Happy Spring Festival (Chag Ha'Aviv)!

The Exodus, that first "Long March", has added literal meaning this year to those of us who walked the 55 km from near Lebanon down to the Kinneret on our first annual Hike! The event's timing in the lead-up to the festival of freedom and transition carries symbolic significance too. The Purim carnival with which it began pushed into the celebratory Earth Hour in Tel Aviv; our Passover clean-out and the gravity of the Omer period are a good time to contemplate how we turn opportunities like the Green Now coalition into real change for a sustainable future for Israel. The successes below are reason to believe that we're heading in the right direction, but there's a long way to go - imagine in 40 years (Israel's hundredth!) a sustainable society for our children to inherit. Together let's make the land fulfill its promise.

One way to be a part of this change is to join our Decade of Success campaign - make an affikoman gift donation on behalf of the next generation.

Chag Pesach Sameach!

Hike Bishvil Yisrael

After the success of the first year we're already planning next year's leg from Sea-to-Sea - March 15-19, 2009. See pictures, info and pre-register: www.hikeisrael.org. Registration scheduled to open mid-June.

Study Trip 2008

October 26-30 - our second annual study trip. Come see Israel through the eyes of the Heschel Center, learning about significant social-environmental issues, and the people who are making Israel a more sustainable society. For pictures and participant's account of last year's tour: www.amheschel.org. Info and registration: einat@heschel.org.il Itinerary and registration forms will be sent in the coming months. 

Earth Hour 2008 in Tel Aviv

On Thursday, March 27, Tel Aviv was the first city taking the lead from a global initiative to mark the need to change our energy habits and save the planet by turning off lights for one hour. The Heschel Center's Good Energy Initiative powered a rock concert in Rabin Square with renewable energy created by solar panels, biodiesel and 24 volunteers on exercise bikes! See a video explanation from Eyal Biger, director of the initiative here:

and a short video from the event itself here.

Of course, it takes more than 60 minutes to change a city's light-bulb, so to speak, but the event is the offspring of a larger and deeper process: 

18 Israeli Cities sign air pollution and climate change convention

The Heschel Center's Local Sustainability Center played a critical role in bringing about a groundshift in local responsibility to carbon emissions and air pollution. On the 13th of February, 2008, the mayors of 18 of the leading cities in Israel, among them; Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Holon and Petah Tikva, signed the Cities for Climate Protection Pledge, committing them to reducing 20% of their cities' GHG (greenhouse gases) by 2020. The pledge outlines a road map for achieving this target, which is based on wide community participation and action. The Heschel Center was instrumental in bringing about this event and will be involved in organizing and facilitating these processes.

National Coalition of Green Organizations launch "Green Now" campaign towards municipal elections

For the first time, a national coalition of environmental NGOs (including large national and small local organizations) has joined to create a common agenda for change. As a result of a process facilitated by Heschel Center director, Dr Eilon Schwartz, the organizations launched the campaign, titled "Green Now" to place social-environmental issues on the top of the agenda in this year's municipal elections. The campaign focuses on four main areas:

• Cleaner air - A 15 percent reduction in air pollution and greenhouse gases every year.
• Open space for residential areas - every house should be within a five minute walk of a public park or urban nature park.
• Leave the car at home - the creation of walking and biking trails and the improvement of public transportation, so that everyone can reach the center of town in 15 minutes, without moving the car.
• Green for everyone - a minimum 25% increase in investment in environmental infrastructure for poorer neighborhoods.

• more Pictures from the Press Conference held at the Heschel Center.
• The campaign website (Hebrew)
• Read Jerusalem Post's coverage.

Pratt Prize for Environmental Journalism

On April 1 the Heschel Center held the ceremony for the sixth annual Pratt Prize for Environmental Journalism, which was awarded to Channel 10 news reporter Nitzan Horowitz. The independent judging panel, headed by former Environment Minister, Yossi Sarid, said of Nitzan, who has been at the forefront of introducing issues such as climate change and the social impact of environmental degradation: "His expansive knowledge enables him to link the global to the local and an environmental perspective to a social and political one. He does so with seriousness and depth but also in a way that is both touching and accessible to all." Dr Eilon Schwartz, Heschel director, said that "each year both the quality and quantity of candidates increases, with a record 110 this year" (from 40 five years ago). He pointed out two main trends - the "normalization" of the coverage, moving from the margins to center-page and "increasing understanding of the complexity and multi-dimensional nature of environmental issues… Environment isn't just flowers and landscape, it is our life and our health and the way we want our society to function."

Nitzan won the main prize for his work in the electronic media. Other prizes were awarded for written, local and community reporting. The Pratt Prize is part of the Heschel Center's media project which also includes seminars for senior journalists and participation of journalists in the Environmental Fellows program (Nitzan is a 2003 graduate and this year we have Amir Ben David key writer for Yediot Aharonot, Israel's most widely read daily paper, and Dror Feuer, columnist and blogger for the business daily Globes).

 

Applications in for 10^th Environmental Fellows group

It's time for what Eilon calls his "most inspirational time of the year:" interviewing the remarkable candidates for the Heschel Center's premier leadership program. Then comes the excruciating part - deciding on which 15-20 of these leading professionals from throughout Israeli society will participate in this year's program.

As part of the efforts to widen the scope of the professions covered, a special evening was conducted for leading figures in industry and commerce: including, among others, CEO Disney Israel, VP Operations Maariv Daily, VP Modan Publishing House. They were excited by talks from leading journalist and Heschel Fellow, Nitzan Horowitz (see above) and the program's academic supervisor, Dr. Lia Ettinger, and discussed ways to increase participation from their fields. These efforts were led by Fellows involved in economics and business, including Noga Levtzion-Nadan and Amalia Borowitz-Bryl.

This follows a successful Fellows conference held immediately after the Hike at Kibbutz Ha'on on the Kinneret. 35 Fellows joined the hikers for an exhilarating walk-and-talk down to the Kinneret, and over 50 participated in the conference. The program of the conference included internal conversations about Fellow's ideas and initiatives, from "rebranding" the environmental movement in Israel to achieve greater public identification, to expanding alternative energy options and creating new venues for joint Israeli-Palestinian cooperation around the environment.

Further info on Applications to the Fellows program see here (Hebrew). 

Featured fellow: Joseph Cory, green architect.

Joseph Cory is an architect, specializing in sustainable architecture. He is the founder of the Geotectura Architecture Studio and lectures in the Architecture and Urban Planning Department of the Technion, while currently completing a doctorate in architecture. Joseph recently presented a fascinating and successful exhibition called "Elements of Thought" at the ZeZeze architecture gallery at the Tel Aviv port.

From the catalogue: "Cory's work presents an optimistic view of the future of our world, and the role architecture can and should play in fulfilling this utopist-optimistic vision. The presented projects include a variety of designs and plans which have won numerous awards and citations in international competitions, plans for sustainable buildings and living quarters, and works which walk the narrow line separating architecture, design and technological development. The exhibition will present visual images relating to the practice's work, alongside models presenting projects and design in various stages of development."

Pictures from the exhibition and other of Joseph's works can be seen at: www.geotectura.com.

Green School Network

The Green Network, with over 160 schools throughout Israel, is not just expanding in terms of numbers and the depth of its involvement with each school and community, it is also engaging new sectors in the environmental discourse. The network has begun two challenging new projects - with haredi ("ultra-orthodox") schools in Beit Shemesh, and Bedouin schools in the Negev. With a coordinator for each from within the local community, the effort is beginning to pay off with a larger number of schools than originally anticipated, expressing cautious but decisive interest.

Another Green Network program, "Along the Sea", also continues to make waves, as can be seen in this item shown recently on Channel 10 with students from the Raziel School (it's in Hebrew but the kids are so cute!)  view here.