Cowboys Of The Golan

The Chicago Tribune has a piece on Avshalom Ferstman, who herds cattle on the Golan Heights and was featured in a Israeli advertising campaign in the US.

Home, home on the Heights
Cowboys of the Golan deal with minefields, military maneuvers. But they wouldn't trade it for anything.

..."I followed the cows to the Golan," said Ferstman, who was offered a job of herding cattle in the area 15 years ago after doing similar work at a kibbutz in Israel's Jordan Valley. The Golan has the most extensive cattle-grazing areas available to Israeli ranchers, so it made perfect sense to Ferstman to move there, where he now lives with his wife and two sons.

"I like being close to nature, working with the animals, the quiet," Ferstman said. "You're by yourself most of the day."

He herds cattle on horseback, in summer heat and winter rains, and much of the day is taken up with mending fences, treating cows and their calves, and moving cattle from one grazing area to another.

But there are unusual challenges for cowboys on the Golan, aside from the more standard threats of wolves and cattle rustlers.

Army tanks on maneuvers sometimes flatten fences, allowing cows to wander into minefields, where some have been killed by explosions. Military training takes place near pastureland, and army units have to coordinate their movements with the ranchers.

Riding among the cows as gunfire rattled and smoke rose from an army exercise in the distance, Ferstman recalled one close call: A tank shell once hit about 200 yards from where he was checking a fence, sending his horse bolting in fear.

Ferstman said the gun on his hip is to ward off cattle thieves, shoot animals preying on his flock and respond in the unlikely event of a terrorist attack.

Yet despite the challenges, the overall pace of life is slower here, and the bonds of help and friendship between people stronger, than in Israel's urban centers, Ferstman said. "It's a catastrophe over there: the congestion, the noise, the impatience, the rat race," he said. "I live here in a bubble, and when I travel to the center of the country, I bless the day I came up here."

Read the whole thing, y'all.

Technorati Tag: Israel.