28 results for author: David Krantz

Israel: The New Saudi Arabia?

NEW YORK (May 1, 2011) — Together with large natural-gas reserves recently found off Israel’s Mediterranean coast, a new technology that may yield billions of barrels of oil in Israel may make the nation a global energy powerhouse. "Israel could attain energy independence," Dr. Yuval Bartov, chief technology officer and chief geologist at Israel Energy Initiatives — one of the companies pursuing oil in Israel — recently told The Jerusalem Report. But the potential oil rush is a mixed blessing for Israel: Although the country stands to reap tremendous financial awards — per capita, it could ...

Trees without Bulldozers: Environmental Justice for the Bedouin

NEW YORK (March 17, 2011) — When David Ben-Gurion envisioned making the desert bloom, bulldozing Bedouin villages to make way for new groves of trees is not exactly what he had in mind. But, in the name of environmentalism, that is exactly what Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael / Jewish National Fund did recently, bulldozing the village of al-Araqib for the 21st time since last July as part of its $600-million Blueprint Negev project. It gets worse: In order to plant the new grove of trees, KKL-JNF also bulldozed about 850 olive trees owned by the villagers of al-Araqib. And the bulldozing has not been bloodless: Village residents and ...

Topsy-Turvy World: Environmental Campaign Relaunched

GZA members enjoyed their tour of the Topsy Turvy Bus at the Green Israel Summit this past October. NEW YORK (Feb. 11, 2011) — Long past December, this year’s Chanukah miracle is that the oil is still burning. Fueled by cooking oil first used during the Green Zionist Alliance’s Chanukah party at Greenpoint Shul, the Topsy Turvy Bus begins its third Jewish environmental tour today in Raleigh, N.C. The GZA’s Chanukah oil alone, though, may not have gotten the bus past Delaware, and the miracle would have stopped there. But scores of people and about a dozen co-sponsoring organizations have ...

Power to the People? Energy Battle in Israel Pits Firms vs. Public Interest

NEW YORK (Feb. 4, 2011) — This month, the Knesset will make one of the most important votes in its history. After all, it’s not every day that a country has the opportunity to revolutionize life for its people. Of course, it’s not every day that a country discovers more than $300 billion in the ground. But after finding some of the largest natural-gas deposits in the world just off of its coast, that’s the situation in which Israel finds itself. The Tamar and Leviathan gas fields can change life for every Israeli. Currently, Israeli law requires that only 30 to 33 percent of the profits from selling natural ...

Trees: The Ultimate Environmentalists

15 Shvat, 5771 — Trees just might be the ultimate environmentalists. They provide shelter and food for animals large and small. They nourish the soil with their fallen leaves, and protect it with their strong roots. And trees not only pump oxygen into the atmosphere, allowing every animal on the surface of the planet to breathe, they also filter out greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, as well as precursors to acid rain, such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. How many other environmentalists can claim that? We can only aspire to help the environment as much as trees do. So perhaps one of the most import...

Sharing God’s Green Earth: Planting a Green World by Engaging the Greater Community

NEW YORK (Dec. 23, 2010) — On the eve of the eve of the most widely celebrated Jewish baby’s birthday ever, a holy day for billions of Christians around the world, it’s important to remember that we Jews only make up about two tenths of one percent of the world’s population. So if we’re going to green the world, we can’t do it alone. We need to engage with our brothers and sisters of all faiths. In Israel, that means that we need to work with Christians and Muslims, both within Israel and in Israel’s neighboring lands as well, because nature knows no borders. The Green Zionist Alliance, for example, ...

Chanukah: The Holiday of Energy Conservation

NEW YORK (Dec. 2, 2010) — Chanukah isn’t just our Festival of Lights — it’s our Holiday of Energy Conservation. And the Maccabees are the answer to climate change. Think about it: They made one day’s worth of oil last for eight days! If we conserved energy like the Maccabees did, we could put OPEC out of business. The Maccabees did it with a miracle; we can do it through small changes. The Green Zionist Alliance is working to conserve Israel’s energy through transitioning buildings to energy-efficient lighting and agency fleets to fuel-efficient vehicles while installing energy-generating solar panels ...

Turning the General Assembly into a Green Assembly

NEW YORK (Nov. 15, 2010) — It’s not easy being green, but it’s certainly possible. While the Jewish Federations’ General Assembly and International Lion of Judah Conference in New Orleans accomplished important work this past week, it did so at the expense of the environment. Organizers of the conferences didn’t provide recycling or composting containers. Instead, the two meetings produced a massive amount of non-biodegradable plastic trash. Every single meal was served on plastic with individually wrapped plastic flatware. Boxed lunches came with plastic water bottles. The community-service component of ...