Dear Friends,

First we want to wish you all a Tu Bishvat Samech and thank you for your continuing support.

As you know, the last few months have been difficult ones here in the Middle East.  The war in Gaza brought much death and destruction, and we can only hope that we will find a way to bring security to the Negev, and peace to the region.  At Heschel we continue our many projects in the South of the country, and will continue to work for a sustainable future long after the newspaper headlines have forgotten Sderot, Ashkelon and Beer Sheva.   For example, Our Good Energy Initiative assists local advocates to develop renewable energy option, and our local leadership programs develops community leadership. With national elections tomorrow, our election promise is to continue to work for a sustainable future for Israel and the region, bringing together Jews and Arabs, religious and secular in working for our common home.

Tu Bishvat

Looking into to the future we are constantly working to create further opportunities to enhance environmental awareness and social cohesion in Israel. Tu Bishvat is such an opportunity.  The holiday of Tu Bishvat begins on Sunday night, February 8th and runs through February 9.  Although the holiday was originally connected in Mishnaic times to the tithing of a tree's fruits, it has become associated with Kabbalist ritual, tree planting, and today might be viewed as Jewish Earth Day. Building on the Zionist celebration of the Land of Israel, the day has become a framework for Jews (particularly North American, but not only) to express their concern for environmental issues. In celebrating Tu Bishvat we can integrate the particular -- the personal, fruit-giving tree of the Mishnah and the replanted national trees of Israel, with the universal -- the life-giving trees of the ecosphere and the cosmic trees of Kabbalah. And while Tu Bishvat gives us a profound opportunity to celebrate and reflect on these relationships, in the face of deepening environmental crises in Israel and around the world we need to create additional ways to educate and address these issues.
For the past 10 years we at Heschel have worked to promote environmental learning Read our Deputy-Director Dr. Jeremy Benstein's full Tu Bishvat Commentary.

10 Year Anniversary Conference

On December 18, the Heschel Center celebrated its 10th anniversary at the Tel Aviv Port, in a one day conference devoted to promoting sustainability in Israel.  Here is what our director, Dr. Eilon Schwartz, wrote about the conference that evening:

"After registering 800 participants, we were forced to close down registration two weeks before the actual conference, as we had neither the budget nor location to handle more people.  We estimate that we could have easily had 1500 participants.  Frankly, we were stunned.

 The day opened with a film of birthday wishes for the Heschel Center from famous environmentalists throughout the world (watch the movie on YouTube here) including Lester Brown, Bill McGibbon, Daniel Cohn-Bennet, Chaimi Lerner and Karl Hendrik-Robert, and a keynote address by the leading environmental educator and green building guru, David Orr.  Three short panel discussions followed, each asking what the sustainability agenda should be over the next 10 years -- for Israeli culture, social issues, and the Israeli economy.  40 (!) working groups met during the day on a wide range of issues including:  bicycling, community gardens, energy policy, local economies, greening schools, waste management, transportation, green building, and more.  The day ended with a panel discussion on green politics in Israel today, highly relevant with the national elections taking place tomorrow with a range of green activists and parties running for seats in the Israeli Knesset. 

But the really remarkable part of the day was the carnival atmosphere that filled the entire port area.  What was going on outside the conference doors was just as important as what was going on inside.  We also launched our network for social change on the web , with computer stations in the conference area for sign up, while the web infrastructure was already set up to continue the discussions from the day's working groups on the web. (see below for separate article). 

Ten years ago virtually no one in Israel had heard about sustainability, not even us.   Trends are of course almost all continuing to flow downwards, and as David Orr said; “a rational human being has no reason to be optimistic".  But after a day like this, it does give hope.  We at Heschel have been blessed to be part of an extraordinary community of activists.  The work that we have done over the past decade is part of a network of initiatives that so many wonderful people and organizations have launched over this same period.  For one day we were able to look back and see how far we have come, and at least for a moment appreciate that accomplishment, even as we look forward, and recognize how much farther we have to go.  If the constant flow of e-mails is any indication, we are all energized knowing that there is truly so much going on, and that we are in this together."  

American Friends of Heschel - Donations are tax-free

The American Friends of Heschel is now registered as 501(c)(3) organization, qualified to receive tax deductible contributions under the U.S. Internal Revenue Service Code. Click here to make a secure online donation.

GREENCHANGE- Networking Sustainability Advocates

Using the organization's 10th anniversary conference as a catalyst, we launched a Facebook-like social network of sustainability advocates (www.greenchange.co.il), which has incredibly already grown to almost 1500 members as of this writing!