The six-week course aims at supplying farmers with additional skills, as well as providing a source of livelihood for Jews expelled from Gaza and agricultural workers formerly employed in the force-feeding of geese to produce foie gras until Israel’s Supreme Court banned the practice.
The courses are offered at the Agriculture Ministry’s headquarters in Beit Dagan. Forty people took part in the first course. “They were from all over Israel,” said Yosef Karso, one of the instructors, “from the Galilee to the Arava.”
Topics covered include care of the animals – milking, nourishment, treatment of disease and first aid. They also covered breeding and delivery of young. Even the management of a flock and maintenance of proper facilities and equipment were covered.
Following the theoretical aspects of the course, physical exercises using real flocks of sheep and goats took place with close coordination between students and instructors from the Sheep Division of the Guidance Department.
Israel is home to over 2,400 goat and sheep shepherds – Jewish, Arab and Bedouin. The Guidance Department of the Agriculture Ministry holds regular conferences and publishes material in Hebrew and Arabic to assist them.
According to Karso, shepherding has enjoyed a renaissance in Israel in recent years, due to the demand for cheeses made from sheep’s milk.
All of the four hilltop communities currently threatened with destruction in the coming weeks are home to Jewish shepherds, many of whom chose the profession in an effort to return to the simplicity of the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs, most of whom shared that profession.