A real estate scandal in Jerusalem reveals Israel’s government’s dangerous stance on the privatization of land development, and use of open spaces, Yosef argues. As the Israeli press reveals one new real estate scandal after another including but not limited to the Holyland complex in Jerusalem, the ease with which “developers” were able to purchase […]
H&M Israel’s CEO talks about his motive for importing H&M’s sustainable fashion line Thousands of Israelis have flocked to the newly opened H&M stores in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa – many of them unaware that they were, in fact, on their way to buying sustainable fashion. As we mentioned in a previous post, H&M […]
Israel holds Earth Hour a little later than the rest of the world, but just in time for Earth Day. Stubborn as always, Israel insists on doing things a little differently. The official international date for Earth Day, the worldwide energy saving campaign, was on March 27th and many other Middle Eastern countries – such […]
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denies the charges, but he is suspected of accepting $1million to push through the highly contested Holyland Project which uprooted pine forests. Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Jerusalem’s former mayor Uri Lupoliansky, and senior officials in the Jerusalem municipality are accused of accepting tens of millions of shekels in […]
The demand for Jerusalem stone comes with a social and environmental cost We have applauded Jerusalem’s living building, and we have drooled over delicious vegan dishes offered by Eucalyptus Restaurant in the Khutzot HaYotzer artist’s quarter. But nothing defines the city’s visual character more definitively than the prolific presence of Jerusalem stone.
The Jerusalem Seminar in Architecture, an international conference series initiated in 1992, is devoted to discussing contemporary issues in the fields of architecture, urban planning and design. And since green design is one of the most important issues in contemporary architecture, the last conference (25-27 of January, 2009) was on the subject of Green Design: […]
When most of us think about retirement homes, we think about sad, isolated places with TVs turned to the highest possible volume, very few visitors, and a faint smell of old soup. Not so in Neveh Amit in the Jerusalem area, where the residents are energetic and environmentally conscious. The residents/gardeners (aged 75 to 100) […]
While many countries are taking pride in their sustainable of “green” building technologies, and LEED certification as we learn from Qatar, Israel may have gotten the upper hand by unveiling what it refers to as a “living building.” It even includes residency for local animals including porcupines. This new living-with-nature concept was inaugurated on January […]
I am one of those people who has set up her life to spend as little of it as possible commuting. I grew up with a father who commuted two hours a day traveling to the car plant in Oshawa, Ontario, leaving the family back home with two hours less of our father each day. […]
Israeli President Shimon Peres has been keeping busy lately with all of his environmental advocacy. Last year he launched Tel Aviv’s Earth Hour by powering down the lights in the Tel Aviv City Hall and Azrieli towers, then he inaugurated Israel’s first “green city” – Kfar Saba, this year he unplugged Jerusalem for Earth Day […]
In Constructing a Sense of Place: Architecture and the Zionist Discourse (Ashgate, 2004), architect and planner Haim Yacobi has compiled a fascinating collection of essays on how the Israeli landscape was born. The book begins with the 1934 Levant Fair, for which the flying camel logo (right) was developed to represent the growing Jewish community […]
The links between religion and environmental concern/activism are no news to Green Prophet. We’ve covered them in our Eco Rabbi series, discussion of the environment and the Qu’ran, and in stories about multi-faith perspectives on the environment. But it was news to discover an Eco-Activist Beit Midrash (EABM) in Jerusalem’s Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo, which, in […]
Sunshine helps flowers grow and now, thanks to a joint collaboration of the Israel Electric Corporation and O*GE Architects, it makes enormous steel and metal flowers grow, too. In mid June, visitors to Jerusalem could stroll through a solar powered garden of larger-than-life sized flowers. As described by O*GE Architects, visitors could “immerse themselves in […]
Nestled into the Jerusalem Hills, Kibbutz Tzuba has decided to scrap its apple orchards and grow more grapes to save on water during the current crisis. According to the Jerusalem Post, Tzuba once grew kiwis that guzzled an outrageous 1,000 cubic meters of water per dunam (dunam=1/4 acre). Then the farm switched to apples, which […]
For readers who have driven or hiked past unmarked, run-down old stone buildings in Israel, former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Meron Benvenisti’s Sacred Landscape (University of California, 2000) will reveal a layer of Arab ghosts inside Israeli towns, cities and the countryside. Born in 1934, Benvenisti spent his childhood accompanying his father on geographical tours of […]