The Upside of Volcanic Ash: Dirt-Cheap Flowers in Israel
In every international crisis, natural or man-made, there are winners. Often they are cynical self-serving business folk who profit from the misery of others, but here in Israel, those benefiting from the recent grounding of flights due to volcanic ash are members of the general public.
You may know that on a daily basis Israel exports large numbers of flowers to Europe, the continent where the volcanic ash was disrupting flights. During the chaos of the ash, flower growers tried taking their flowers to Greece by boat and then looking for onward connections, but failed.
The long and short of it is that there were millions of flowers that didn’t make it for export, and even now that flights have restarted there is a backlog.
Now of course, this is a disaster for flower growers, who estimate losses at $5.3 million and are now asking for compensation from the state. But for members of the general public, it means a domestic market flooded with cheap flowers, and hence sweet-smelling homes and happy partners.
So, my wife has more flowers than she’s ever seen — which kind of makes up for the fact that the ash also meant that her in-laws’ visit from Britain was, let’s just say, rather longer than expected.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Dive In
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.