Australia’s Byzantine trophy of war Part 2

In the western Negev desert region of southern Israel, among the wild and lonely ravines dotted with eucalyptus trees, there is an ostrich farm. Established in the early 1980s by Dutch immigrant Mike Van Grevenbroek and his wife, Tsophia, a Jerusalem native, some 225 acres of the Negev’s orange sandy hills are home to thousands of the imposing black and grey birds, which are raised for their meat, feathers and leathers. It’s not yet clear if the Grevenbroeks chose this particular part of the Negev to establish their ‘exotic crops’ agribusiness venture with the author’s particular metaphorical needs in mind. It seems unlikely.

Nevertheless, it was on a hilltop just a few miles from here that a chance discovery in 1917 by the Australian