Making aliyah this summer from Canada: A flock of sheep

By Melanie Lidman for The Times of Israel

A Canadian couple wants to restore a Biblical breed of sheep to the Holy Land. All they need is a plane and a farm

After months of tense negotiations, with assistance from ambassadors, international media coverage, rabbis, farmers, historians, and an army of volunteers, the Canadian and Israeli governments have reached an important breakthrough agreement, a first in their shared history: The sheep can come to Israel.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

Israel solar guru promises more plants in US, Africa

By Shoshanna Solomon for The Times of Israel   

Yosef Abramowitz’s Energiya Global firm aims to supply 50 million people with renewable energy by 2025

Israeli solar energy pioneer Yosef Abramowitz will launch Energiya Global Capital’s first solar energy power plant in the US, and is aiming to open 10 more overseas projects over the next three years.

Glynn County’s $30 million 22.5MW solar field, in the southeastern state of Georgia, will be inaugurated on Friday and will start supplying electricity shortly after that, Abramowitz said.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

Israeli-developed circumcision device to be distributed in Africa

The World Health Organization wants to bring the PrePex to 14 sub-Saharan African countries

By Times of Israel staff

The World Health Organization is set to approve expanded use of an Israeli developed device that allows medical workers to perform “painless circumcisions.”

The PrePex device, created by Israel-based Circ MedTech, will be granted WHO prequalification on May 31 for use with males age 13 and above in 14 African countries.

Circumcision, the WHO says, is one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of AIDS – which, despite a recent drop in numbers, still affects tens of millions in Africa. There are currently nearly 30 million people suffering from HIV, the root cause of AIDS, in sub-Saharan Africa – an area that accounts for almost 70% of the global total of new HIV infections.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

Peonies and Pineapples in the Negev Desert

By KKL-JNF for JPost

Open Day 2016 at the Western Negev Research and Development Station in Besor

If the idea of pineapples in the desert sounds like a total anomaly, a visit to the Western Negev Research and Development Station in Israel’s Besor region proves quite the opposite. Over 4,000 people from Israel and abroad, including the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority and neighboring Arab countries, attended the Open Day Agricultural Exhibition at the R&D station on Wednesday February 24.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

The Jewish Farm School

A Sustainable Organization Rooted in Jewish Traditions

The Jewish Farm School teaches about contemporary food and environmental issues through innovative trainings and skill-based Jewish agricultural education. 

We are driven by traditions of using food and agriculture as tools for social justice and spiritual mindfulness. Through our programs, we address the injustices embedded in today’s mainstream food systems and work to create greater access to sustainably grown foods, produced from a consciousness of both ecological and social well being.

Continue reading.

 Follow us on   

Israeli car engine could halve fuel costs, emissions

By David Shamah for The Times of Israel

Aquarius’s new take on internal combustion engines will be the big leap forward that vehicles need, says company founder

The notoriously conservative car business – autos, after all, are still largely powered by the internal combustion engine, developed nearly 150 years ago – is in for big changes, according to Gal Fridman, chief marketing officer and co-founder of Aquarius Engines.

“Our enhanced engine design uses energy much more efficiently, and eliminates the valves and rods that cause energy loss,” he said. “If a car equipped with a modern standard internal combustion engine can go about 600 kilometers on a tank of gas, ours can more than double that.”

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

How One Jewish Mother Inspired a Global Eco-Revolution

By Aron Hirt-Manheimer for ReformJudaism.org

When I first visited Lotan, a Reform kibbutz in the Negev Desert, and witnessed the community’s artful integration of ancient and modern building methods, I asked founding member Alex Cicelsky how Lotan had become an internationally recognized center for ecological experimentation and training.

It all started 20 years ago, he said, when one kibbutz member’s mother came to visit him from a town north of London, where she grew organic vegetables in her small backyard. Dismayed by the sight of food scraps discarded into trash bins in the kibbutz communal kitchen, she complained: How can an intentional community built on Jewish values not be composting?

Lotan’s members took the complaint to heart and decided to recycle all of their waste.

Continue reading.


Follow us on