Weekly Report July 18th-30th, 2010

• Once every six months, Miriam Sharton, the Associate Director and I have a private feedback session with almost every member of the staff. Sometimes, Miriam and I sit together with a staff member and sometimes we meet seperately with an individual member. It is an opportunity for the staff member to raise issues, give feedback to the administration and in general express how they are feeling at the institute. It is also an opportunity for Mriiam and I to give feedback, both positive and negative to staff members basically to ensure that lines of communication remain open. This feedback system has been a tradition at the Arava Institute for almost 10 years and has been extremely helpful in flaging problems and maintaining a positive work atmosphere. This past week, Miriam and I met with about 25 staff members in order to give and receive feedback. Sometimes these sessions simple and sometimes they can be difficult but no matter what, they are always important.

• Clive Lipchin and Shira Kronich came back from Kenya where the Arava Institute ran a course on Rain Water Harvesting for two groups of farmers. The course was funded by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is part of a new initiative at the Arava Institute, headed by Dr. Shmuel Brenner, the Arava Center for Sustainable Development in Arid Lands (ACSDAL) which provides training and extensions services to peoples from the developing world.

• During the week of July 18th to the 22nd, Arava Institute alumni, Yair Teller, Abeer Abu Sara and Leora Smith began a new alumni project in Susiya, a Palestinian Village in the West Bank building biodigesters to deal with the problem of animal waste while providing clean burning methane gas for cooking and heating. Leora and Abeer ran a parrallel environmental education program for children in order to expose them to environmental concepts.
• On Sunday, July 25th, Dr. Michael Beyth, the Chairman of the Arava Institute Board of Directors met with our two Israel resource development consultants, Neal Levy and Shlomit Yarkoni from Ben Or Consulting regarding our Israeli Resource Development Work Plan. We discussed different avenues for development in Israel and how to position the institute in terms of Israeli donors. We expect to receive the work plan by the end of September. 
• That afternoon, I stopped in on ECOWEEK, an international meeting of "green architects" who are spending the week looking at sustainable building design in Israel and Palestine. The Arava Institute is one of the sponsors of the conference. Judy Bar Lev, the institute's office manager and expert on Palestinian permits and Jordanian visas obtained permits for a number of Palestinian architects to attend the conference. One of whom is interested in coming to the institute in the fall. Donny Ornstein, an Arava Institute faculty member represented the institute at the opening session. http://www.ecoweek.netfirms.com/ecoweek.gr/ecoweek2010_BJ/index.html
• Tuesday, Friends of the Arava Institute (FAI) past Board Chair and current Board member, Eric Berzon and his wife Danielle Ruymaker arrived at the institute for a few days of meetings and relaxing. Eric and Danielle got a tour of the institute, met a number of different staff members, participated in a staff meeting and of course got a tour of Dr. Elaine Sollowey's experimental orchard.
• Another visitor on Tuesday was Sam Yosefowitz, from Switzerland, who together with Rennselar University would like to fund a project he calls, an Agricultural Oasis, an independent desert farm that provides itself with its own purified water and energy. If the institute receives the grant, the project will go under the auspices of ACSDAL and will be a partnership between the Arava Institue and the Southern Arava Agricultural R & D Center.

OK -that's about all I got - a relatively quite two weeks at the Arava Institute.

David Lehrer

Weekly Report May 16th-20th, 2010

After last week's long and action packed report, I am happy to provide a much shorter and calmer summary of this week's activities:

• Students commemorate Nakbah Day "the Great Catastrophe of the Palestinian People"- One of the more difficult aspects of running a program where Palestinians and Israelis live together, is how to deal with national holidays and rememborance days. There is always a hightened level of tension around these events and every year, staff and students struggle to find the right balance of national pride and sensitivity to others. For a reminder of how the staff and students dealt with Israeli Memorial Day and Israeli Independence Day, please refer to my weekly report from April 11th to April 23rd, 2010. The following is a brief report by Yousre Odeh, one of our Program Associates and one of the staff who helped organize the Nakbah Day event this year.
• On Monday night, we met together on the campus (North American, Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian students) to commemorate the memorial day for Nakbah (Catastrophe). The commemoration was a student run activity which took place in 3 parts. We started with the screening of a documentary that shows the situation in Palestine from early 1984 untill 2007, shedding light on the human rights situation in the West Bank by interviewing civilians, politicians, Palestinian students, Israeli activist and Israeli professors. The second part of the activity was the telling of personal stories from selected students. We tried to have a diverse group of student speak. One student talked about her grandfather's experience as a refugee in the West Bank. Another spoke about his grandfather's experience as a refugee in Jerusalem. One student whose family were refugees in Jordan and another whose family is living in Haifa talked about their experiences. The last part of the activity was to divide up the group into smaller groups (family groups) where we reflected on what we heard and we tried to relate the personal stories and the movie to events in our lives. The impression about this session was difficult but positive and students stayed on the grass discussing their thoughts untill after midnight. - Yousre Odeh Student Life PA.
• The students and staff had a break this week as Shavuot, the festival of Weeks commemorating the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, started on Tuesday night. On Tuesday afternoon, the kibbutz members, children, residents and students gathered together for the ceremonial offering of the first fruits (Bikurim). The kibbutz holiday staff organized a Bikuriada, a contest between various branches of the kibbutz. The Arava Institute went up agains the Kibbutz Environmental Committee in the trash recycling contest, seeing who could recycle the most trash within the time limit. Our valiant team was led by PA Lauren Rauch, but victory was snatched from our grasp as the kibbutz team managed to take the trophy (we of course have lodged an appeal on the judges decision). In any case, this game seemed unfair as the opposing team captain was our own Yonatan Chessler, wearing his other hat as head of the Environmental Committee. We'll get you next time Red Barron!
• Finally, this week we celebrated Hannah Medaliah's 90th birthday. Hanah holds the world record as the oldest research intern at the institute. Hannah has been volunteering for years with Dr. Elaine Solowey in the Experimental Orchard. Born in Germany, Hannah made aliyah with her parents when she was a child. Hannah lived for more than 40 years on Moshav Bnei Zion near Rechovot, where she attended agricultural school. A number of years ago, Hannah moved to Kibbutz Ketura in order to be able to work with Dr. Solowey. Every morning after her coffee in the dinning room, Hannah walks down to the fields to spend the whole day, planting and taking care of trees, bushes and herbs. Clearly a recipe for a long life. The Arava Institute staff and some students threw a surprise birthday party for Hannah this morning at Keren Kolot.

Hannah Medaliah on the left, Dr. Elaine Solowey on the right.

David Lehrer

Weekly Report May 2nd - 7th, 2010

• The Academic Study Program left this week for a 4 day trip around the Dead Sea Basin as part of the Water Course taught by Dr. Clive Lipchin. The trip started on Monday morning when the students crossed into Jordan at the Arava Border and headed north towards Wadi Mujib on the Dead Sea. The Palestinian students and Yousre, our Palestinian program associate are not allowed to cross into Jordan from at the Arava Crossing. They are required to go in and out of Jordan through the Allenby Bridge crossing, therefore they left on Sunday for Jordan spending the night in Amman. The Palestinians met the rest of the staff and students at Wadi Mujb for a wonderful hike in water that at some points reached people's waist. Students finished the day in Amman. The next day, the trip travelled up the Jordan Valley meeting with water professionals and visiting the King Abdallah Canal. The day ended in Irbid close to the Syrian border. The next day, the Palestinians students once again had to take a seperate route leaving early to cross back over the Allenby Bridge in order to eventually reach the Sea of Galillee. The rest of the students and staff visited the Yarmouch River where water is divided between Israel and Jordan. Then students and staff crossed at the Beit Shean border crossing back into Israel. That day included rafting on the Jordan River and a night on the Sea of Galilee. The final day of the trip included a visit to the Sapir pumping station where water is pumped out of the Sea of Galilee and sent by way of the National Water Carrier down to the Negev. The trip concluded with a visit to the West Bank and meetings with Palestinian water professioinals.
• I did not join the students on their trip but I also travelled to Jordan on Sunday and Monday in order to acompany Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed in meetingw with the Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) in Irbid and the National Energy Research Center (NERC) in Amman. At JUST we met with the Vice-President of the University and with the head of the Renewable Energy Department to discuss a joint research project on Biogas and the possibility of collaboration on a Masters Degree Program in Energy and the Environment. Our meetings in Amman with our NERC partners also concerned the Biogas project.
• The student trip left the institute empty and quite but the staff left behind still had their hands full between visits, student registration at BGU and helping Ben Morgan in his recovery from his broken leg. Ben is doing fine but is on a crutch and needs a bit of help getting around. He got a note from the Doctor saying he was excused from classes for the next month!
• On Tuesday, we were honored with a quick visit from the Treasurer of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Hagai Merom. Hagai has visited the institute in the past but was pleased to see the progress being made and to hear about the good relationship with the Toronto Jewish Federation through the Partnership 2000 program. The Chairman of the Regional Council, Udi Gat accompanied Hagai on the quick visit.
• On Thursday, I met with a group from the JNF doing an environmetal tour of Israel. Among the participants in the tour was Bobbie Landau, a supporter of the Arava Institute who was thrilled to see the institute for the first time. Dr. Elaine Solowey took the group to meet the 2,000 year old date palm, Methusala and then took the group down to her Experimental Orchards.
• That night, I was asked to come to Eilat to meet a group on a different JNF mission from Atlanta. This mission was organized and led by the Atlanta JNF Rep and past FAI Board member, Beth Gluck. I came a bit early to meet with Willian Rosenberg, a participant in the trip and a past head of the Air Quality Division of the US EPA. William and I discussed possible collaboration on a policy paper on renewable energy and his further involvement with the institute.

David Lehrer

Weekly Report - December 13th -18th, 2009

Hanukah is usually a quite week at the institute. The students are in classes but life slows down a bit as most of Israel goes on semi-vacation:

• The week started with a dedication ceremony for the Center for Sustainable Agriculture's new office expansion and new tractor funded by the Vivian and Ed Merrin Family Foundation Grant. Students, staff, faculty and friends were invited for a ribbon cutting ceremony, candle lighting and a jelly donut feast.

• Monday night, the Sababa Steering Committee met to discuss submitting Timna Park to be declared as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The declaration would help to protect the park and the surrounding area from over development. Sababa Steering Committee members also discussed alternative locations for the proposed resort hotel that is being developed near Timna Park.
• On Wednesday, Shir Harel, the Arava Institute's webmaster from Ben Or Consulting came to the institute to discuss new media strategy - website, youtube, facebook, flicker etc. Shir first met with all of the staff and went over website statistics. Since the summer, the website has almost doubled its site visits. In addition, the website now appears on page 5 when googling "environmental studies" - previously we had disappeared from that search. In the coming months the institute will develop it youtube profile and become more organized in terms of facebook presence.
• On Wednesday night, the students lite the Hanukah candles in the dinning room of the kibbutz, sang the blessing over the candles and sang a Hanukah song.
• Thursday, the Executive Committee devoted time to finalizing the 2010 institute budget.

David Lehrer

Weekly Report November 15th-20th, 2009

This was a very busy week for the Arava Institute in and around the Middle East.

• Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed spent the week in Amman Jordan attending the 4th Bienniel meeting of Middle Eastern scientists aimed at promoting peace through collaboration. The Malta Conference (first convenied in Malta 8 years ago) is sponsored by Collumbia College Chicago, the American Chemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry in Great Britain and other agencies. Tareq has attended 2 other conferences and was once again invited to particpate in this year's conference held in Amman. It was Tareq's first trip to Amman. The other conference attendees were Nobel Chemistry Laureates and scientists from all over the Middle East including Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Iran, Syria and Lebanon.
• Sharon Benheim and Cecil Rimer spent two days in Amman this week recruiting students. They interviewed about 10 potential candidates for the spring semester. This was also an opportunity to touch base with a number of alumni including Osama Suleiman and Sawsan Essa who have recently begun working on their own NGO which will run cross border environmental projects.
• I also spent two days in Jordan this week. On Monday, Tareq and I went to Irbid in the north of Jordan. We met with the Vice-President of the Jordan University of Science and Technology, Professor Malkawi and the head of the university's new center for Renewable Energy. Tareq and I discussed with them the idea of cooperation on a joint Masters Program in Energy and the Environment. Professor Malkawis seemed very interested in developing a joint program. Tareq and I will follow up on this project in the next few months. We also toured the new green house built with funds from the MERC research grant that Dr. Elaine Solowey and Dr. Samer Talouzi are working on together. Dr. Talouzi said tha the project was producing excellent results and the university is very pleased with the cooperation with the Arava Institute.
• In the evening, Tareq and I headed back to Amman where we met with Dr. Hassan Dweik, Vice-President of Al Quds University in East Jerusalem. Dr. Dweik was also attending the conference. Hassan was very pleased to hear that the institute has been able to aquire permits for West Bank Palestinan's to study at the institute. While this should make things easier in the development of greater cooperation between Al Quds and the institute, the current university policy has placed a moratorium on further cooperation between Al Quds and Israeli institutions of higher learning. Hassan is working on a statement of common principles on which cooperation between Al Quds and Israeli Universities can be based and allow an end to the moratorium. He asked if Tareq and I would be willing to help develop this document with him. We of course readily agreed.
• The next day, I met with the new Israeli Consul, Danny Silvan and his staff at the Amman Embassy. We discussed the difficulties in receiving visas for Jordanian students and how together we can make things go smoother. Danny is extremely enthusiastic about our program admitting that we are able to do things that the Embassy cannot, in order to improve relations between Jordan and Israel. He told his staff that the Arava Institute requests are to receive top priority. We also discussed the technical difficulties that Jordanin students run into when they try to come to the embassy for their appointments. Danny promised to try to deal with those issues as well.
• On Thursday, the Arava Institute and the Heschel Center, sponsored the first annual Food and Sustainability Conference called "Food for Thought". The confernece was held in Tel Aviv. It was the Arava Institute's first attempt at this type of activity. We did not know how many people to expect though our partner's, the Heschel Center, had a goal of 300 participants. On Thursday morning, the crowds started pouring in to the NOVA events center at the Tel Aviv Port. By the time the conference was in full swing we had over 500 attendees and we had to shut down registration because there was no more room! The conference opened with a welcoming speech by the Israeli Minister of Agriculture, Shalom Simchon. After both Eilon Schwartz, Director of the Heschel Center and I made our remarks, we invited our keynote speaker, best-selling author, Ruth Ozeki ("My Year of Meats" and "All Over Creation") to address the packed auditorium. Ruth was eloquent and inspiring. In a 45 minute speech she managed to capture all of the major issues and controversies around the food industry from genetically modified foods, to the environmental impact of the monoculture corn industry in the US, to the inhuman treatment of animals and the denial of basic human rights of small farmers around the world. At the end of her her speach, Ruth talked about a number of people who are leading the way towards more sustainability in food. Ruth mentoined the ground breaking work of Dr. Elaine Solowey who she met while at Ketura. Ruth captivated the audience and for the rest of the day, could not move two feet without being surrounded by fans. The conference continued with a series of short "lightning panels" moderated by our own Dr. Alon Tal. The panels included journalists, academics, professionals and activists and dealt with three subjects - Food and the Environment, Food and Health and Food and Culture. One of my favorite speakers raised the intriguing question "What happened to the famous Israeli Breakfast, the cheeses, yogurts, vegitables, juices etc?" Today almost 80% of Israelis eat cornflakes for breakfast! The short panels were followed by mini seminars which included a wider variety of food subjects and panelists including members of the Knesset, other government officials, researchers and heads of non-profits in Israel. The seminars covered issues such as the political arena, hunger, the meat industry in Israel, activism and more. Dr. Elaine Solowey ran a seminar in Engish for a group of visiting American food activists. After a delicious organic lunch of humus and salads, the conference reconvened with round table discussions, including one held by Rabbi Michael Cohen on Judaism and food. A closing panel looked at positive developments in Israel's food culture, organic markets, community sponsored agriculture, community gardens etc. The conference closed with the showing of a short video produced for the conference, featuring four young Israeli chefs who tried to produce a meal with the lowest carbon footprint possible. This short film was followed by the screening of the movie "Fresh" an excellent documentary about food initiatives in the US. We finally had to kick the last participants out of the builidng by 7:00 pm so we could go home.
• The Arava Institute steering committee for the Food Conference was Elad Topel, Abby Lutman, Gail Osman, Miriam Sharton and Ayala Weiss. The committee along with staff from the Heschel Center was responsible for planning, organizing and running the conference. In addition to the committee members a number of insitute staff were recruited to help run the conference including, Rabbi Michael Cohen, Ilana Meallem, Yair Teller, Judy Bar Lev, Rutie Kaplan, Dane Cooper and Shira Kronich. In addition, over 30 Arava Institute alumni participated in the conference.

So another busy week for the Arava Institute. This coming week we are signing the agreement of affiliation with Ben-Gurion University.

David

Weekly Report November 1st - 13th

Another 2 intensive weeks have passed since my last Blog update. Here are the highlights of the last two weeks at the institute:

• Of course most of the activity at the institute in the last two weeks was connected to the the 9th Israel Ride. This year the Ride started in Tsfat (for the first time) with 40 Riders. There were 17 ride alumni on the Ride including 5 members of the Board of Directors: Howie Rodenstein, Michael Marcus, Jack Platt, Nigel Savage and Bruce Stanger. Rabbi Michael Cohen also participated and rode with the "Chalutzim"!! The first day of the Ride was a magnificent ride through the mountains of Tsfat, down to the Hula Valley, through Rosh Pina and eventually down to the Sea of Galillee. The second day we rode from sea to sea - from the Sea of Galilee, through Emek Yizrael, past Meggido, through an Israeli Army base ending at Kibbutz Sdot Yam on the Mediterranean Sea. From there, the riders were bussed to Kibbutz Mashabei Sadeh. On Friday, the riders rode to Sde Boker, visited David and Paula Ben Gurion's graves and rode mountain bikes to a desert spring. The day ended at the Ramon Inn in Mitzpeh Ramon where the riders spent Shabbat. Shabbat was filled with food, massages, relaxation, services (for those who wanted) and of course the highlight of the Shabbat at Mitzpeh, the Arava Alumni student panel. Riders were very moved by the stories alumni (both crew and students from Sde Boker) told of their experiences at the Arava Institute and their dreams of a new Middle East. The Shabbat ended with beautiful Havdallah Service overlooking the Ramon Crater led by the Hazon Staff. Sunday morning, the riders were up bright and early in order to ride through the Ramon Crater and across the Faran River Bed across a beautiful dry 70 miles of hot desert. Encountering a strong head wind at the very end, the riders finally made it to Kibbutz Ketura, home of the Arava Institute. At Ketura, the riders were treated to beer, tours of the institute, wonderful rooms at the Keren Kolot guest house, the pool, a barbeque and a coffee house on the lawn of the student dorms were riders had the opportunity to informally meet with students. The last day of the Ride, was from Kibbutz Ketura to Eilat, once again transversing a challenging desert landscape including climbing the magnificent Red Mountains surrounding Eilat and finishing with an amazing descent from the top of Mount Yoash down through the Red Mountains to the Red Sea. The Ride concluded with a dip in the Red Sea, more beer and a Shehekaynu.
• On Wednesday and Thursday of this week, we were privileged to host Dr. Jürgen Kleinwächter, a physicist from Germany who has developed the Solar Village concept at Tamera - Solar Village. Jürgen spent two days at the institute learning about our work, meeting staff and students and lecturing on the Solar Village concept. The conclusion from the visit is that there are a lot of areas for cooperation and we will certainly be in touch with Jürgen about further cooperation.
• Shira Kronig from Arava EC&T and Dr. Clive Lipchin, head of the Research Department, spent two days in Aqaba meeting with French, English, Jordanian and Palestinian research partners on the Red Sea Dead Sea Conduit feasibility study funded by the World Bank.
• On Thursday, Kibbutz Ketura celebrated the 36 anniversary of the founding of the kibbutz. The celebrations started with a dedication of the Community Garden which is funded by the Merrin Family Foundation grant given to Dr. Elaine Solowey to further her work in sustainable agriculture. The Community Garden of the Kibbutz allows the children of Ketura, the opportunity to get their hands dirty and learn about organic farming first hand. In the evening, the students of the institute joined the members of the kibbutz for a festive dinner and then a program that included songs, skits and Israeli folk dancing. The folk dancing began with an Arab "Debka" dance led by our students. Then the songs switched to traditional Israel folk dancing. It was quite a site to see some of our female Arab students wearing the traditional "Hejab" dancing to the Hebrew tunes of "Hora Medura" and "Shavteh Mayim"!
• Though the institute is usually quite on Fridays, we are blessed with a number of visits that include, Martin Cohen, a friend of Mandy Patinkin, who is staying in Eilat and asked to see the institute. Martin is meeting with students, staff and will have a chance to meet Methuselah. The other visitor is Kenneth Ludwa a representative of USAID who is doing a site visit of the MERC project that Dr. Elaine Solowey is running jointly with the Jordan Unversity of Science and Technology. Kenneth was thrilled to hear about the diverse student body studying at the institute and said that it is now much clearer to him that the Arava Institute is a natural partner for USAID.
• The outlook for next week is not any quieter. A number of staff members including Tareq, Cecil, Sharon and myself will spend the first part of the week in Jordan. On Thursday, November 18th, the institute along with the Heschel Center are sponsoring the first annual Sustainable Food Conference - "Food for Thought" www.foodforthought.org.il. The conference will host best seller author, Ruth Ozeki. The week after, the institute will celebrate the signing of the Ben Gurion University - Arava Institute Agreement.

Shabbat Shalom and have a good week.

David