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[Newsletter] March 15 – Water Conservation in Israel

By on March 15, 2012 in Newsletters

Snapshot on Israel: Water Conservation

Located on Kibbutz Ketura in the Arava desert of southern Israel, the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies (AIES) is the premier environmental teaching and research program in the Middle East, focusing on transboundary environmental issues. AIES is a primary beneficiary of the Arava Institute Hazon Israel Ride.

By Clive Lipchin, PhD, Director, Center for Transboundary Water Management, Arava Institute for Environmental Studies

[Image: Northern Streams]QuotationsThis winter Israel was blessed with abundant rainfall. January 2012 was the wettest January on record. The Kinneret has risen by over one meter and Mount Hermon is covered in snow. Nonetheless, this good news needs to be tempered with the reality that prior to this year’s rainy season, the last six years have been drought years and Israel is faced with a growing water scarcity problem that one good rainy season will not solve. The reason behind the water scarcity problem is due to a number of factors. These are: population increase and a higher standard of living, the negative effects of climate change on naturally occurring water resources, and Israel’s commitments to allocating water to her neighbors…

Continue reading “The Water Situation in Israel…”

Bike Israel from Top to Bottom

Highlights from the North of Israel

[Image: Israel Ride]This year’s Israel ride will take you through the north and south of Israel. Here is just a sample of some of places we’ll be biking.

  • Explore Israel’s water systems with an overnight on the headwaters of the Jordan river and around the Kinneret.
  • Ride through the Bar’am Forest, home to ancient synagogues and recent forest fires.
  • [Image: Hula Valley]Visit the bird sanctuary in the Hula Valley, a reflooded lake that attracts thousands of migrating birds each fall
  • Climbing the lower slopes of the Golan Heights

NEW: Scholarships available for riders under 35 and riders who have not been to Israel in the last ten years.

More Information | Register Today

Hula Valley photo By Leifern via Wikimedia Commons

Cross-USA Ride Spotlight: Indianapolis

[Image: The Monon Trail]In our 8th week of traveling from Seattle to DC, we arrive in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. The city’s model for Jewish education makes it truly unique. While the Jewish community has always had a variety of synagogues and community buildings, there is only one Hebrew school program. For the past 100 years, the Bureau of Jewish Education (BJE) has provided Jewish education to children of all traditions in the greater Indianapolis area.

Indianapolis has also made great strides to be a bike-friendly city! Bike lanes are in development, and bike lockers have been installed downtown. The Monon trail touts a 20-mile long paved rail trail taking cyclists from the suburbs to connections to the downtown canal and cultural trails.

Visit in Indianapolis on our cross-country tour or on a 3-week or 10-day segment.

More Information and Registration

Learning Along the Way

While soaking up the scenery, we’ll be learning about food issues, great strides in local food justice, and how we can make a difference in our own food choices.

Topics include:

  • Cooking from the Heart: Creating Jewish Family Rituals and Memories
  • Magen Tzedek: Applying a Set of Standards Certifying That Kosher Food Manufacturers in the US Operate According to Jewish Ethics and Values

Learn more about education on the Ride

Monon Trail photo by Eric Schmuttenmaer via Wikimedia Commons

Rocky Mountain Jewish Food Summit

April 29, 2012, University Memorial Center at CU Boulder

[Image: Food Summit]A day of learning, celebration, eating, community-building, and hands-on doing at the intersection of food, sustainability, and Jewish life.

Presented by Hazon in Colorado.

Featuring:

More Information | Register Today

Hazon Ride Launch Party with Mark Bittman and Ruth Reichl

Help kick off the 2012 Hazon Ride season with your favorite Hazon alumni, and food writers, cooks, and food activists, Mark Bittman and Ruth Reichl.

[Image: Mark Bittman, Ruth Reichl]Tuesday, April 10th
92Y – Lexington & 92nd Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan

7 PM – Cocktails & snacks (kosher for Passover, local, delicious!)
8 PM – Interview with Ruth Reichl & Mark Bittman

Tickets available on a sliding scale, $18-$55. Buy tickets.

This event is graciously hosted by the 92Y and is presented with the Jewish Daily Forward and The Jew and the Carrot Blog.

More Information | Tickets

Sustaining our Vision: Leadership, Followership, and Jewish Tradition

Nigel Savage Speaks at Rutgers

[Image: Nigel Savage]Friday, March 16, 2012, 9:00 AM
Aidekman Family Jewish Community Campus
901 Route 10, Whippany, NJ

Nigel will use traditional Jewish sources to explore ecology—our relationship to the physical world around us—and the ecology of leadership and followership.

NJAJCS Members: $25, Non-Members: $36

More Information and Registration

 

A Walk Among the Trees

Friday, March 16, 2012, 9:30 AM – 11:00 AM

Lisa Kokin, Fauxliage: No Birds Sing, 2011 via the Contemporary Jewish Museum

Lisa Kokin, Fauxliage: No Birds Sing, 2011 via the Contemporary Jewish Museum

 


Walk in the Presidio with Deborah Newbrun, Hazon’s Bay Area Director, former National Park Service Ranger, and author of Spirit in Nature: Teaching Judaism and Ecology on the Trail. For this special off-site Museum program in conjunction with the Contemporary Jewish Museum exhibition Do Not Destroy: Trees, Art and Jewish Thought, find insight under the canopy of San Francisco’s park trees. Deborah will draw connections between Jewish values and the wonder of nature.

Admission: $10 CJM Members & Hazon Alumni; $15 General Limited capacity; Advance registration required

Learn more about the walk and its relation to the exhibit

Purchase tickets

 

Local Events and Features
from our Partners and Friends

Love, Hate and the Jewish State 5.0: Gender Discrimination in Israel

[Image: Women should be seen and heard]Sponsored by the New Israel Fund
Co-sponsored by Hazon

March 22, 2012, 7-10 PM
Congregation Beth Elohim
274 Garfield Place, Brooklyn, NY

For many of us, gender inequality describes unfair salary disparities, constricting gender norms or under-representation. Join NIF for the fifth in a series of highly interactive, non-persuasive, non-political discussions with a diverse group of people in their 20s and 30s. Followed by a reception.

More Information and RSVP

 

3rd Annual National Day of Unplugging

[Image: National Day of Unplugging]Join Reboot in helping people around the world rejuvenate the ritual of Shabbat by signing on to sign off from technology for the 3rd annual National Day of Unplugging (NDU) on March 23rd-24th, 2012.

This year includes a “Unplug and Eat Together” campaign in partnership with Hazon and Slow Food USA.

More Information

 

Second Annual Food Justice Seder

[Image: Seder Table]Join Pursue, Uri L’Tzedek, and Congregation Beth Elohim/Brooklyn Jews for the second annual Food Justice Seder!

As Passover draws near and we begin thinking about age-old themes of slavery and liberation, we’ll gather to connect the dots between contemporary food justice issues and the retelling of our Exodus story

Sunday, April 1st, 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Congregation Beth Elohim
274 Garfield Place, Brooklyn NY
$12 – $20 sliding scale. Nobody will be turned away for lack of funds.

More Information and Registration

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