Michael Evenari (, even-ari meaning ''lion's stone''; born as Walter Schwarz 9 October 1904 in

Metz Metz ( , , , then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle (river), Moselle and the Seille (Moselle), Seille rivers. Metz is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Moselle (department), Moselle Departments ...

– 15 April 1989 in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

) was an Israeli botanist originally from Germany. Satellite image of Israel

Life and career

Early life and education in Germany

Evenari was born as Walter Schwarz to parents who identified as German Jews. They lived as merchants in

Lorraine Lorraine, also , ; ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; ; ; is a cultural and historical region in Eastern France, now located in the administrative region of Grand Est. Its name stems from the medieval kingdom of ...

, a province that changed hands repeatedly between France and Germany. After

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Metz became French again, and the Schwarz family opted for Germany, being forced to emigrate. Evenari was a brother-in-law of writer Gerson Stern. Evenari grew up close to

Marburg Marburg (; ) is a college town, university town in the States of Germany, German federal state () of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf Districts of Germany, district (). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has ...

and Buchenau in

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

. He studied botany at

Darmstadt University of Technology Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

and received his doctorate 1927 under the auspices of Martin Möbius. Ulrich Lüttge
''Geschichte der Botanik in Darmstadt''
(PDF; 11,6 MB)

British Mandate and Israel

Evenari fled Nazi Germany on 1 April 1933 and was active in

as professor at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

. Evenari joined Hagana and fought in the

1948 Palestine war The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionist forces conquered territory and established the Stat ...

.Geniale Nomaden
Die Spuren der Nabatäer Jürgen Voigt, Spiegel 2001 His works on the

Nabataeans The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ) were an ancient Arabs, Arab people who inhabited northern Arabian Peninsula, Arabia and the southern Levant. Their settlements—most prominently the assumed capital city o ...

runoff rainwater management was crucial for modern Israeli agriculture and explained as well how the Nabataean culture was able to supply thousands of inhabitants in a similar arid climate. Evenari showed that the runoff rainwater collection systems concentrate water from larger areas and in so far allow to grow plants with higher water needs in the given arid environment. The mechanism explained a variety of ancient agricultural features, terraced wadis, channels for collecting runoff rainwater, and the phenomenon of "Tuleilat el-Anab", grape mounds."Michael Evenari"
profile at Global Earth Repair Foundation, Port Hadlock, WA, 14 March 2022. Accessed 4 Dec 2023. Evenari himself cared about the cultural heritage of the Bedouin and saw them more as 'fathers' than 'sons of the desert'. He worked as well on

algae fuel Algae fuel, algal biofuel, or algal oil is an alternative to liquid fossil fuels that use algae as the source of energy-rich oils. Also, algae fuels are an alternative to commonly known biofuel sources, such as corn and sugarcane. When made fro ...

, a special sort of

renewable resource A renewable resource (also known as a flow resource) is a natural resource which will replenish to replace the portion depleted by usage and consumption, either through natural reproduction or other recurring processes in a finite amount of t ...

and

biofuel Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from Biomass (energy), biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels such as oil. Biofuel can be produced from plants or from agricu ...

Awards and honours

In 1966, Evenari was appointed member of the Leopoldina, the German

national academy A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, and serves as a public policy advisors, research ...

of sciences, and in 1977 his ''

alma mater Alma mater (; : almae matres) is an allegorical Latin phrase meaning "nourishing mother". It personifies a school that a person has attended or graduated from. The term is related to ''alumnus'', literally meaning 'nursling', which describes a sc ...

'', the Darmstadt University of Technology, provided him with an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

. Evenari received the

Israel Prize The Israel Prize (; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor. History Prior to the Israel Prize, the most significant award in the arts was the Dizengoff Prize and in Israel ...

in 1986 and in 1988, together with

Otto Ludwig Lange Otto Ludwig Lange (21 August 1927 – 14 August 2017 in Würzburg) was a German botanist and lichenologist. The focus of his scientific work was on the ecophysiology of wild and cultivated plants as well as lichens. He investigated heat, frost ...

, the

Balzan Prize The International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual monetary prizes to people or organizations who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, culture, as well as for endeavours for peace and the b ...

. In 2001, the ''Evenarí Forum'', a Darmstadt-based centre for German-Jewish studies in the fields of technology, nature sciences, history and cultural studies, was named in his honour, and in 2010 a

Stolperstein A (; plural ) is a concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution. Literal translation, Literally, it means 'stumbling stone' and metaphorically 'stumbling block'. ...

bearing his name was laid in the Darmstadt university campus.''"Stolpersteine" für im Nationalsozialismus entlassene Wissenschaftler''
in:

Informationsdienst Wissenschaft Informationsdienst Wissenschaft e.V. or idw (The Science Information Service) operates an Internet platform, which bundles the press reports and dates of important events from about 1,000 scientific institutions, including universities, technical c ...

2010

Published books, a selection

* together with Leslie Shanan and Naphtali Tadmor: ''The Negev. The Challenge of a Desert.'' Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 1971; 1982, * ''Ökologisch-landwirtschaftliche Forschungen im Negev. Analyse eines Wüsten-Ökosystems.'' Technische Hochschule, Darmstadt 1982, * ''Und die Wüste trage Frucht. Ein Lebensbericht.'' Bleicher, Gerlingen 1990, , autobiography

Links

Michael Evenarí at TU Darmstadt

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Evenari, Michael 1904 births 1989 deaths 20th-century Israeli botanists Technische Universität Darmstadt alumni Jewish biologists Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Mandatory Palestine Burials at Har HaMenuchot