WILDFLOWER MANIA

**Multicolored display of wildflowers along the shore of the Dead Sea**

It is springtime in Israel. A time when Israelis flock en mass to the parks and the nature reserves in search of wildflowers, partaking in the national pastime and annual ritual. It’s an obsession actually. One can drop trash anywhere on the sidewalk, smoke cigarettes in public or ignore traffic laws with impunity, but not dare pick the wildflowers! Doing so will result in certain rebuke by the youngest child and most senior citizen alike. There is zero tolerance in Israel for plucking even a single stem from the Holy Land.

In the early days, citizens of Israel saw wildflowers as symbolic of the country’s rebirth and picked them endlessly almost to the point of extinction. In the 1960s, wildflower expert Uri Paz helped establish The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) with the principal goal of saving Israel’s wildflowers from extinction. The SPNI aptly adopted the Gilboa Iris as its logo. Through SPNI’s efforts,The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, outlawed wildflower picking in 1963.

Once the law was enacted, a massive wildflower protection campaign ensued. Thousands of colorful posters were plastered in schools, government buildings, banks, post offices and in health clinics. The Israeli lottery printed tickets with images of protected wildflowers. A gift manufacturer created a wildflower-themed card game, and there was even a popular song called “Waltz for the Protection of the Flora.” The campaign was hugely successful, and its effects are felt even until present day. For Americans like myself, the campaign can be compared to the forest fire prevention campaign of Smokey the Bear, the anti-smoking campaign of accumulating body bags, the buckle-up America campaign of the crash test dummies, or the Keep America Beautiful anti- littering campaign of the Crying Native American.

So, when your Israeli tour guide talks excitedly about the wildflowers, have a little compassion and patience remembering that Israelis have been programmed this way. I promise, it will pass, and he will move on to the other guide stuff like history, archaeology, religion, culture, geopolitics, geology, food, wine……………………..