Baladi, a word that Israelis adopted from Arabic, means “national” or “of the country”. It is also the name that French-born Israeli designer, Brigitte Cartier, decided to give her design studio. Her Baladi Company for Ecological Progress takes our national garbage and transforms it into beautiful designs that we can all be proud of. After […]
According to that old expression, beggars can’t be choosers. But Israeli designer Amit Brilliant proves that saying wrong with her line of recycled wallets, bags, notebook covers, and hats – BEGGARS. She chooses not to dump what would normally end up in the trash and turn it into something useful and aesthetic instead. In other […]
“We face the most almighty hangover, as the toxins unleashed by our century-long binge work their way through the earth’s system. We have to detoxify. We have to sober up. We have to come to grips….” from ‘Confessions of an Eco-Sinner’ by Fred Pearce. Pearce has written a book for the ecologically and socially minded. […]
It’s one thing when designers take brand new ready-made materials and transform them into something else. It’s another thing entirely when designers take old ready-mades and reincarnate them in order to avoid waste. Reincarnation is what Israeli designer Doron Sar-Shalom is all about. His designs, which consist mainly of lamps, are constructed out of unlikely […]
Strolling down the glitzy northern part of Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street this week, something strange caught my eye among all the designer gowns and stiletto pumps. Garbage. Literally, garbage. No, not on the street. In the window display. The garbage – which included aluminum cans and newspapers – was in the window display of Cotton, […]
I recently wrote about Environment California’s report on Formaldehyde in nursery furniture and the potential threat to our children’s health. Well, Friends of the Earth (FoE USA) are hot on the heels of this report and have released their own findings regarding toxic fire retardants common in baby products and it does not paint a […]
For those of you following our Great Green Prophet Giveaway with Yoav Kotik, we are proud to announce our two winners – Rebecca Markowitz and Herman Gregorian! Both of them came up with very creative ideas for reusing things that would otherwise end up in the garbage bin, and we are going to reward them […]
There are lots of great environmentally friendly outdoor activities to do during Shavuot, but if you don’t feel like going outdoors (or if you’re in a cheese coma) then the Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership is hosting an online seminar about Shavuot and the environment. We applaud the Heschel Center for this creative […]
When attempting to incorporate new elements and habits into our life what is the best way to do this? If I want to be greener, how do I go about doing it? If I want to be friendlier, how do I add this to my life? In this week’s Weekly Bible segment the laws of […]
Here is the first in the summer season of Green Prophet ‘eco-reads festival’: environment-focussed books , some sharp and caustic, some funny or fact-filled, all written to get us thinking and working for the earth. Over the next month or so, a new review will go live each week, written by a diverse group of […]
Forget the eco-friendly lightbulbs. Arik Levy’s got a new solution: Teaming up with couture lighting company Saazs and other noted designers, the invention is light-emitting glass plates. Apparently something called “planilum technology”, which sounds like its straight from a work of science fiction or comic book, enables the glass itself to emit light. And cutting-edge […]
I hate to admit it (especially since I’m a vegetarian and like to think of Shavuot as my holiday), but sooner or later the cheese thing is gonna get old. And not in a French, moldy blue cheese kind of way. More of in a self-induced lactose intolerance kind of way. Which is why it […]
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) just published a lengthy article about the cleantech scene in Israel. JTA articles are republished in Jewish newspapers around the world, and it is nice to see Israel’s cleantech sector getting publicity in the Diaspora. For another example, see Karin Kloosterman’s interview in the New Vilna Review. I am quoted […]
We’d featured Vertigo’s eco-village taking root in a chicken coop on Green Prophet before, and our friend Ehud from the Jerusalem Post, wrote a brilliant piece on the village. Today Rivi Nissim, our multi-talented dance friend, photographer and architect from Bodyways, Israel’s largest dance portal, sent us a notice of a new eco-themed festival she’s […]
In one of our past prophecies we wrote about Israeli clothing company, Bagir, and their men’s suits made out of recycled PET plastic bottles. But the EcoGIR suit is not the only environmentally friendly product that this company has up its sleeve. They’re always thinking of ways to make their suits greener. I talked with […]
For those of you who missed out on our first Great Green Prophet Giveaway, the competition is on again! And this time the prize is local, handmade, and recycled – so we’re especially proud. Yoav Kotik, an Israeli artist who reinvents garbage materials into beautiful jewelry and other creations, has graciously agreed to give an […]
One week a year, every year, Hebrew books get their chance to shine. A tradition that began with modest book stalls on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv in 1926, Hebrew Book Week has since grown to enormous dimensions and every municipality and book store in Israel finds a way to celebrate the event. Usually, this […]
Could nature ever obliterate all our traces? How would it undo our monumental cities and public works, and reduce all our myriad plastics and toxic synthetics back to benign, basic elements? Alan Weisman: ‘The World Without Us’ 2007 Halfway through reading this enthralling book, I realized I was looking at the world in a new […]
Everyone knows how terrible plastic bags are. They take hundreds of years to biodegrade, pollute our landfills and waterways, and most plastic bags cannot be recycled (only 5% of plastic bags are actually recycled). To add insult to injury, it is cheaper to produce new plastic bags than to recycle existing ones. The Council For […]
If you love the moving image as much as us here at Green Prophet, and believe in its power as an agent of change as well as information and entertainment, here’s advance notice of the 5th ‘Eco-Cinema Festival’, which opens tomorrow night at Jerusalem’s Cinemateque on Hebron Road. Opening with Israeli director Uri Rosenwaks new […]
(Image credit: Micah Vaadia, winemaker at Galil Mountain) After reading and enjoying Green Prophet’s post on biking the Israeli wine scene, Green Prophet was kind enough to invite me to guest blog a short series of posts about the re-emerging Israeli wine phenomenon and about what’s new with organic winemaking in Israel. I blog about […]
This is some advance publicity for a film I haven’t yet seen, but it comes from a highly talented Israeli director Uri Rosenwaks, who made ‘The Film Class’ (2006) about the black Bedouin tribes of Rahat two years ago, which I highly reccommend as an illuminating portrait of a fascinating and little-known part of society, […]
The Israel Museum in Jerusalem is currently undergoing a massive renovation of its structures, but it emphasizes renewal in more ways than one. As part of the program geared towards children at the museum – which includes an imaginary prehistoric cave, water activities, and a special library – the Israel Museum’s Youth Wing offers a […]
There is no beauty in the finest cloth if it makes hunger and unhappiness -Mahatma Gandhi It was my first year of university and I had just settled into city life. There were lots of friends, parties – a great social scene. Burdened by the cost of having to support myself, I eyed the fancy […]
There are lots of ways that you can reuse plastic bags, but I bet most people have never considered putting them in a frame and hanging them up on the wall as one of them. Luckily, Israeli artist Inbal Limor has used her creative vision to come up with another way to reuse these bags […]