In Zemo Alvani, a village nestled in Georgia’s Caucasus mountains in the north of the country, Natia Matcharashvili carefully handpicks the ripest wheat grains from her fields. As a first-generation farmer, she takes pride in every harvest that will soon be milled into flour.

Natia and her husband Shota moved their family back to their village from the capital, Tbilisi, to be closer to nature, especially for the sake of their children. In fact, Shota had longed to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and become a farmer. He felt it his calling to bring native wheat varieties back in use, as they were slowly disappearing from Georgian fields.

“It’s our responsibility to protect these traditional wheat varieties that have adapted to our soil and climate over generations,” says Natia. “We wanted to share our traditions and live in harmony with nature,’’ she explains about moving back to Zemo Alvani.

For Natia and Shota, growing these traditional varieties of wheat, which are used in the fresh bread and cookies sold in their bakery, is a way to share their heritage with their customers.

“What started as a simple desire became our livelihood. Now we’ve grown a few [native varieties] and tasted them, and we want to keep going, discovering more of these forgotten Georgian varieties and bringing them back to life, ” Natia explains.

Living heritage at risk

Georgia is home to remarkable wheat diversity. Of the fourteen wheat species grown in the country, five originated from Georgia itself.

Yet, without action, this living heritage risks being lost forever.

Native wheat varieties have nearly vanished from Georgia’s fields, replaced by modern varieties developed by professional breeders. Decades of centralized agriculture in the Soviet era left large, state cooperatives instead of small private farms that used to be tended to by generations of farmers.

That’s where Tamriko Jinjikhadze, an agricultural scientist at the Scientific Research Centre of Agriculture (SRCA) of Georgia, stepped in to reverse the troubling trend of genetic diversity loss.

“Some of our country’s most important crops varieties are quietly disappearing,” Tamriko explains.

With international support, Tamriko’s team launched seed collecting missions to remote areas, identifying local varieties still cultivated by small-scale farmers.

It was on one such mission that she first met Natia and Shota. The couple knew that they were growing a local wheat variety, but they did not know its name or its specificities. Tamriko’s team collected seeds found on Natia and Shota’s field for identification at the SRCA.

Local varieties are important to Georgian farmers because they generally perform better in their place of origin, having adapted to specific conditions through generations of cultivation. For instance, native Georgian wheat varieties have higher resistance to fungal diseases and higher productivity than other varieties.

Georgian wheats are genetic treasures, carrying invaluable genes for local adaptation. “They serve as initial breeding material to develop resilient wheat varieties that can survive climate change and new pests and diseases,” Tamriko explains.

Journey to the Arctic

The journey of these ancient seeds didn’t end in Georgian soil. More than 200 samples of seeds of traditional Georgian varieties, such as Lagoedkhis Gdzeltavtava and Dolis Puri, the two local wheat varieties found on Natia and Shota’s fields, traveled with Tamriko from the remote Georgian mountain villages to the Arctic Circle, where the world’s largest seed reserve is based.

Located in northernmost Norway, about 2 000 kilometres north of the country’s capital, Oslo, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault maintains a constant temperature of -18°C to ensure long-term seed viability. This Vault holds seed duplicates from around the globe, safeguarding the world’s future food supply.

“It’s very comforting to know that our local varieties are safely preserved in Svalbard,” says Shota. ” This makes me feel confident about the future.”

This security couldn’t come at a more crucial time, as climate change and environmental challenges are eroding genetic diversity. As a result, preserving crop varieties through methods such as secure storage in gene banks and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault has become more important than ever.

“The journey of these seeds begins in the hands of farmers—their knowledge is as vital as the seeds themselves,” says Tamriko. “We, as scientists, are here to support them—not just to conserve seeds, but to ensure they can be used for livelihoods.’’

For Natia, this work represents both her heritage and her future. “By growing these local wheat varieties, we’re ensuring both their survival and the transmission of our knowledge,” she concludes.

When customers bite into fresh bread at Natia and Shota’s bakery, they’re tasting ancient seeds recovered by scientists, duplicated and safeguarded in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and conserved by farmers in Georgia, ensuring that the past continues to nourish the future, one seed at a time.

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Israel Is Both Sick and Healthy –  In the midst of a tragic war, this winter’s rains are remarkably balanced.

These are strange times in Israel. Israel the People are perhaps in more trouble than anytime since the Holocaust. Our nation is in pain, alone and afraid. Yet Israel the Land is healthier than ever, because this year’s winter rains are falling hard and steady, balanced and healthy.

Healthy Israel

Throughout the Torah, the Land of Israel’s state of health is expressed by the winter rain cycle. When they come on time, nurturing the year’s new life, Israel is healthy and thriving, and supports its children with bountiful harvests. When they don’t arrive, or if they come at the wrong time, Israel falls ill, and its children, in turn, suffer from drought.

Here is the Torah’s first blessing for those who follow its ways faithfully:

I’ll give the rains in their time, and the land will give its harvest, and the trees of the orchard will give their fruits (Leviticus 26:3)

To which the Ramban (Nachmanides) commented: “He began with the rains, because when they come on time, as is proper, the air will be pure and good, and the springs and rivers good. This will bring health to physical bodies, and all the fruits will be plentiful and blessed by them [the rains].”

Then people won’t get sick, and they and their animals won’t miscarry or be barren. Their days will be full, because when bodies are large and healthy, they survive their whole lifespan. This is the greatest of blessings.

Israel the Land is healthy from balanced rain, because health means balance. A healthy Israel, in turn, supports healthy and balanced lives for Israel the Nation. Therefore, Jews gather during the fall festival of Sukkos for a special rain-prayer, and gather again in the spring festival of Pesach to pray for dew instead of rain.

Healthy rain, like we’re experiencing this year, is spread out evenly along the winter months. Every week or two, there’s a few days of rain, then a break to allow Natural Israel to absorb the blessing and grow its plants. The ground isn’t parched nor a muddy morass.

When we’re out on foraging walks these days, Israel shouts its vibrant health from the countless leaves, flowers, and shrubs in every corner of the countryside. New, fresh life greets us at every turn.

Khirbet Urva

Last week, we were foraging on Khirbet Urva, a lovely hilltop village near Bet Shemesh that dates back at least to the Second Temple Period. Khirbet Urva isn’t particularly well known; I doubt it receives more than a few dozen visitors a year. When every second hill in the area sports millennia-old settlements, only a select few get famous, often simply because they are the most accessible by car.

In places like Khirbet Urva, the verdant foliage between the rows of ancient stones bonds together the places and people of the past, present, and future. Foraging here makes Israel come alive; our heritage isn’t just half-buried buildings and walls, because local wild plants silently bear witness to the march of time. We roam around eating the plants whose ancestors were eaten by our ancestors right here.

One of my favorite annual plants, milk thistle, guzzles huge quantities of water in its upward rush. The milk thistle now is in the “celery stage,” where we forage the juicy stalks.

Take a look at one of Khirbet Urva’s scores of milk thistle patches:

Both Sick and Healthy 

I don’t know how to resolve God’s conflicting signals to Israel: terrible war but thriving healthy rain. 

But I don’t really think it’s a problem, because both are true. Inside the midst of tragedy, God is sending us a message of comfort and hope with the pitter-patter of raindrops on our windows. 

For that we can be grateful.

Rain-life Today

Maybe you’re wondering why you should care about Israel’s rainfall in the 21th century when most of the country’s water comes from desalination? 

In my new book, Land of Health: Israel’s War for Wellness, I explain how rain is the model of livelihood that descends as a gift from heaven, as opposed to river-based life which we wrest away from nature. Land of Health is available now on Amazon, in bookstores in Israel, and directly from me in Bet Shemesh, Israel. 

Upcoming Foraging Walk in RBS

Would you like to join me on a foraging walk in Natural Israel?

Contact me today to book your private walk. I’m also guiding a discounted open walk in Ramat Bet Shemesh on Election Day (Tuesday, February 27). The walk will have two parts: an easy walk in the local Yarmut Park, followed by an easy hike on a nearby hill that sports a Second Temple Period clay lamp factory and town. 

Shmuel Chaim Naiman is a health teacher and foraging guide in Ramat Bet Shemesh. He writes about healthy Jewish living and Israel’s natural world, teaches the nightly Healthy Jew class at Yeshivas Lev Hatorah, guides popular foraging walks, and offers personalized health coaching. He recently published a book, Land of Health: Israel’s War for Wellness, which is available on Amazon and in bookstores (in Israel). Learn more at healthyjew.org, and contact him at scnaiman@healthyjew.org.

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The show, produced by Yaara Sharon and Sarah Peguine, opens Thursday, March 5th (Purim Eve) and runs until Saturday, March 28th.

It features original artworks including paintings, prints, illustrations, and photography by 22 artists, alongside fashion accessories designed by about five of them, all for sale across a range of prices.

A series of lectures and cultural evenings are also planned.

Participating artists are Know Hope, BFC, Pilpeled, Foma, Dioz Ido Shemi, Work Hard Be Nice, Tom & Gal Melnick- Stolen Goods, Guma, GIDA 1 Geffen Refaeli, Noa Ginzburg, Dar Rotem, Itay Blaish, Tamar Moskovitz (GO-TAM) Naama Berkovich, Gal Cohen Orit Pnini, Meital Weinberg Adar, Yoni Passy, Fima Shlick, and Yassoo Tessel.

Green Prophet spoke with show producer, Sarah Peguine, who offered some insight into both the show and the building that is hosting it, and shared these images of some of the featured art.

GP: There is a section of Tel Aviv called the White City – an urban museum of sorts of Bauhaus architecture.  Is the event in or near that neighborhood? 

SP: Yes,  Gordon Street and its surroundings are rich with Bauhaus buildings.  There are a few different neighborhoods boasting this architecture, and this is definitely one of them.  This is also a vibrant cultural area.  We are surrounded by the Tel Aviv Art Museum, Givon Gallery, The Kibbutz Gallery, N&N Aman Gallery and Gordon Gallery.

GP: The building that’s hosting  the event is about to become a construction site. That’s an unusual venue for an art exhibition. 

SP: The building developers invited us to hold our temporary art exhibition there, in part to support young, emerging artists and also to promote their unusual and sustainable renovation project. Construction will start in a few weeks, until then they are hosting cultural events in what used to be commercial spaces. The whole idea is to make a fun event which promotes creativity and good vibes, while mirroring the same values that the renovation project is talking about.

The renovation aligns with the preservation plan for Tel Aviv’s conservation area, which moderates and controls growth in the historic core area. The redesign addresses a growing need for buildings that cater to an ecological lifestyle/infrastructure in the present urban context. The developers are looking beyond the land’s real estate value, aiming to restore its original value as a source of life, a springboard for cultural development and growth.

The commercial sections of the building will continue to act as businesses. The rooftop and yard will feature gardens with edible and decorative plants. There is clear emphasis on sustainable design.

GP: How did you select participating artists?

SP: We tried to select artists, both emerging and prominent, who we personally find interesting and who work across many different media and techniques.

GP: What is the significance of the title “Fertile Ground”?

SP: The title we chose for the show is the same used for the renovation project.

It’s relevant when talking about art – the idea is to offer fertile ground for creativity and artists to show their works.

This event is the first collaboration between Peguine and Sharon.

Peguine is an art and media advisor,  She is founder and editor of “Oh-So-Arty” and “Art Galleries In Tel Aviv”, digital platforms dedicated to Israeli contemporary art. She also runs bespoke art tours in Israel.

Sharon spent a decade abroad in London, and Paris and Beijing where she worked in theater, and as an official promoter of Israeli culture on behalf of the Israeli embassy in Beijing.

She now works with emerging Israeli artists, curating contemporary art exhibits in Israel.

If you can’t get to the Tel Aviv show, contact the organizers via their Facebook page (link here) and they will share images and pricing for those interested in purchasing.

Images of artwork courtesy of  Ido Shemi, Unga – Broken Fingaz Crew, GIDA 1, Gal Cohen, Yoni Passy, Geffen Refaeli, and Tamar Moskovitz (GO-TAM) 

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