By Abigail Klein Leichman - September 6, 2022
If the Israeli cow is the world champion milk producer, if Israel has superior wheat for pasta and bread, if tomatoes grow year-round and citrus fruits are peelable and pit-free — we can thank Yitzhak Elazari Wilkanski.
This agricultural scientist, who immigrated to Ottoman Palestine in 1908 from Lithuania and changed his last name to Volcani, established the Agricultural Experiment Station at Ben Shemen in 1921. This was the forerunner of the Volcani Center Agricultural Research Organization, the research arm of Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture since 1952.
The center’s logo is seven species encircled by a biblical verse describing Israel as “A land of wheat and barley and grapevines and figs and pomegranates, a land of oil olives and dates.”
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