When her vegan summer camp counselor explained to a fifteen-year-old Rachel how the dairy industry pollutes the groundwater in poor rural communities and causes global warming, there was no turning back. Her green fire lit, Rachel became increasingly passionate about the relationship between human societies and the natural environment, particularly about the systemic injustices associated with environmental degradation.
After snagging a B.A. in Peace and Justice Studies at the University of Maryland, where she wrote an undergraduate thesis on water injustice in Israel/Palestine and South Africa, Rachel was awarded the New Israel Fund/Shatil’s Rabbi Richard J. Israel Social Justice Fellowship to come and spread the green gospel in Israel for the 2009-2010 academic year. She currently interns for Friends of the Earth Middle East in their Tel Aviv office.
When Rachel is not having anxiety about her ecological footprint, carbon and otherwise, she can be found in hot pursuit of the best vegetarian food Tel Aviv has to offer. She also blogs about her experience as an NIF fellow and environmentalist in Israel at organichummus.wordpress.com.
Rachel can be reached at rachelbergstein (at) gmail (dot) com.
The prospects of solar energy are heating up in Palestine. Rachel reports on a new solar thermal plant at Beit Jala school. The Talitha Kumi school in Beit Jala, Palestine just became home to Palestine’s first solar thermal plant for…
Israel’s been dragging its feet over the proposed drought tax. It’s been a pretty tumultuous month for water politics in Israel. After more than five years of abnormally low rainfall, as well as decades of unsustainable water consumption (at least…
A report published Sunday by the Israeli human rights group B’tselem, titled, “Foul Play: Neglect of Wastweater Treatment in the West Bank” found untreated wastewater to be a major source of pollution in the West Bank. 91 million cubic meters…
The global contest for the Seven New Wonders of the World is not the only reason the Dead Sea is making news this week. Last Saturday, Israeli Vice Premier Silvan Shalom announced that the World Bank agreed to finance a…
As we saw in recent posts on vegawarianism and collective vegetarianism, meatless lifestyles now come in all different shapes and sizes. To add to these vegetarian possibilites, Jana and Ilan Gur, owners of the Al Hashulchan (“On the Table”) food…
In yet another move to reduce solid waste and increase innovative recycling, Israel has joined Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe project. The Reuse-A-Shoe project was started in the United States in 1990 as a way to recycle old sports shoes. Instead of allowing…
Noah Dan has not forgotten the tastes of his childhood. He remembers eating brara, the fruits and vegetables bursting with incredible flavor but too “ugly” to package for sale in the cities, on Kibbutz Givat Brenner, where he was born…
As we saw in the recent Gaza and Lebanon wars, violent conflict can be a major obstacle to environmental protection in the Middle East. Recently, a letter signed by Issac Ben David, deputy director of Israel’s Ministry for Environmental Protection,…
Earlier this year, we saw members of the Lebanese group IndyACT trek out into the snowy wilderness to protect Lebanon’s snow from catastrophic climate change. This week IndyACT members, along with their friends in the Association for Forest Development and…
The World Bank published a report yesterday recommending an immediate change in the water regime between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Coming at a particularly sensitive time, considering the region’s ever-worsening water crisis, the report, entitled Assessment of Restrictions on…
