State Trade and Cultural Accords Are Latest Wave of Ties with Israel

Last spring, on 12 acres of land along the Rio Grande, farmers harvested select Israeli strains of cucumbers, melons and tomatoes not previously planted in the United States.

This spring, Texas plans to use Israeli technology to grow 20 different U.S. and Israeli crops, including herbs and cut flowers. The state will invite farmers down to the experimental agriculture site, at Laredo, for training seminars.

The crops are being grown with the use of Israeli drip-irrigation technology, which can be used in regions of Texas where water is scarce. Texas and Israel are continents apart, but they share the same geographic latitude, and hence, similar climates and soils.

Texas and 12 other states are participating in the latest wave of U.S.-Israeli cooperation: trade and cultural accords. The others are California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Virginia and Wisconsin.

In all but Connecticut, the state’s governor or his designate signed the agreement. In Connecticut, the state’s House of Representatives approved the accord, which did not require the governor’s signature.

New York is in the process of negotiating an accord, said Milton Elbogen, Israel’s deputy trade commissioner to the United States.

All but two of the states’ accords have been signed since 1987. The Texas agreement was concluded in 1984, and Virginia followed in 1986.

HOLOCAUST CURRICULUM IN VIRGINIA

“The greater the state is industrially developed, the greater the chance there is for an agreement,” said Howard Seligmann, attache at Israel’s economic mission to North America. One reason is that the Jewish population, and there fore support of Israel, is highly concentrated in the industrial states.

But largely rural states, interested in Israeli farming methods, may conclude agreements with Israel in the future.

A byproduct of the accords is increased tourism and cultural ties with Israel. But these are long-term dividends that have not yet been realized in most states.

In Virginia, though, a private group overseeing the cooperation with Israel helped write the state’s first Holocaust curriculum. The group took over supervision of the bilateral relationship after a state commission’s two-year mandate expired.

Although foundations and businesses are the main financiers of the bodies that implement the exchange agreements, Jewish groups are also making contributions.

In Virginia, the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater donated $10,000 to meet the commission’s $250,000 fund-raising goal from private sources, said A. Robert Gast, the federation’s executive vice president.

In Texas, the Jewish National Fund of America contributed $50,000 in “seed money” to bring three agricultural experts from Israel for the initial planning study for the project, said Dolores Wilkenfeld, a member of the JNF board in Houston.

The project transcends political and military ties between the two countries, Wilkenfeld said. “We are talking about the basic feeding of people.”

Besides Texas, two other states are mainly interested in agricultural cooperation.

Minnesota plans to set up a joint project to demonstrate irrigation techniques, said Judith Yellin, executive director of the American-Israel Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Minnesota.

California will use Israeli technology to grow crops in saline soils and on generally nonproductive land. The state will also grow specialty crops in drought conditions, said Ernest Glaser, chairman of the California-Israel Exchange. He applied a few months ago for tax-exempt status to begin raising funds.

DEAD SEA VENTURE WITH MARYLAND

However, Israel’s drip-irrigation technology will not be used, Glaser said, because Israel has licensed California companies to use that technology, which is not the case in Texas. “We don’t want to compete” with local companies, Glaser said.

Aside from the agricultural projects in Texas, Minnesota and California, the main emphasis of the states so far has been on forming joint ventures, to combine Israeli technology with U.S. marketing know-how and contacts worldwide.

In Maryland, which signed an agreement with Israel in May, one venture has a Baltimore company sending dredge equipment to excavate salt deposits from the Dead Sea. Phosphates from the mines are then shipped back to Maryland, said Esther Gelman, consultant to the state government’s Office of International Trade.

New Jersey may hold a seminar on ventures with Israel, as it is planning to do on ventures between U.S. and Canadian firms, said Leonard Goldner, New Jersey’s chief foreign investment officer.

Illinois hopes to ease the transfer of technology rights between U.S. firms and Israeli scientific institutions, including the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Michigan is trying to match 20 companies in the state with Israeli counterparts for joint ventures.

MASSACHUSETTS REP IN ISRAEL

Missouri is gathering information about local firms for a trade show in Tel Aviv in February.

Wisconsin is trying to bring together U.S. and Israeli universities and businesses in the fields of biotechnology, super computers and medical devices.

Florida plans to emphasize trade initially, but is currently consulting with organizers of educational exchanges begun between two state colleges and Israel independent of the accord, said Thomas Slattery, chief of Florida’s Bureau of International Trade and Development.

The initial agreement was signed in Israel by former Florida Secretary of Commerce Jeb Bush, son of President-elect George Bush.

One of the few consumer-oriented projects to date occurred in Massachusetts, where a multi-million dollar fair of Israeli goods was sponsored by Jordan Marsh, a large department store chain in Boston.

Although the project was planned before Massachusetts signed its accord in May 1987, it was organized with the help of the state’s representative in Israel. Massachusetts is the only state so far to have its own staff there.