Jerusalem Green Business Forum

Over the last couple of years there has been an increasing interest in creating a forum for green businesses in Jerusalem. At our last AGM, several stakeholders thought this is something we need to do.

We want to find ways to incentivize businesses to become greener, while we would also like the Jerusalem public to demand green standards of the businesses that provide them with products and services.

In order to set the ball rolling, we are inviting all our members and followers to join an initial open discussion via Zoom, on Wednesday October 19th at 20:00. Click here for the link.

We will brainstorm together and hopefully achieve the following:

1. Meet and greet 

2. Establish a stakeholder steering committee that will work with our staff members to decide how to proceed.

3. Arrange a follow-up meeting for the committee to plan the next steps.

4. Start arranging one on one meetings with businesses that seem to be low-hanging fruit.

5. Think of an attractive name for the Jerusalem Green Business Forum.

Shmitta-Permaculture Design Course in the Jerusalem Forest

Join FIG in a holistic one-month permaculture journey from October 24th-November 23rd, 2022, that weaves hands-on sustainable design methods with ancient Jewish agricultural wisdom, embodiment, and practice. Learn in a small group with one-on-one mentorship with Paz Faigenbaum, a permaculture master who learnt from the pioneer himself - David Holmgren. 

Details can be found in the FB event here.

Sign the Noise Petition!

Under the leadership of Stakeholder Prof. Hamutal Bar Yosef, several Jerusalem Stakeholders have recently taken on the issue of noise pollution in the city. The Jerusalem Green Fund has prepared a petition, in which we demand that the municipality deal with and relate to the issue in a more serious manner. If you are fed up with noise from illegal honking in the streets, unbearable noise from a nearby building site, or late night street celebrations, support this campaign by signing and sharing!

Sign the Asbestos Removal Petition!

We want Bustania Park to be clean and safe from asbestos! Help us by signing this petition and thus putting public pressure on the Jerusalem Municipality and the Jerusalem Development Authority to clear all remnants of asbestos from the park!

Urban Forestry Course

The Jerusalem Green Fund's upcoming course on Urban Forestry has reached full registration! We are excited and will see you after the holidays!

“Green Inside & Out” Festival

Last week the JGF’s Sustainable Jerusalem Lobby showcased all the member organizations in the Green Inside and Out Festival all over the city. More than 1,000 participants joined workshops, hiked hills, learned in lectures, built benches and were inspired by the amount of green initiatives that are run by civil society organizations in Jerusalem! Thank you for joining us, we hope to see you again soon at the next event…

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals(SDG’s) & our New Years Resolutions 

The 17 SDG’s adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as a universal call for action to end poverty, to protect our planet and to ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by the year 2030 are at the forefront of our New Year’s meditations. These  precepts highlighting the intersection of climate change and racial justice originate in the very first garden mentioned in the Bible, Garden of Eden. 

Climate justice marks the anniversary of creation. Humans are responsible for tending the gardens of humanity, the stewards of all living things on earth. It is our mandate not to possess the garden, rather to guard and keep it, to till the land and the earth (Genesis 2:15)

Sustainable development goals 1-12 relate to tending our gardens of humanity , while goals 13-15 relate to our responsibility to be stewards of the planet. 

Tap into the SDG’s, contemplate them and our connection with them, and reflect on the ways in which we have been, and continue to be empowered to make them become a reality. Wishing you all a fruitful New Year. 

David Miron-Wapner

David is a lifelong environmentalist. Raised in Los Angeles CA, he remembers as a child his mother organizing the neighborhood to plant trees along their street adjacent to the 405 Freeway. Today those trees are over 20 meters tall! David is a non-practicing lawyer who made aliyah in 1978, straight to Jerusalem. He worked for the legal advisor at the Environmental Protection Service (the precursor to today’s Ministry), and later became the executive director of the US-Israel Science and Technology Commission from 1997-2011. He was also part of the founding team of BrightSource Energy which developed the largest solar energy electric power station in the Mojave Desert in CA.

David became a Jerusalem Stakeholder at the beginning of the JGF as he had known Naomi Tsur for some time. In 2007, he co-founded the Jewish Climate Initiative which received a grant from the Alliance of Religions and Conservation to draft a climate plan for Judaism. As deputy mayor, Naomi was invited to present the plan at Windsor Castle and later at the COP15 in Copenhagen. At that time, Naomi began the recognition process of Jerusalem as a pilgrimage city; and David supported the initiative to green the tourism industry. Afterwards, he helped Naomi found the Sustainable Jerusalem Lobby.

Today, David is the Chair of the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development (“ICSD”). Previously he was Chair of Kehilat Kol Haneshama, Chair of the Heschel Center for Sustainability and served as a representative of the Reform Movement on the board of KKL. 

David’s current ICSD project, together with the Elijah Institute and fellow Stakeholder, Yossi Abramowtiz is “Climate Justice: A Ceremony of Repentance” at Mt. Sinai during COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh this November. Prior to that ICSD is co-producing an interfaith conference on November 3 at the Foreign Ministry culminating with a “Jerusalem Climate Declaration”. 

His hobby is his garden, “I deeply believe the best way to inspire environmentalism is to get your hands into the soil.” David & Edna have 2 sons and 4 grandchildren. “Each one is doing their part to heal the world, it’s very gratifying.”