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Beneficiaries Update: 6.15.2022

The Arava Institute

The Arava Institute’s academic spring semester concluded with graduation on June 14. Read on for Arava Institute in the news and the latest on their researchers and interns:

  • Haaretz recently published a compelling profile on Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed describing his journey to becoming the head of the Arava Institute. Read on >>
  • Hear from Arava intern, Jackson, on how the Institute has collected air samples every week for the past 25 years to observe how the composition of our atmosphere has changed. Read on >>
  • We recently welcomed Dr. Tali Zohar as the new Director of our Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation (CREEC), a joint center of the Arava Institute and the Dead Sea and Arava Science Center. Read on >>

Hazon

Last month we had a Hazon & Pearlstone Celebration honoring their respective founders and celebrating our upcoming merger. View some exciting new initiatives:

  • Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition (JCLC): Learn More!
  • Retreat Jewish offers a blueprint for building a framework of support and collaboration to establish the foundation for a brighter future. Learn more.
  • Teva: This spring, we welcomed back Teva’s Shomrei Adamah residential environmental education program.

Teva works to fundamentally transform Jewish education through experiential learning that fosters Jewish, ecological, and food sustainability. Since 1994, Teva has served over 450 day schools, congregations, camps, JCCs, BJEs, youth groups, and other Jewish institutions. More than 100,000 individuals have benefited from Teva’s programs, spanning all Jewish denominations, including secular and interfaith groups.

This spring, Pearlstone welcomed back Teva’s Shomrei Adamah (“Guardians of the Earth”) residential environmental education program. From late April until early June, we welcomed over 400 Jewish day school students from 11 Jewish day schools from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia to our new headquarters at Pearlstone outside of Baltimore, MD.

This was the first season of Teva since fall 2019, when the program was paused due to the pandemic. We know the important value of environmental education, especially with the social-emotional challenges of covid. For many students, this was their first school trip since 3rd grade and also their first night sleeping away from home. We saw the incredible gratitude and support and patience of our day school partners as we worked to bring this program back. Many of the teachers who joined us are long-time partners and friends to our program. We saw the joy of these educators as they reengaged with the program and shared stories from their decades of Teva experiences.

This season’s Teva staff went above and beyond to make this season happen. The staff grew as educators, environmentalists and in their Jewish identities. In addition to our work to educate middle-school age students, Teva has helped produce and grow many Jewish environmental leaders across Hazon and the Jewish world from our staff alumni. In addition, we had several incredible former staff step in to help make the program happen and help to support our new staff.

Teva is one of the best ways we teach our movement’s values to kids. Looking ahead, we will continue to seek ways to continue to grow the reach and capacity of this essential program.