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Long-held beef: Local man’s quest to change Israel’s cows

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Message: If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/33926/full/33926/long-held-beef-local-man-s-quest-to-change-israel-s-cows/ Long-held beef: Local man’s quest to change Israel’s cows Friday, December 7, 2007 | by joe eskenazi Robin Rosenblatt is ready to head ‘em up and move ‘em out — way out. The 60-year-old Belmont nurse is in the midst of the longest cattle drive of all time. For the better part of 10 years, he has been advocating that Israel bring in new cows. Instead of Herefords and Angus bred to thrive on America’s abundant fields, Rosenblatt believes scrappy Texas longhorns and Israel’s barren grazing fields are a match made in heaven. “Longhorns could eat the sabra cactus,” said Rosenblatt, who earned a master’s in animal science at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University in 1996. Israel’s current livestock “can’t function,” he said. “They require a great deal of feed, and Israel has been depending on inexpensive grains from America. Well, those feed grains are no longer nearly free — they’re going to alternative fuels.” Some Israeli ranchers are suffering 30 percent yearly losses among their herds — 10 times the normal rate in the United States. After years of making his case and winning allies in Israel’s Agriculture Ministry and universities in the United States and Israel, Rosenblatt formed a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called the Israel American Texas Longhorn Cattle Ecological Project. It’s a difficult name to fit on a letterhead, he concedes. Rosenblatt is now raising funds for his trans-Atlantic cattle drive. He figures it will take $100,000 to get the project started and cost $270,000 over five years. Rosenblatt is a short man with a bushy white mustache who feels most at home wearing a Stetson hat, Wrangler jeans, a striped work shirt with faux pearl snaps and, of course, waterproof brown boots. His quest began during his time at Hebrew University when he studied the cattle industry in East Africa. The situation there — with native cattle shunted aside in favor of less suitable American imports — mirrored Israel’s. While the longhorn is most closely associated with the football program at the University of Texas, the breed has its origins in the Middle East. Rosenblatt points out that a longhorn appears in a Cypriot mosaic dating back from before the birth of Jesus. So, in essence, Rosenblatt wants to bring the longhorn back to Israel. He hopes to deliver either cattle or jars of embryos and semen and “develop the breed there.” Once he and his Israeli partners have a herd of about 300, he hopes to experiment and see how the cows take to Israel’s heat, vegetation and jackals. “Once I’ve demonstrated these cattle can do better, I can donate calves or bulls to help other ranches in the area,” he said. But at the moment Rosenblatt has 100,000 little problems holding him back. Scientifically, he is backed by allies as far-ranging as the chairman of the breed advisory committee of the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America and high officials in Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture. But money has been difficult to lasso. Rosenblatt ruefully notes that many of the organizations he has approached seem more intent on talking about environmentalism than committing to action. “I want to do something for Israel that will contribute to the country and the people, and this is a problem easily solved,” said Rosenblatt, a San Francisco native who figures he has lived 15 years on and off in the Jewish state. “This is a way for family farmers to make a living and support themselves. Israel needs cattle that fit the environment and eat what’s available.”

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