If you were going to use one word to describe Israel, the word “construction” would be a definite possibility. Visitors who come to Israel within intervals of only a few years are often shocked at the rapid development in the country. At only 60 years old Israel is constantly building and developing, and sometimes it […]
Kids on bikes cruise past Azrieli towers. A couple of years ago I read a book called Carfree Cities, which put forward a very convincing case for reducing the use of private cars in the city, and set out a whole series of design alternatives which, according to author J.H. Crawford, would obviate the need […]
Tuesday, September 23 was Public Transportation Day in Israel, the local answer to European Mobility Week and World Carfree Day, an attempt to “remind the world that we don’t have to accept our car-dominated society.” In Europe, they managed to keep the cars off the streets for a few hours. In Israel, we will have […]
With the Jewish new year coming up in next week, some of us are thinking about green new year’s resolutions and lifestyle changes that we’d like to make. Whether it’s recycling more items or starting a compost heap, there’s no such thing as a small difference. But what about greening your celebration of Rosh Hashanah? […]
It was bound to happen, sooner or later. After the kibbutz – the classic Israeli collective community where members shared everything – urban car sharing services were only a hop, skip, and a car engine purr away. Thanks to new Israeli company, Car2go, the concept of car sharing (which has already enjoyed great success all over […]
UPDATE: DOV KHENIN’S NIGHT AT CITYTREE HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15 at 9 pm. Dov Khenin, Tel Aviv’s greenest mayoral candidate, will be speaking this Monday in Hebrew at Etz BaIr (CityTree), which is on Bialik Street 23 in Tel Aviv. Khenin is currently a Knesset Member representing Hadash, a joint Jewish-Arab Communist […]
This week’s eco-book review is by Prophet Daniella Cheslow: Although Starbucks never made it in Israel, McDonald’s, Burger King, Puma, Crocs, Nike, Diesel, and the Coffee Bean are among the hundreds of global brands that have found eager customers among Sabras. I read Naomi Klein’s ‘NoLogo’ for some insight into the branded city of Tel […]
Sometimes it is necessary to confront our decision-makers with what has been called “the threat of a good example” – to bring them face to face with evidence that, despite their insistence to the contrary, it is possible to do things differently. That, in a nutshell, was the idea behind an event held last week […]
The shuk floor on a regular Friday in early August (photo: Daniella Cheslow) One of the best things about most major Israeli cities is the shuk, the giant outdoor food market where bright vegetables sit in precarious piles and entire alleyways are devoted to freshly butchered meat and refrigerated cases full of fish, sometimes even […]
As part of its overall activities to improve service for tourists visiting the city this summer, the Association for Tourism Tel Aviv-Jaffa has introduced Segway mobile information points onto the city streets. The unique, colorful Segways can be found on the streets of Tel Aviv seven days a week from 13:00 – 19:00, particularly in […]
There is a yearning for ecologically and environmentally responsible choices that I’ve been observing in Tel Aviv, especially among a select group of young, influential artists. There are continual hurdles for them, though, showing how sometimes thinking green and acting green don’t always go hand in hand. Hayarkon 70 is a disparate group of artists […]
As the Green Prophet archives will tell you, Israel is no stranger to environmentally friendly tourism. Not only is there a variety of ecologically minded guesthouses all of the country (including a vegetarian paradise in the Galilee), but the Israeli Ministry of Tourism has announced that it is going green. Part of this initiative has […]
MK Dr. Dov Khenin announces his candidacy for the office of Mayor of Tel Aviv on Monday, flanked by members of the A City for All movement in Tel Aviv’s Gan Meir. (Photo by Yoav Lerman). What would happen if a dyed-in-the-wool environmentalist were to take charge of a polluted and traffic-clogged city like Tel […]
It’s not every day that you can party with a group of farmers in the middle of a city. Even rarer, it’s not every day that you can party with urban Israeli farmers on the rooftop of a historic building in the center of Tel Aviv and learn about some green goodness to boot. Which […]
Us Green Prophets believe that green education should start from a young age, and have already addressed ways that little ones can be eco conscious. Sometimes it’s recycling competitions at schools, other times it’s reading environmentally conscious children’s books, and sometimes it’s about what these little ones are wearing. Eco-Mum has already sung the praises […]
We are undeniably in the thick of beach season. Deeply tanned French tourists with gold colored sandals and other stylish accessories line the beaches, the smell of sunscreen is in the air, and the plywood percussion of matkot (paddle ball) is the reigning summer symphony. Unfortunately, all of this beachy goodness comes with a whole […]
I finished reading Food Not Lawns on my roof, just after I checked my new vermi-compost bin. The roof compost represents my adaptation to life in the modern world whereby I try and lead a more sustainable lifestyle within my means and ability. I was hoping to read Flores’ book and gain tips on how […]
Junktion: Tel Aviv design studio founded in 2008. Lovers and joiners of what the city dwellers classify as junk. Junktion, one of Tel Aviv’s newest and most fabulous reuse design studios, tries “to create a meeting point with what the city has already classified as junk.” In taking everyday objects out of context (such as […]
Israel’s fastest-growing supermarket chain is the upscale Tiv Taam, where customers can browse shelves of international beers, pick through extensive cheese selections and even purchase pancetta to include in their gourmet dishes at home. At Hinnawi, a Yafo-based butcher with a branch inside the shopping mall in Ramat Aviv, customers can choose between 17 kinds […]
The word “organic” can be applied to many things in our modern day lives. Most commonly, it applies to food that has been grown organically (meaning without pesticides). But as a quick search in Webster’s dictionary showed us, the term organic means “of, relating to, or derived from living organisms.” And Tel Aviv’s “Don’t Panic […]
Last month we wrote about City Tree, a green oasis in a historical building in central Tel Aviv. This urban environmental group focuses on restoring their 1920s apartment with ecological renovation methods (such as recycled paper construction and milk based paints), teaching urbanites how to compost, and cooperating with the Good Energy Initiative in order […]
Due to not having a yard and feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt every time I throw away my food scraps in a conventional garbage, I spent my first few months in Tel Aviv trying to figure out some plausible composting options in the city. This was harder than expected because so many Israelis have […]
Photo by Dan Keinan, Haaretz. A modernist skyscraper was built with no connection to the existing urban context, and plans for a row of similar towers threatened to destroy the character of the historical city center. This so outraged the residents of the area that they managed to bring about a complete ban on skyscraper […]
Tel Aviv, for those who haven’t had the pleasure of visiting the city, is a city of coffee drinkers and cafes. (Some would say bums and people who don’t work in the middle of the day… but we say coffee drinkers and cafes.) It is not unusual to step out in the middle of a […]
At 70 hectares big, the Hiria garbage dump is pretty hard to miss.It’s literally a mountain of garbage. Located off of the road connecting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Hiria is a cautionary tale of consumerism, excess waste, and what happens when you don’t reduce, reuse and recycle. An ecological disaster since 1952 when it first became […]