New Green Deal for Israel

What a great start to the day... breakfast briefing at the Big Green Jewish’s offices in London with Sagit Porat speaking on ‘a New Green Deal for Israel’.

Participants came from a number of Jewish organisations including the Union of Jewish Students and the JCC for London.

Interestingly, in her talk, Sagit, who is a member of the Israeli Green Movement, spoke about how Schumacher’s  influential “Small is Beautiful” has been a guiding inspiration for her and others. Before joining Resurgence, when I thought about ‘small’ and ‘beautiful’ in one sentence, my taste buds awakened and I automatically thought of a wonderful restaurant on the Kilburn High Road. That’s another story. Now, I know more about Schumacher’s philosophy and it is refreshing to learn about its influence in Israel, a country where green politics is a key issue.

This summer was a season of protests both in the UK and Israel. We are all familiar with what happened across this country, but the protests in Israel were fuelled by something different: social justice.

Sagit told us how Israel’s green party has been leading a team of activists, with the support of the Heinrich Boell Foundation, in creating a new economic programme for the country which would include the concepts of the ‘Green New Deals’ from across the world. The draft of Israel’s proposal: ‘The Economics of Tomorrow’ was released this week. Amongst other things it calls for a total change in Israel’s energy sources.

With two years until the next planned Israeli election, time will tell how much of an impact the new green vision will have in Israel. Still, I left this morning’s event feeling proud of what Jewish people contribute to the environment. A look at the Big Green Jewish website highlights what Jews have done in the past and continue to do for the environment.

David Brown, and his team at the Big Green Jewish website are to be applauded for their efforts in raising awareness of environmental issues across the Jewish and wider communities.

Sharon Garkinkel is the PR & Marketing Executive at Resurgence magazine.

For more information visit the Big Green Jewish website: http://www.biggreenjewish.org/