In Jerusalem, a family of quail appears to have settled in the olive grove abutting the Sherover Promenade and the presence of people walking nearby hardly seems to disturb them. But the quail raised in Moshav Be'er Tuvia and sold in local food shops are a relatively new development. And now that quail are available in local markets, the fact that the birds were eaten by the Israelites in the desert makes it likely that they will find their way to many local Seder meals. Moshav Be'er Tuvia, near Kiryat Malachi, is something of an eye opener. Unlike the moshavim near Jerusalem and other big cities which have become bedroom suburbs, most of the homes at Be'er Tuvia, while large and comfortable, clearly belong to working farms, with dairy barns, poultry houses, orchards, and open fields abutting the dwellings.
Tractors are the main vehicle on the roads.
Amnon Ariel, the third-generation moshavnik who is the director of the quail operation, says that his family, which came from Poland in the early 1920s, settled in Be'er Tuvia in 1935. It is an area with rich, fertile soil, he says, far different from the stony terrain of the Judean Hills around Jerusalem, where immigrants were housed in the early 1950s. His family first had a dairy herd, then raised turkeys, and later sheep, but along with these there were always chickens. Now they have left the chicken business, but still have 200 dunams of fruit orchards and fields. This year, they are harvesting their first crop of asparagus, another product aimed at the gourmet market.