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 29th - December 11th, 2009

OK - it has been two weeks since I have had a chance to write something for the blog.

• In fact the week of November 29th to the 4th was a fairly quite week at the institute. The students were all studying, the staff members were all working and meeting. The only exciting thing that happened that week was on Shabbat, I rode my bike to Eilat and then went diving.

Last week however was a bit more exciting.

• Cecil and Sharon spent Sunday and Monday interviewing 20 Jordanian students in Amman.
• On Monday night, a tremendous amount of rain poured from the skies all over Israel including in the Negev and the Arava. On Tuesday morning on my way to an 8:30 meeting with Avigad Vornshak, the Director of the Blaustein Institutes at the Sde Boker Campus of BGU, I came to Nahal Faran, which looked like the Colorado river. I could not cross the Nahal and it did not look like the water would subside any time soon. I turned my car around and drove back to the Arava road (route 90) and headed north. I turned off at the Maaleh Acrabim (Scorpion's Ascent) road. It is an amazing back road climb out of the Arava Valley onto the Negev Heights plain. The road is a narrow twisting steep climb of a few hundred feet almost straight up. At the top, I continued on through the Big Machtesh (Crater) finally arriving at Yeroham. This is the route we once sent the Chalutzim Riders on the 2007 Israel Ride (there is a reason we call them the Meshugaim). I was finally able to get to Sde Boker only a half hour late.
• Elli Groner and I met Avigad Vornshak. We had an excellent meeting in which we worked out the kinks of the financial arrangements for the Masters Program for North American students, discussed how to move forward on the Energy and the Environment Masters Program and discussed the possibility of collaborating on an Israel Studies program.
• Wednesday morning, Elli and I met with Shaul Krakover, the Dean of the BGU Eilat campus in order to finalize the details of the legal agreement that we are signing with BGU.
• That same morning, Professor Pua Bar (Kutiel) the new Academic Coordinator from BGU gave a lecture to our Masters students at their weekly Masters Seminar. Professor Bar (Kutiel) is an Ecologist in the BGU Geography department in Ber Sheva.
• In the afternoon, over 20 people attended the brainstorming session on the establishment of the Arava Center for Sustainable Development in Arid Lands. Dr. Shmuel Brenner will head the new center which is a partnership with the Southern Arava Research and Development Center at Yotvata and the Dead Sea Arava Science Center. The new center will provide research, training programs and extensions services to developing countries around the world suffering from a lack of water and desertification. The center will partner with the Israeli Foreign Ministry on the Millennium Villages project as well as other partner organizations.
• Thursday afternoon, the Academic Department held an open day and hosted 10 potential Israeli students at the institute. The potential students met current students, staff, were interviewed and tested for English proficiency.
• Friday afternoon, the Arava Alumni Peace and Environmental Network (AAPEN) Alumni Conference subcommittee met on Skype in order to plan for the Alumni Conference in February.

David Lehrer

Weekly Report November 22nd-27th, 2009

Having had barely any time to recover from last week's hectic schedule, the institute dove into a another packed week.

• Early on Sunday morning the students took off for a three day trip in the Negev to look at issues of sustainability and environmental justice. The trip was organized by the Student Life Department and Dr. Clive Lipchin as part of the course he teaches "Society and the Environment". During the trip, students visited both recognized and unrecognized Bedouin villages, Jewish settlements, single family farms and the Ramat Hovev National Industrial Waste Site near Ber Sheva. At night, the students slept in a Bedouin tent at "The Desert Ship" camp ground and heard stories from Pharchan, the Bedouin camp ground owner. The students had bot a great time but were also challenged by the complicated issues they confronted. The trip ended on Tuesday night so that students would be back on the kibbutz in time for the signing ceremony with Ben-Gurion University the following day.


• On Wednesday, the institute hosted a delegation from Ben-Gurion University and the Toronto Jewish Federation Partnership 2000 Steering Committee for the long awaited signing ceremony of the agreement between the Arava Institute and the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The agreement grants the Arava Institute's academic program official affiliate status with Ben-Gurion University. The ceremony took place outside the Keren Kolot lobby overlooking the Bryan Medwed Renewable Energy Park and the Institute's Academic and Research Center offices. The ceremony was emceed by Ronit Debowy of Kibbutz Ketura and opend with a song in Hebrew and Arabic prepared by Arava Institute students. Mr. Udi Gat, Chairman of the Hevel Eilot Regional Council was the first speaker and spoke about the importance of an academic center in the region and the growing relationship between BGU and Hevel Eilot. Professor Jimmy Weinblatt, the BGU Rector spoke for the univeristy as well as Professor Shaul Krakover, Dean of the Eilat Campus. I spoke in the name of the institue (see speech) and two students, Yonat Morduch and Huda Al Beirut did a superb job representing the students. Professor Weinblatt and I signed a declaration of affiliation which accompanies the legal documents. The ceremony ended with a beautiful rendition of Halevai (a song of peace and hope) by Yuval and Sivan Musnik (two children of Kibbutz Ketura). After the speaches, the delegation from Ben-Gurion and Toronto walked over to the institute's offices in order to unveil the sign indicating that the institute is now an official affiliate of Ben-Gurion University. See declaration and pictures.

Other events this week:

• We had a visit from the Director General of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, Dr. Yossi Inbar, on Tuesday. Dr. Inbar came with a delegation from his office who recieved a brief explanation of the activities of the institute. The meeting was very brief and half way through our explanation of what we do, the Director General received a phone call on his cell phone answered it and spent 15 minutes talking while we all sat in silence and waited for him to finish. By the time the call was over, so was the meeting. Welcome to Israel.
• On Friday, I was asked to give a presentation to the Hevel Eilot Regional Council about the Arava Institute. Over the past few years, the institute has begun to work much more closely with the Regional Council on issues such as Renewable Energy, the Science Center, the R & D Agricultural Station and so on. Udi Gat, Chair of the Council felt it was important that members of the Regional Council get a wider picture of what the institute does.
• This week was both Thanksgiving (the American holiday of thanks) and Eid Al Adha (the Moslem holiday commemorating the sacrifice of Ishmael by Abraham). On Thursday evening, students stuffed themselves with a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat including a whole turkey cooked by Barbara Pinsker and on Friday, afternoon, in the traditional Moslem manner, the students slaugtered and lamb and barbequed it! Not too many students were hungry for Friday night dinner.

David

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

Weekly Report - October 18th to 30th, 2009

It has been two weeks since I have been able to write in the blog. It has been a very busy two weeks:

• I came back from my trip to Portugal on Sunday evening October 18th. If you have not yet seen my report click here: David's Trip to Portugal Report .
• Dr. Clive Lipchin and Dr. Shmuel Brenner also returned from their trip to Kenya. Clive and Shmuel's Trip to Kenya Report. The highlight of their trip was meeting President Obama's Grandmother!
• Together with the Dead Sea Arava Science Center, we hosted a visit from the Jewish Colonization Association, the Foundation that distributes the Baron D'Hirsch fortune. The foundation is considering funding lab equipment for the Arava Institute and the Science Center.
• On Friday, October 23rd, Eco-Paths, the Arava Institute's events department held the first annual "Arava Challenge" Ride. It was a 35 kilometer off road ride from Arad to the Dead Sea. We had 25 participants. People had a great time. Arava Challenge
• On that same Friday, October 23rd, our Jordanian Alumni held their first Alumni event in Jordan on 350 CO2 day. A group of alumi decided to do their own event as an initial step. So they partnered with other organizations in the 350 event that was held as a march on the Rainbow Street in Amman Jordan. 350 Event
• On Monday, October 26th, Israel and Jordan celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Jordanian Israeli Peace Treaty. Judy Bar Lev organized a delegation from the Arava Institue to attend the celebration and gives the following report:The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel and the Truman Institute Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace of Hebrew University sponsored a symposium on Monday October 26th 2009 to celebrate 15 years to the signing of the Peace Treaty between Israel and Jordan.
  Here at the Machon Arava we have a number of colleagues at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jordan Section who have assisted us over the years in arranging for our students from Jordan to obtain visas to study and live at Kibbutz Ketura.
  They invited us to send a delegation to the symposium of staff and Jordanian students.
  With the effort of leaving Ketura at 05:30 am and some of our alumni who are now at the Albert Katz school for Desert Studies at Sde Boker we arrived at 9:00am to the Truman Institute on Mount Scopus.
  We were given the red carpet treatment upon arrival and our students had the opportunity to greet Jordan's Ambassador to Israel Ali al-Ayed who spoke later on about his participation in creating the Peace Agreement. Additional speakers were James Cunningham, U.S. ambassador to Israel and Yaakov Rosen, Israel's Ambassador to Jordan.
  We made numerous additional personal connections during the coffee breaks, making the long day very much worth the travelling. The presence in the audience of our delegation from The Arava Institute was mentioned from the podium twice during the morning sessions.
• On Tuesday, October 27th, the Institute held the bimonthly Board of Directors meeting chaired by Dr. Michael Beyth. Board members heard positive reports on student recruitment, the academic program, new research projects and fundraising successes in the US. The Board also approved of the planning process for next year's goals and budgets.
• Wednesday morning, the Research Department held a research department meeting. In addition to hearing about Shmuel and Clive's trip to Kenya, researchers and grant writers updated each other on grant requests, grant approvals and research progress. The institute is currently involved in research on crops for arid lands, biofuel production from agricultural waste, biogas production from animal waste, dust settling research, hydrogen fuel production from solar energy, long term ecological and social research and the Dead Sea Red Sea Feasibility Study. Clive Lipchin, head of the Research Department emphasized the importance of publishing peer reviewed articles for journals. As usual, there was not enough time to talk about everything that is happening in the research department.
• Parrallel to the Research Department meeting, Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed, head of the Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation hosted Dr. Claude Trink from the French Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Town and Country Planning and Ms. Sophie Miller from the French Embassy. France is very interested in bilateral cooperation with Israel on renewable energy. Dr. Trink and Ms. Miller spent a few hours at the Institute and were very impressed with what they saw. We can expect further contact with the Embassy.

David Lehrer

Weekly Report October 11th-16th, 2009

Summer is over and so are the holidays. Time to get back to work and it started this week:

• The big news of course is that on Wednesday night, we opened the Fall Semester 2009 with 45 students! The largest semester in the history of the Institute. 15 Israelis, 12 North Americans, 12 Palestinians, 5 Jordanians and 1 Australian. The group looks great and the Academic Programs Department is completely prepared for a great semester. This week is orientation and next week starts classes.
• We had the third meeting of the Coordination Committee between the Institute and the Kibbutz which tries to promote a positive relationship between Kibbutz members and the Institute.
• In addition to the start of a new semester, the Fall schedule looks quite full and a lot of time was spent this week in meetings preparing for these events. Here is just a sample:
• October 23rd - Arava Challenge - One day off road ride for Israelis
• November 4th-9th - Israel Ride Fall 2009 from Tsfat to Eilat
• November 19th-20th - Food for Thought - Food Conference in Tel Aviv
• November 25th - BGU Agreement Signing Ceremony
• So you can see that it is a pretty full schedule for the next two months.
• Uri Nusinow left this week for a trip to Brussels as a guest of the EU. He managed an environmental project called Life which was funded by the EU and promoted sustainable solutions for waster water treatment in the Arava. Uri is in Brussels at a final conference of the project.
• I am travelling tonight to Portugal, to the EcoVillage Tamera to meet with their leaders about research cooperation between the Arava Institute and Tamera.
• Clive Lipchin and Shmuel Brenner are back from a very successful trip to Kenya. We hope that this trip will spawn a new initiative for a Center for Sustainable Development in Arid Lands.

Have a nice weekend.

David