Thursday, January 16, 2025
Vol. 160, Issue 3 www.decorahleader.com
Decorah, Iowa 52101 email: editor@decorahleader.com
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Agriculture and advocacy
Local farmer to help Palestinian producers in West Bank BY SETH BOYES NEWS EDITOR
Hannah Breckbill stands outside Humble Hands Harvest, a worker-owned cooperative farm she and others operate northeast of Decorah. Breckbill plans to travel to the West Bank later this month and help a Palestinian farm family with their work. Breckbill said the presence of international volunteers such as herself seems to help deter encroachment on the part of neighboring Israeli residents. (Photo by Seth Boyes)
Hannah Breckbill admits she may not know every nuance of the ongoing tensions between Israel and Palestine, but she does know farmers in the West Bank are asking for support and the presence of international volunteers — Breckbill feels prepared to offer both. Breckbill, who helps operate Humble Hands Harvest north
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mated 1,100 trees were allegedly destroyed by outside parties between 2021 and 2022, while the family attempted to re-register its land with Israeli officials. Breckbill’s upcoming visit will be part of an effort to provide support for Tent of Nations through an international presence, which she said seems to help deter encroachment on the family’s farmland. “To me, it seems really important that communities are able to have sovereignty on land,” Breckbill said. “In the Palestinian situation, what that means to me is that people who have been on land and are growing food on the land should be able to continue to grow food on the land for their communities.”
of Decorah, plans to spend three-and-a-half weeks at a Palestinian operation called Tent of Nations Farm, which grows olives and other produce south of Jerusalem near Bethlehem. Tent of Nations’ website says the farmland was purchased by Bishara Daher Nassar more than 100 years ago, while the country was still under Ottoman rule. The family offered Palestinian Christians Bible study and prayer sessions during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, according to the farm’s website. Israel occupied both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, according to information from the United Nations. Today, the farm is surrounded by five Israeli settlements, which Tent of Nations says “are growing to become cities.” The farm’s website claims Israeli authorities declared the family’s farm and the surrounding area to be state land in 1991, and an esti-
Ag & Advocacy
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“To me, it seems really important that communities are able to have sovereignty on land. In the Palestinian situation, what that means to me is that people who have been on land and are growing food on the land should be able to continue to grow food on the land for their communities.” -Hannah Breckbill
Hinson tours new WinnMed facilities, aims to support healthcare workers BY SETH BOYES NEWS EDITOR Congresswoman Ashley Hinson (R - Marion) said she and other federal lawmakers will be having continued conversations about what can be done to help improve medical care and ease recruiting challenges among Iowa’s health facilities. Hinson made a stop in Decorah Friday to tour WinnMed’s facilities — the hospital recently completed renovations to its obstetrics unit, and additional improvements to the hospital’s surgery and clinic areas are also underway as part of a $50 million project. “We have an aging healthcare infrastructure in this country,” Hinson said, following the tour. “Many of the critical access hospitals do need to do some of these renovations.” Information from the Iowa
Department of Health and Human Services said more than 80 hospitals in the state are considered to be critical access hospitals, which are defined in part as being located in a rural area and more than 35 miles from another hospital — WinnMed is considered a critical access hospital, according to IDHH, as are the Gundersen Palmer Lutheran Hospital in Fayette County and Veterans Memorial Hospital in Allamakee County. Hinson said she sees telemedicine as an important part of the equation, and she called partnerships, such as the relationship between WinnMed and Gunderson Decorah Clinic, invaluable in addressing complicated cases, especially those involving newborns. In addition to improved birthing suites, WinnMed’s staff previously noted providers will have
more direct access to the hospital’s operating room from the OB unit once the construction projects are complete, allowing for more efficient care if mothers require surgery while giving birth. “People in Iowa, I think, are
Hinson
continued on page 10 U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson (left) toured several areas of WinnMed in Decorah on Friday, Jan. 10. The hospital recently completed renovations to its obstetrics unit, and additional improvements to the hospital’s surgery and clinic areas are also underway. (Photo courtesy of the office of U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson)
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‘Friends and foreigners’ - Chinese attorney Hao Wang talks about his vacation in Decorah BY ZACH JENSEN STAFF WRITER A Decorah resident recently hosted a visitor from China — showing him a side of the United States he hadn’t seen until now. Beijing attorney Hao Wang stayed with retired attorney and rural Decorah resident Melissa O’Rourke and her husband Joe Skoda for six days during Wang’s winter break from the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program at the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, D.C. “It’s very interesting here,” Wang said. “I knew this was an English-speaking country — a lot of Anglo-Saxons — but I never knew about all the immi-
Hao Wang, age 33, of Beijing, China, recently spent six days with rural Decorah resident and retired attorney Melissa O’Rourke. (Photo submitted)
“Great rates got us the car.” “Great service keeps us coming back.”
grants of the Midwest. China is not an immigration country, so we don’t have cultural diversity.” O’Rourke said Wang stayed “very busy” during his stay, touring the lock and dam system near Lansing, the Bily Clock Museum and St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church in Spillville, Vesterheim Museum, the Prairie’s Edge Nature Center south of Cresco and the Iowa Dairy Center at Northeast Iowa Community College in Calmar. “Never have I had this experience before,” Wang said. “I’ve seen it on television, but I’ve never watched someone milk a cow. This is very interesting.” Through the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, professionals collaborate to address
local and global challenges and foster change for the common good, according to information on the program’s website. The fellowship is sponsored by the United States State Department, according to the website, and the program uses academic study and professional development with U.S. counterparts as a method for sharing best practices and building expertise in critically-important fields “to advance societal and institutional capacity, promote human rights and freedoms, ensure sustainable environments and develop thriving communities.” The program’s website referred to Wang as “a distinguished attorney and senior partner at a leading Beijing law firm, renowned for his commit-
ment to public interest law, particularly in environmental protection, smoking control, and minority rights advocacy.” During a previous trip to the U.S., Wang participated in a program in Minnesota, during which he stayed and worked with a public defender — O’Rourke’s niece — in Stillwater, Minnesota. O’Rourke and Wang met during that initial visit. Wang returned to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 8 and will be interning with an international non-governmental organization for the second half of the yearlong program. During the first
Hao Wang continued on page 10
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