July 2007

Last night I went to a lecture at the Jerusalem city hall, on the subject of “Sustainable Architecture.” There are many organizations around the world that aim at promoting environmental design, and in other countries there are systems of certification granted for environmentally friendly buildings. (In the U.S., for example, there is LEED). I was surprised to find out that Israel also has a system of “Green Certification,” code 5281, that has been on the books since May 2006.

Now, one year later, Israel has its first green-certified building. Bank Leumi on Rachov HaArba’ah in Tel Aviv was recently redone to comply with the requirements of the code. Bank Leumi has also made public its intent to follow with renovations of its other branches to bring them in line with the code. The branch has sensors that automatically adjust the artificial lighting depending on the amount of natural light, water efficient toilets, an aggressive recycling program, use of shading on windows and energy-efficient glazing, and some sort of public transportation-use policy for its employees.
In addition, this month it was announced that the first “green neighborhood” is under development near Kfar Saba, a 5,000 unit development. Of course, there is not yet a code for building a green city. Yet. But they’re working on the building code (TABA in Hebrew) and are hoping to succeed in creating an ecological place to live.

Kol HaKavod to all those involved who are helping to preserve the beauty and resources of this country. And apologies that none of the articles are in English - the English press hasn’t seemed to notice this, oddly enough.

The travesty of the UN Human Rights Council—a forum that exists primarily for the delegitimization of Israel—is well known to anyone who cares to pay attention. Now a Congressional delegate to the UN (I never knew there were any) named Norm Coleman is calling for the US to stop funding its poisonous polemics. That just seems to makes sense–cut it off. If the why isn’t obvious, you should check out yesterday’s Daniel Gordis’ speech to the Summer Institute for Creative Zionism.

Meanwhile, the new Secretary General Ban Ki-moon speaks some truth and gets nailed

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also came under attack on Wednesday for saying that Islamic members of the Human Rights Council had ignored abuses around the world and targeted Israel instead.

Ban angered the 57-member Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) when he said in June that the council should look at all situations of human rights violations.

Pakistan, serving as OIC’s chairman, told the 49-nation council at a resumed meeting on Wednesday in Geneva that Islamic countries should “streamline” its relationship with Ban.

A big pat on the back to Mr. Ki-moon.

There has been some news coming from the Bank of Israel about Israeli coinage. In two separate press releases, the Bank has decided to institute a new 2-Shkalim coin and may decide to do away with the 5 Agurot piece. In terms of the 5 Agurot coin, it wouldn’t be the first coin to go, as I remember that when my parents visited Israel in 1990 they brought me back a 1 Agura coin (which I still have somewhere.) Most of us Israelis ignore the 5-er anyways… if the person at the checkout has one, I’ll take it, if not… I’m happy to round to the nearest 10 Agurot. That, apparently, will become the norm at some point in the future. Besides, as was once the case with the American Penny, the cost of the metal in the 5 Agurot coin is now worth more than double the face value.

Of more interest to me is the new 2-shkalim coin. My roots are in Canada, so a 2 unit coin sounds like a good idea, and supposedly will save time and money. The coin is to be in between the size of a 1 and a 5 shkalim piece. As with most Israeli coins, it will borrow a motif from an ancient coin: “One side of the coin indicates its value, while the other side shows
an image inspired from a coin of Yehohanan, or John Hyrcanus I, and depicts the double cornucopia, a hollow animal’s horn that commonly appeared on coins in the Hellenic period and was a symbol of plenty.” I love looking at coins in my pocket and realizing that they are taken from a source that dates back to the last time there was an independent Jewish state in Israel. For those interested in learning a bit more about Israeli coins, here is a link to the Bank of Israel’s explanations of the various coins. Find out what’s in your pocket…

Last week, the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute held a conference in Jerusalem…and most people wouldn’t know any better. That said, it seems something was made clear, writes JJGoldberg of the Forward:

Running through it all, like an electric current, was the palpable sense that Americans and Israelis had no idea what the other was talking about. For Israelis, Jewish policy is made by the government; for Diaspora Jews, it is urged on the larger society. Israeli leadership is elected; Diaspora leadership is cultivated.

Most vexing, the Jewish identities of the two societies are so different as to be almost mutually incomprehensible. It’s been said a thousand times, of course: Israelis experience Jewishness as all-encompassing, the stuff of daily life, while Diaspora Jews experience it as an amorphous, shifting set of choices. We’ve all heard it. You have to sit for three days with two dozen rabbis, professors and educators trying to hammer out a common agenda to realize how vast the gulf really is.

While I was only there for half-an-hour (I was too busy investing in the future with the PresenTense Institute for Creative Zionism ), from my limited experience in the Jewish world I am certain he is correct. We need more opportunities for bridging that gulf.

Bambi Sheleg, the founder and editor-in-chief of Israel’s leading magazine, Eretz Aheret, came to speak with PICZ fellows and members on Sunday–and it was a riviting experience.

Israel, according to Bambi, is at a crossroads. The Jewish People have been pulled in opposite and conflicting directions by extremist elements from all sides–leaving many Israelis feeling as if there is no common ground, no basis for the State.

But there is a common ground, she asserts–more than we think. Since the extremist groups are getting more and more extreme, the moderates in each camp end up having more in common with one another than their extremist brothers; a national-religious woman, and Haredi man and a Tel-Avivian secular Jew sometimes have more in common with each other than with the fictionalized, sensationalized versions of themselves they see on TV. This common ground is another Israel, an Eretz Aheret, one that Bambi works hard to portray by bringing together leading voices from across the ideological camps to write about issues from all sides of the spectrum.

Most interesting for me is that Bambi, an Orthodox Woman who wears a head-covering, says very openly that Orthodoxy is a menace to Jewish Life in Israel: by claiming exclusivity, it delegitimizes the 70 paths to Jewish wisdom, and causes a systemic blockage in Jewish Life.
We filmed the talk–check it out online on our Creative Zionism Channel on YouTube.

On July 16th, at 12 noon, the American Zionist Movement and other groups will hold a rally directly across from the United Nations (1srt Avenue and 47 th Street- Dag Hammarskjold Plaza) in support of freedom for Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev. Please be there to show support for the MIAs’ freedom.

Also, Israeli song writer Yaron Cohen has written a song about the three soldiers abducted last summer. You can download it from the AZM’s website.