Weekly Report March 14th to 18th, 2010

• Tal Goldman began work this week as the new Coordinator of the Center for a Healthy Environment in the Arava (Sababa). Tal is a member of Kibbutz Yotvata and is a professional landscape architect.
• Rodney Vargas from the UNC Chapel Hill Study Abroad Department came to the institute for a site visit. This is the final step in the long awaited agreement between UNC Chapel Hill and the Arava Institute which will allow students attending UNC to come to the institute for a semester or a year without petitioning for special permission.
• Many of you may have read Yonatan Chessler's beautiful letter describing the reception of the Palestinian students back on the campus after four days of closure on the West Bank. The background to the story is that after the closure was lifted, the Palestinian students went to Jerusalem to catch the bus to Ketura. Only one of the students got on the 10:00 am bus from Jerusalem for the 4 hour ride, via the Dead Sea to the institute. The other two students missed the bus and waited in the Jerusalem bus station for the next bus at 2:00 pm. The Egged 10:00 bus reached the IDF checkpoint on the Dead Sea at the border between the West Bank and Israel around 11:00 am. An Israeli soldier stopped and borded the bus to check passengers' papers. Though our Palestinian student had the permit which allows her to come into Israel, the soldier decided to remove her from the bus and she was told to go back to Jerusalem. The bus then left, leaving our student sitting on the side of the road in the in the Dead Sea with the next bus for Jerusalem, many hours away. The institute organized a taxi to come from Jerusalem to the checkpoint and pick her up (this took about an hour) and then take her back to Jerusalem. She met the other two students at the bus station. The three of them then took a bus to Ber Sheva and were picked up in Ber Sheva by the Program Director Moishe Siel. Moishe had decided not to take any chances so he made the two hour drive to Ber Sheva specially to pick them up and bring them back to the institute. This is what lies behind Yonatan's comment on the 12 hour trip from Jerusalem to Ketura which normally takes 4 hours. The institute is lodging a complaint with the Israeli Army regarding the actions of the soldiers at the check point. Matan Vilnai, Deputy Minister of Defense intervened on our behalf but it was too late to resovle the issue. We are deeply disturbed by these events and we appreciate the willingness of our Palestinian students to come back to the institute even under these trying circumstances. I also want to express my gratitude to Moishe Siel and to Judy Bar Lev for their efforts in getting our students back to the institute.
• On Tuesday, I went to Tel Aviv for a series of meetings that included a meeting of the Arava Institute/Heschel Center Food Initiative Team. We had a good meeting and we were able to come up with a plan for the next steps in the Food Initiative this year. After that meeting, I participated in the Arava Environmental Consulting & Technology Board meeting. Elad Topel, CEO of Arava EC&T presented the business plan for 2010 which look very optimistic with projection of almost a million NIS of revenue by the end of the year. Finally, the Arava Institute's Board of Directors met for its first Board meeting of 2010. The Board heard from Elad about Arava EC&T plans, recieved an overall report from me about events at the Arava Institute and discussed the structure of the audited financial reports.
• On Wednesday, Sarit Maagen-Rosenfeld, the new Chair of the Research and Visitors Park Steering Committee convened the first meeting of the commitee. The committee is made up of representatives of the different departments as well as representatives of the kibbutz guest house Keren Kolot. Sarit presented the architect's design for the park and committee members made comments and suggests.
• That same day, the Sababa Subcommittee for the inscription of Timna Valley as a UNESCO World Heritage Site also convened for the first time and discussed strategy for cooperation with the regional authorities.
• Finally on Wednesday, the institue recieved a site visit from a representative of the MASA program, the Jewish Agency program that encourages students to come on long term programs in Israel. The program provides scholarships to Jewish students from around the world to spend time in Israel. The institute is a recognzied program of MASA and about 9 of our North American students are MASA scholarship recipients. The visit seemed to go very smoothly.
• On Thursday, Cynthia Hirsch, an environmental lawyer from Wisconson visited the institue, gave a guest lecture to our students and met with staff. Cynthia has hosted Arava Institue students at her home in Madison and is very interested in helping the institute in any way she can.

David Lehrer