a list of the participants, but Mr. Ben Levinson might have those lists in his files, all I can say is that at least 100 boys of your church have taken part in this Operation, and they are all very fine cowmen.

May I add that the Operation as a whole has been very successful, the milk production in Israel since has gone up from 180 million pounds to 440 million, and the average per cow yearly production went up from 8,000 pounds to 11,000.

Yours very truly,
L.E. Shmaragd, Secretary

As to the value of these trips, Fred Gingerich called it “a wonderful broadening experience.” Bob Eshleman notes, “It increased my self confidence and self worth.” For Jim Rhodes, it was his first exposure to hunger. “I saw children in Turkey chasing each other and fighting over cast aside apple cores and other food scraps,” he says. And for Kenton Brubaker, it was an “introduction to the situation in Palestine. I witnessed the destruction of Arab homes in Haifa, the tension in Jerusalem. It gave me a base of contrast for two more recent visits to Israel and Bethlehem.” And several of these cowboys cited seeing the Holy Lands and the opportunity to walk where Jesus had walked.

Virgil Stoltzfus caring for heifers en route to Israel, June 1951. Photo courtesy of Virgil Stoltzfus.

War ruins in Haifa. Photo courtesy of Virgil Stoltzfus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Israel Cattle Breeder’s Letter from Melvin Gingerich files, Mennonite Church USA Archives. Edited. [Note that Melvin Gingerich researched the work of the Mennonite seagoing cowboys to Israel and was not one himself. He also had no relationship to Fred Gingerich.]

Cattle for Israel – Part II

The S. S. Columbia Heights was one of two main ships used for the Israel program. Photo credit: Virgil Stoltzfus.

For Israel cowboys Jim Rhodes and Bob Eshleman, a first stop in Iskenderun, Turkey, in September 1952 resulted in a near military arrest. The pair rented bicycles to tour the countryside while some of their ship’s cargo was unloaded. A couple of miles outside the city, while passing what looked like a phone booth, a Turkish armed guard stepped out. The guard motioned with his gun for the pair to dismount and follow him.

“He didn’t speak English and we didn’t speak Turkish,” says Rhodes. “We were taken over a hill to a Quonset hut type of building. He escorted us inside and with his rifle motioned for us to sit down.”

“It was scary!” says Eshleman.

Some time later, an official came out of an office. “He asked us in perfect English who we were, where we were from, and what we were doing,” says Rhodes. “After that, his questions continued – about baseball! He finally said he believed us, since only American boys would know that much about the National League and the pennant races.” Their interrogator kindly informed them they were trespassing in a military zone, in an area being prepared for a NATO air base. The boys were treated to a tour of the site and a good meal in the mess hall before being transported back into the city.

Their host told the boys the base was hiring civilian help and offered them jobs operating earth moving equipment. “American boys who grew up around tractors could learn to run the equipment,” he told them.

“The pay would have been quite good,” Rhodes says, “but we declined. Instead of facing a firing squad, we were treated quite well.”

After the 1,070 sheep and 256 goats on board were unloaded, the S. S. Columbia Heights took the boys on to Haifa where 317 mules, 20 cows, and 20 bulls were delivered and where they had the opportunity to tour the Holy Lands.

“Our worst detail was unloading the manure and bedding from our hold,” says Eshleman. “In the lower holds, the ammonia nearly overcame us.”

“All the manure was to be dumped overboard in the Mediterranean before heading out into the Atlantic,” Rhodes says. “We were told it enhanced the nutrients in the water which benefited the fishing industry.”

J. Harold Buckwalter’s crew on the S. S. Pass Christian Victory was given a different explanation. “The cleaning was done by hand, with pitch forks and shovel. It was loaded into canvas slings and hoisted by boom and dumped over the side of the vessel. The job must be completed before we entered the Atlantic so the booms could be secured and hatches covered. We were only several days into the Atlantic when we understood why everything had to be secured.” Buckwalter also recalls, “We were given putty knives and steel brushes to clean every corner and square inch of the area.”

On another trip of the S. S. Columbia Heights, cowboy Theron Schlabach notes that for his crew, “once the manure was out we would take up the heavy planks that served as the floorboards of the pens, lean them up against the framework, and scrub every square inch of floorboard and superstructure thoroughly with steel brushes and lye-water. The lye burned our skin. But we worked diligently.”

That diligence did not go unnoticed, as we will see in the next post.

Cattle for Israel: An additional seagoing cowboy program – Part I

Key figures in the supply of livestock for UNRRA’s shipments to Europe after WWII were two Jewish brothers, Ben and Sol Levinson, owners of the Levinson Livestock Company. With an office in Newport News, Virginia, and a 4,000-acre farm along the C&O railroad near Williamsburg, they re-purposed a 600-head feed lot for handling animals for export. Two years after UNRRA’s work ceased, the Levinson brothers were exporting again – this time to Israel. The first shipment left Newport News November 16, 1949, setting a new seagoing cowboy program in motion.

The S. S. Pass Christian Victory loads cattle for Israel in Newport News, VA, Nov. 1949. Photo credit: John R. Martin.

The Palestine News of December 2, 1949, reported the shipment’s arrival:

HAIFA, Thursday [Dec. 1]. — More milk will flow in Israel after today’s arrival of 744 milch cows, 42 calves and two bulls of Friesian stock, on the s.s. Pass Christian Victory, a ship of the U.S. Maritime Commission. This is the first consignment of cattle ordered by the Jewish Agency Agricultural Department, for building up livestock in new settlements.

Seagoing cowboy J. Harold Buckwalter notes in his diary on November 16:

They loaded no. 5 hatch first with the milk cows. We started milking first thing. Our beginning number was about 40. (We loaded 900 bred registered Holstien [sic] heifers, which were scheduled to give birth to their first calves after arrival in Israel!, but because the ship was delayed in New Orleans, before coming to Newport News, the calves began to arrive before sailing and we milked our way across the atlantic!)

First crew of seagoing cowboys for Israel livestock program, Nov. 1949. Photo credit: John R. Martin.

“We were supposed to have milking machines on board,” says Lewis Burkholder. “I went as a milker and the pay was $175.00. Some men went as feeders and their pay was $150.00.”

The extra pay hardly made up for the rigors of the job. “By the time we got to Israel we were milking eight hours a day,” Burkholder says. “Four in the morning and four in the evening.”

The crossing was a rough one. “Imagine milking cows by hand with the ship rolling from side to side and most of the cows were first lactation heifers and many of us were seasick. Our hands got very, very sore from milking so many hours. One man had brought a large bottle of liniment along, so in the evening we would rub it on our hands and then hold our hands over the light bulb at each bed.”

What did they do with so much milk? one wonders. “We were supposed to pull the milk up to the deck and dump it over the side,” Burkholder says. “We learned that some cows would drink the milk so we recycled some of it. Some cows would drink as much as ten gallons.”

Camels walking through Nazareth, Dec. 1949. Photo credit: J. Harold Buckwalter.

On arrival in Haifa, J. Harold Buckwalter recalls receiving a “Royal Welcome.” Their hard work was rewarded when the cowboys were given a two-day, all-expense-paid tour of the Holy Lands by the Israeli government. Buckwalter notes seeing “flocks of sheep along the hills,” seeing “Arabs along the roads, riding donkeys,” driving past “citrus groves and olive trees, palms and banana trees,” seeing “immigration settlements, living in tents.” They visited a Kibbutz and Holy sites in Nazareth, Jerusalem, and Mount Zion. On their own after the tour, they explored the Sea of Galilee and Tel Aviv and went up Mount Carmel for a view of Haifa at night.

John R. Martin notes, “The trip turned out to be an experience of a life time.”

(to be continued)