kibbutzlotan.com

Experience gained as a green apprentice at Kibbutz Lotan is now applied to eco-projects in low-income areas of Minneapolis

By JOSH TOLKAN
The American Jewish World

After graduating from Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., with a concentration in environmental and technology studies, I was interested in gaining hands-on ecological experience and seeing Israel. On Kibbutz Lotan’s Green Apprenticeship program, I was able to explore the fields of permaculture and natural building.

My Lotan experience was sponsored in part through MASA Israel Journey, a joint project of the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency for Israel. The program enables young adults to spend time in Israel interning, volunteering or studying. (MASA has many programs, so check them out — if Kibbutz Lotan isn’t right for you, another one will be.) While I always had a strong interest in the environment and served as the nature counselor at a day camp during summer breaks from college, Kibbutz Lotan gave me the tools and vision to lead an environmentally conscious life. On the green apprenticeship, I led a truly inspired life for 10 long weeks.

The team of green apprentices would pick vegetables from the garden and use them in homemade breakfasts with hot, homemade pita bread cooked on an earthen hearth. The entire team of nine lived life communally — experience that taught us all important life lessons in teamwork and interpersonal relations.

Our training included practice building unique gardens that employed various composting strategies and planting techniques. We also practiced natural building techniques while constructing straw bale- and mud plaster-covered geodesic domes as well as other structures around the kibbutz. A few other apprentices and I also built a sunflower-shaped bench solely from used material, including old tires and plastic bins.

The most important lesson I gleaned from my experience was probably the simplest one: encourage people, especially children, to connect with the earth. In order to craft a population that cares about the environment, children must have the experience of putting their hands in the earth — planting a seed and watching it become a plant.

Upon my return, I took this lesson with me in my work at JCC Rainbow Day Camp (RDC) in Fredonia, Wisc., where I had worked as the “Nature Guy” for three summers in high school and college. Upon returning to RDC, I decided to go beyond nature lessons and bring some Israeli flavor to the camp, encouraging the kids to get their hands dirty. I started Kibbutz Keshet and worked with the campers to plant a garden, build an earth oven and do team building activities relating to kibbutz life.

Recently, I started volunteering for a program through Project for Pride in Living in Minneapolis called Roots and Reading, which combined reading and gardening for children from low-income families.

I recently received my master’s degree in urban planning with a certificate in metropolitan design from the University of Minnesota. Volunteering in the Roots and Reading program led to an AmeriCorps job at Project for Pride in Living (PPL), a nonprofit that builds low-income housing and fights poverty throughout the Twin Cities. There, I work on a variety of projects, including home repair programs and several landscaping initiatives, such as redesigning poorly engineered storm water ponds.

I am also involved in PPL’s Hawthorne EcoVillage development in North Minneapolis, an area of the Hawthorne Neighborhood that is stricken with foreclosed vacant homes. PPL will completely redevelop four square blocks with a variety of environmentally friendly housing types. There will be community gardens and low impact landscaping featuring native plants. The entire development will be certified with LEED for Neighborhood Development through the U.S. Green Building Council.

Though I had not expected to find such a green-conscious community in the small country, its presence in Israel soon made sense to me. As tikkun olam, or seeking to repair the world, is a core Jewish value, environmental awareness should be a central part of Judaism. In everything I do, I try to remember the values I gained on Kibbutz Lotan and incorporate them into my life.

A kibbutz in Israel’s southern desert pioneers sustainable environmental practices

By MORDECAI SPECKTOR
The American Jewish World

Everyone can do something to conserve energy resources, according to Alex Cicelsky, a founder of Kibbutz Lotan in Israel’s Arava Desert.

You can carpool to reduce “miles per gallon per person,” he suggests. You can insulate your house by adding plastic film over windows, or cover them at night with insulating drapes.

The Center for Creative Ecology, a Jewish environmental education institute at Lotan, has taken energy conservation to another level, constructing houses out of straw bales to provide super-insulation in the torrid desert climate. The 150 kibbutz residents raise organic vegetables, use state-of-the-art composting toilets and convert the sun’s energy into electricity, as part of their efforts to create an ecologically sustainable community.

And conserving the natural environment is rooted in the Jewish sources, Cicelsky pointed out during a recent visit to the Jewish World offices. During his visit to Minnesota, Cicelsky also spoke at Bet Shalom Congregation and Temple Israel in Duluth.

He quotes Genesis (2:15): “God placed Adam [and Eve] in the Garden of Eden to till and to tend.”

And in the “Shema” prayer, Jews proclaim that “God is one,” which to Cicelsky connotes that “this is all one network” — physical oneness and spiritual oneness is “what Judaism has been teaching us for thousands of years.”

Alex Cicelsky: The oneness of creation is “what Judaism has been teaching us for thousands of years.” (Photo: Mordecai Specktor)Alex Cicelsky: The oneness of creation is “what Judaism has been teaching us for thousands of years.” (Photo: Mordecai Specktor)

Cicelsky made aliya in 1982, and the following year was part of the group of Kibbutz Lotan founders, many of whom came out of the Reform youth movement. There are 56 members, with 62 children, on the kibbutz. The collectivist enterprise has a gross income of around $2.5 million per year, from sales of dates and dairy products, income earned in off-kibbutz pursuits, and eco-tourism.

It is a kibbutz rooted in egalitarian liberal Judaism, explains the Cornell University graduate who majored in soil science. Explaining what “egalitarian” really means, Cicelsky says, “Women need to be in charge, not men”; the kibbutz is run by women.

Lotan has a kosher dining hall, which enables everyone, regardless of his or her level of observance, to eat together. Shabbat and Jewish holidays are observed in what Cicelsky describes as a practice of “creative Judaism.”

Teenagers prefer tending and milking the goats, as part of the one day per week each teen works on behalf of the kibbutz, notes Cicelsky, who adds that Lotan does not have a children’s house, which was a feature of many kibbutzim in past years.

Apart from the permanent residents on the kibbutz, visitors can participate in Lotan’s Center for Creative Ecology courses:

• The Green Apprenticeship core program is a seven-week course in practical environmentalism. It covers food production, permaculture, ecological design techniques, sustainable technologies (composting toilets, gray and black water purification system, solar ovens, etc.) and environmental ethics.

With the apprenticeship model, participants grow vegetables; build structures with mud, straw bales, tires and trash; compost food scraps with the help of worms (vermiculture); and help maintain the EcoCampus neighborhood on the kibbutz.

• A fall semester course, “Peace, Justice and the Environment,” is accredited through the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Fourteen students come to Lotan and learn about social justice, group dynamics, and sustainable agriculture and design.

• Reform congregational and youth groups can learn about Jewish community and practical environmentalism.

Also, tourists looking for something different can check out Kibbutz Lotan, which is mentioned on the back cover of the Lonely Planet Guide: Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Cicelsky suggests that visitors should consider a south-to-north tour of Israel, beginning in Eilat, moving through the Arava and then up to Jerusalem and points north.

And Cicelsky swears by the relaxing and rejuvenating effects of Lotan’s “watsu,” a water shiatsu massage pool, which is filled with salty water at body temperature. There is also the Lotan Nature and Migratory Bird Reserve. The Arava region is a flyway for myriad species of birds, and Lotan has a “bird hide,” a classroom and observatory for watching and cataloguing our winged friends.

And “right downtown on the kibbutz,” visitors can see the wetland wastewater treatment system, a “constructed wetland,” which filters wastewater for reuse. Both the Jewish National Fund and the European Union are funders of the wetland project and a future bird park.

Kibbutz Lotan was awarded the 2006 award for Ecovillage Excellence by the Global Ecovillage Network. And earlier this year, the Center for Creative Ecology was a runner-up in JTA’s first Greenie Beanie Awards competition, which recognizes outstanding environmental activities in the Jewish community.

Cicelsky and his fellow kibbutzniks are truly among Israel’s ecological pioneers; but one wonders how much of a difference a few composting toilets and super-insulated homes can make in view of the impending cataclysm posed by global climate change.

I didn’t pose that question to Cicelsky; but Kibbutz Lotan was the cover story in the recent issue of Reform magazine, and their interviewer did suggest that what they are doing is merely a “drop in the bucket,” fairly insignificant.

Again, Cicelsky draws on the Jewish sources in his answer: “From a permaculture perspective, we each need to take one step at a time with no preconditions as to the final outcome. From a Jewish perspective, Rabbi Tarfon addressed the concern regarding confronting a seemingly insurmountable challenge when he said: ‘It’s not up to you to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it.’”

by Michele Chabin
Israel Correspondent
The Jewish Week

Jerusalem — The vast majority of tourists who come to Israel visit holy places and historical sites. Time permitting, they go to museums, the beach or perhaps a spa.

What few of these visitors realize is that Israel is also a top bird-watching destination and that the Society for the Protection of Nature (SPNI), as well as other private concerns, offer numerous birding expeditions lasting anywhere from two hours to two weeks.

Located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, “Israel is one of the world’s finest migration hotspots, especially for raptors, storks and songbirds,” according to the Web site of Birdfinders’ Bird Watching Holidays, a leading British travel company.

Dan Alon, director of SPNI’s Israel
JW Wine Event
Ornithological Center, notes that Israel “is one of just two or three sites in the world where you can see hundreds of thousands of migrating raptors, birds of prey and song birds.” Only portions of South America, such as Mexico and Costa Rica, offer a similar experience, Alon says, thanks to the migration of birds to and from North America.

Every spring an estimated 500,000 birds sojourn in Israel on their way from Africa, their winter home, to Europe. They make the return trip in the autumn. While the majority of the 540 species that can be spotted in Israel eventually fly elsewhere, quite a few make their home here all year round.
The only time birding is not recommended is in July and August, due to the very hot weather.
“We are at the junction of three continents and therefore have an unusual amount of biodiversity,” explains Yossi Leshem, director of the International Center for the Study of Bird Migration, an initiative of Tel Aviv University and SPNI. This, coupled with Israel’s small size, enables “birders,” as bird enthusiasts are called, to see an astonishing assortment of birds within a very small radius.
Eilat and environs are the best place to spot feathered creatures during the early- to mid-spring migration; the Hula Valley, in the north of the country, offers the best autumn birding.

“Birds fly 3,000 kilometers over the African deserts and reach Eilat,” says Daphna Abell, manager of the guesthouse at Kibbutz Lotan, which has a bird watching center and birding tours (www.birdingisrael.com). “It’s their first opportunity to refuel.”

The layover can last a few days to a few weeks, depending on the species. Between the end of February and early March, for example, it’s possible to see thousands of Steppe Eagles above the Yoash Mountains surrounding Eilat. As a side benefit, birders may catch a glimpse of the mountains’ herd of ibex.

Abell, whose kibbutz is a 35-minute drive north of Eilat, in the beautiful, stark Arava Valley, notes that as Eilat has become more urbanized, “the birds are spreading out a bit to find food and water.” Lotan’s bird-watching center, which was created out of an old sand quarry, offers birds a small pond and alfalfa field for fressing.

The Judean desert, particularly the soaring cliffs adjacent to the Dead Sea, offers “a particularly dramatic backdrop” for birding, Leshem says. “It’s an excellent place for hiking and you can see both Egyptian Vultures and Griffon Vultures.” The latter is mentioned many times in the Bible.

Up north, in the lush Hula Valley, visitors can see the 30,000 cranes that winter there from October until March. Very rare Marble Ducks may also be visible. In all, some 370 bird species can be found in the Valley.

Leshem says the best time to see thousands of eagles (Israel boasts 12 varieties; the U.S. just two) is between the end of September and early-to mid-October.

Alon estimates that a few thousand tourists come to Israel every year especially to bird watch, and the majority of them come from Britain, the U.S., Holland, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. There are no actual statistics.

That’s a far cry from the estimated 30,000 to 40,000 birders whom Israel welcomed two decades ago, before they were scared away by the first, and then the second Palestinian uprisings.

“It’s slowly coming back and SPNI decided a few years back to again offer birding tours” to foreigners, Alon says.

One sign of increasing interest is the popularity of the annual week-long Eilat Spring Migration Festival (www.eilatbirdsfestival.com), which offers day and night birding tours in the southern Arava as well as bird-related activities, workshops and presentations.

This, the fourth annual festival, is being organized by the Israeli Ornithological Center SPNI and the International Birding and Research Center Eilat from March 18-25, the peak of spring migration.
While the most exciting bird watching takes place away from populated areas, even visitors to Jerusalem can do some birding at SPNI’s Jerusalem Bird Observatory, which offers a variety of walks. SPNI’s tailor-made private family tours throughout the country cost about $200/day, depending on the itinerary. For more information, contact Jonathan Meyrav (jm2bird)@gmail.com.

The recent President’s Conference in Jerusalem opened with a video that showcased innovative research and development in the Negev and highlighted Reform Kibbutz Lotan’s ecology center. To see this work for himself, the President of Israel, Shimon Peres, visited the Eilot Region in Israel’s southern Arava Valley. Peres’s visit focused on initiatives the region is taking in environmental education and renewable energy.

President Shimon Peres receives a Captain Compost Superhero t-shirt from the children of Kibbutz Lotan during his visit to the community’s educational EcoPark.	President Shimon Peres poses with the elementary school aged children of Kibbutz Lotan and education staff at the entrance to the Center for Creative Ecology’s EcoPark	One of the many skills learned on Lotan’s creative ecology programs is alternative building. Here, students from the Peace, Justice and the Environment college semester demonstrate to President Shimon Peres how to build a geodesic dome from recycled palm branches.

Kibbutz Lotan, which has achieved national prominence for its ecological projects, was Peres’s final stop. After being greeted by a delegation of kibbutz children, Peres and the kibbutz general director Mark Naveh (a graduate of NETZER Australia) toured the Center for Creative Ecology’s facilities. The President met the young Israelis doing a year of service after high school who demonstrated the art of making mud bricks. He also learned about assembling a geodesic dome with palm branches from American college students participating in the Center’s Peace, Justice & the Environment semester program (affiliated with Living Routes, the University of Massachusetts and MASA).

Permaculture instructor and expert Mike Kaplin (far left), Co-founder and Director of Kibbutz Lotan’s Center for Creative Ecology, shares insight on the Center’s innovative ecological projects with President Shimon Peres.	Accomplished organic gardener Leah Zigmond, Academic Director of the Center for Creative Ecology at Kibbutz Lotan, explains to President Shimon Peres how Lotan has been able to produce flourishing organic gardens in the harsh desert climate.	President Shimon Peres talks with Kibbutz Lotan children painting mud bricks in a workshop where children and adults foster their creativity while learning to care for the earth through the use of natural and recycled materials.

Peres met with kibbutz members in the Center’s solar tea house reception area. One of Lotan’s founders, Mike Nitzan, related the history of the Kibbutz and its Reform Zionist vision. Michael Livni, the firstshaliah (emissary) to the Reform Movement of North America in the 1970’s, presented Peres with a copy of his book, “The Reform Option: Another Zionism”. The President expressed his appreciation for Lotan’s pioneering role in ecological innovation and also noted the significance of the affiliation with the Reform movement – the largest stream of Judaism in the Diaspora.

Kibbutz General Director Mark Naveh, a NETZER graduate from Australia, boils water for tea with President Shimon Peres in one of Kibbutz Lotan’s solar ovens – an environmentally friendly way to save electricity.	President Shimon Peres gets caught up on the news at Kibbutz Lotan with some of the founding members in the solar powered tea house. He also samples some gourmet cheeses produced from the milk of Lotan’s goats.	President Shimon Peres meets young adults from Israel, England and the US participating in Kibbutz Lotan’s training and volunteering programs. The college students have completed the Peace, Justice & Environment College Semester program and the Israeli’s have joined the community for a year-of-service before their induction to the IDF.

Peres was particularly impressed with the sustainable technologies incorporated in the Center including organic gardening, solar ovens, strawbale construction and sewage treatment using a constructed wetland. The visit ended with the President making a personal evaluation of the waterless toilets, an important tool for eliminating pollution and conserving precious resources.

by Courtney Rosser

Published in Tikkun.org September – October 2009

You know, we just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening,” says Moonlight Graham in Field of Dreams. Field of Dreams has always been one of my favourite movies, and that quotation has always resonated with me. As I participate in this beautiful life, I realize just how much truth there is to Graham’s statement.

Permaculture (from “permanent agriculture” and “permanent culture”) is a way of living life in which we aim to exist in harmony with nature, making as little impact on our environment as possible. Based on the ethics of “earth care,” “people care,” and “fair share,” permaculture teaches us to create cycles that enable us to live sustainably and enrich the earth rather than destroy it.

Nature, of which we are a part, functions in cycles. Unfortunately, human beings tend to break those cycles, creating linear progressions that cause us to lose sight of where things come from and where they go when we are done with them. In permaculture we strive to recreate those cycles in an attempt to give back to the earth as much as we take.

Looking back, it is hard for me to believe that “permaculture” was not always a presence in my life. I already knew certain ideals were important to me: simplicity, anticonsumerism, anticorporatism, using natural products, avoiding foods with chemicals, promoting the fair treatment of animals and people, and caring for the environment. In short, I was already considered a “hippie” by most of my friends. I simply did not realize that all of these ideals are incorporated in the principles of permaculture. Taking a course on permaculture helped to organize my values, give structure to my future, and provide me with a vocabulary, knowledge base, and ability to pursue these ideas and to manifest them in my life. But it was not simply the act of studying it that changed my life. Rather, it is the particular way in which I studied it.

I participated in the six week Green Apprenticeship Training at Kibbutz Lotan in Israel (www.kibbutzlotan.com). Located in the Arava Desert, forty kilometers north of Eilat, and approximately fifty meters west of Jordan, Kibbutz Lotan is a member of the Global Ecovillage Network. Kibbutz Lotan’s Center for Creative Ecology offers “Green Apprenticeship Training,” an internationally recognized certification course for permaculture and ecovillage design. The apprenticeship teaches all the necessary theory and techniques required to attain a Permaculture Design Certificate and an Ecovillage Design Certificate. But that is where its similarity to other courses ends, and that is where its influence on my life begins.

We lived in an eco neighborhood on the Kibbutz for the duration of the course. This allowed us to fully immerse ourselves in everything we were learning. We were able to forget our “other lives” for six weeks and completely open ourselves up to a new way of thinking and living, which is what permaculture is all about: looking at the world in a new way.

We lived in an eco neighborhood called the Bustan, which means “orchard” in Hebrew. It consists of ten geodesic dome structures insulated with straw bales and plastered with mud. These domes were our homes for the six weeks we were there. Built by students of previous green apprenticeship courses, the domes serve as a testament to the ever evolving status of the Bustan. As each new apprenticeship group contributes in some way, the neighborhood becomes a living inspiration for students during their time at Kibbutz Lotan. At present, along with the domes, the Bustan includes a mud-plastered kitchen, solar oven, mud oven, organic gardens, active compost, worm compost, compost toilets, solar panels, and solar-heated water for the showers. Utilizing these facilities on a daily basis allowed us to live and breathe permaculture.

In addition to the hands-on experience we gained by simply living in the Bustan, we also studied and worked fulltime, five days a week. We learned the principles and techniques involved in permaculture, and then we went out and built our own compost piles, planted our own gardens and watched them grow, and built a bench out of old tires, trash, and mud plaster. One of the basic tenets of permaculture is the idea that each of us has the ability to “just do it.” Whatever particular task “it” refers to, permaculture encourages us to get out there and make it happen. This quality of the course is what made the apprenticeship one of the most empowering experiences I have ever had. Here I was, surrounded by likeminded people, being encouraged by knowledgeable mentors, and studying something about which I was passionate. On a daily basis I got to experience my ability to go out there and “just do it.” I realized that we are often held back by our fear of failure. But in reality, making mistakes is the best way to learn, and the only way to “fail” at anything in this life is to not act. My experience at Kibbutz Lotan gave me the confidence to manifest my dreams.

In addition to learning permaculture techniques, the apprenticeship group learned about community design through a component based on the internationally recognized Gaia Education Ecovillage Design Curriculum. We learned what is involved in establishing a new community and what is necessary to nourish it into a long-term entity. Again, life in the Bustan, and on the Kibbutz, provided for firsthand experience. We could observe how our small community within the Bustan was functioning, as well as examine the already established community of Kibbutz Lotan. We visited neighboring kibbutzim and communities in order to compare how they function. These communities served as inspiration for the communities we eventually designed for ourselves.

First we formed groups based on shared visions that would be the backbones of each community. Then each group followed its vision to design the ecological, social, spiritual, and economic factors that we wanted to shape and sustain our community. This process encouraged us to think about what qualities we look for in a community, a home, and a support system. It highlighted the “people care” ethic of permaculture, which points out that caring for the earth and interacting harmoniously with nature include learning to interact harmoniously with each other. In my opinion it would be incomplete to teach permaculture design without also teaching community design.

During the course it was obvious how our apprenticeship group was forming a community and making connections that would last a lifetime. Since the course has ended, I have come to realize that we are part of an even greater community of green apprenticeship alumni. This community extends around the world and connects hundreds of people who are now doing amazing things in their respective homes. Currently, an international alumni network is being established through which we will be able to look up where people are and get involved in each other’s projects when we travel. In my apprenticeship group alone, there were six countries represented.

I could have studied permaculture anywhere in the world in a variety of “convenient” ways. All of the courses teach the same theory and principles required to obtain a Permaculture Design Certificate. Living in the Bustan and being able to participate in what I was learning for six weeks was what made the green apprenticeship unique. Moving to Lotan, I did not know what to expect. I knew I would have fun, learn a lot, and play with mud. What I did not know was that the six weeks I spent doing the apprenticeship would turn out to be one of the most significant periods of my life.

Students at Courtney Rosser’s course apply a second coat of mud plaster to a bench they built using tires and trash as the structure.

Kibbutz Lotan 800 Wp grid connected system, installed over an education classroom in the ecological community of Kibbutz Lotan (Photo credit: Solarpower)

Kibbutz Lotan’s Center for Creative Ecology has installed an 8 panel, 640 watt photovoltaic solar panel array on the reception building and classroom of its Ecokef (kef is fun in Hebrew) Education Park. The system, purchased from SolarPower (Israel), and is grid connected. The Ecokef park is a demonstration and activity center where youth and adults receive hands-on practice in responsible recycling, building with recycled waste such as used plastic containers and car tires, and natural materials such as straw bales and adobe. At the heart of the Ecokef park is an organic vegetable garden where composting, grey water treatment, mulching and other permaculture techniques are taught. All of the site’s toilets are waterless composting units and food preparation is by solar ovens. The Bustan (Orchard) Neighborhood that is currently under construction will serve to house participants in the kibbutz’s Green Apprenticeship program. The Green Apprenticeship is an Ecovillage and Permaculture Design training course which includes construction of earth plastered straw bale insulated geodesic dome houses. The electricity for the first unit is supplied by a pair of off grid PV panels. The goal is to purchase 60 100 Watt PV panels which will supply all of the neighborhood’s electrical needs and when grid connected will offset all the CO2 connected to travel and cooking fuel during the course.

1. REFORM JUDAISM is the official voice of the Union for Reform Judaism, linking the institutions and affiliates of Reform Judaism with every Reform Jew. The magazine is received quarterly by 310,000 member households (members of more than 900+ Union congregations).

The Fall issue includes the 4th ANNUAL RJ GUIDE TO COLLEGE LIFE
From Campus Life 202: Falafel, Turnips, & Tikkun
The many Israel opportunities for college students (also see Campus Life 204)

“Plenty of Possibilities

College students can also dive into an Israel adventure-and, most likely, receive credit; according to a recent survey of 100 U.S. schools, more than half offer some form of study abroad program in Israel (whether it’s a full-fledged university-sponsored trip or transfer credit for studying with another school).
The Peace, Justice, and the Environment Fall College Semester at the Reform Movement’s Kibbutz Lotan, for example, offers 16 college credits from UMass Amherst, transferable to all U.S. universities, to both undergraduate and high school graduates not yet enrolled in college. This Reform kibbutz in the Arava desert also offers a six-week Green Apprenticeship program in permaculture design, sustainable agriculture, and more at its Center for Creative Ecology which qualifies for college credit through many universities.

MASA…”
2. Reform Judaism Magazine NEXT ISSUE PREVIEW
The Winter 2009 edition, in all homes by the end of November, is scheduled to feature these stories and many more….

Earthcare: Four Kibbutz Lotan members reflect on their creative ecological “permaculture” practice-and suggest how Reform Jews and congregations in North America can adapt many of its lessons.

Yes To Growing Eco Designers
The Green Apprenticeship Program, Lotan Center for Creative Ecology

The Yes To Carrots Seed Fund is offering partial scholarships to three registered participants of the Green Apprenticeship (GA) Permaculture and Ecovillage Design Program, a six-week work study which immerses students into the processes and challenges involved with the design, building and running of sustainable communities. Participants in the course are an international group with a variety of professions and educational backgrounds. They come to Kibbutz Lotan in order to learn from the experienced and dedicated teachers who have built the Center for Creative Ecology. The course includes study and practice of organic gardening and local food production as well as ecological design, sustainability, environmental ethics, community economics and natural alternative building techniques. Yes To Carrots Seed Fund selected this unique training program, run by the Center for Creative Ecology, because of their years of experience and the work of previous graduates.

Graduates of the program have developed new farms, worked in international aid organizations, volunteered in human sanitation development projects and have instilled environmentally sound practices in their universities, homes, offices, architectural and engineering practices and communities. Yes To Carrots will follow the current scholarship recipients after the program to document how the participants utilize the apprenticeship and how the grant money from the Seed Fund is used to fulfill its mission.

“We are dedicated to training our generation to become active seed planters and stewards of our earth. Nature will survive and flourish as long as our children engage in gardening, watching seeds turn into flowers and food, and enjoy getting their hands dirty. We are thrilled to join with the Yes To Carrots Seed Fund in order to share our experience and passion.”

Alex Cicelsky, educator,
Center for Creative Ecology

For the full Yes to Life Inc press release press here

Joshua “Yoshi” Silverstein

Kibbutz Lotan, Israel – Just a few hours after Jews of all stripes gathered at the Western Wall in Jerusalem to celebrate “Birkat haChama” – the blessing of the sun – Aria Penkava slid a tray of kosher-for-Passover cookies into a solar oven to slow-cook using focused heat-energy from the sun.

“The sunrise was glorious this morning,” said Penkava, “but we wanted to not only bless the sun but actually use its energy to do something constructive and creative.”

Penkava, 20, is a recent graduate of Kibbutz Lotan’s 6-week “Green Apprenticeship” program, which combines coursework in permaculture design, organic farming and ecovillage design. To her, the timing of Birkat haChama coincided perfectly with the seder for the first night of Passover. Along with several other Green Apprentices who are staying on Kibbutz Lotan as “eco-volunteers,” Penkava decided to host a Seder in her own mud dome, built from straw-bales and mud-plaster, rather than the large seder hosted by the Kibbutz.

“Large meals with the entire Kibbutz are usually nice,” said Penkava, “but not all of us speak Hebrew and we were worried we would lose out on the intimacy of the Seder. This way we can actually create the Seder that we want, and enjoy the company of everyone sitting around the table.”

In the spirit of the holiday, Penkava, along with two other recent Green Apprentices, asked two other volunteers living in the “Bustan” eco-village neighborhood to join them for the Seder, which included cookies, baked apples, quinoa and vegetables – all baked in the solar oven. The neighborhood also runs partially off solar power and uses solar hot water heaters for provide hot water for showers.

The final count at the Seder included two Jews and three non-Jews. Frederick Mbah, 26, from Cameroon, was one of them.

“In Cameroon, we have nothing like this!” said Mbah. “I am a Christian, and so it was really wonderful to be with Jews and celebrate the Passover Seder.”

Mbah enjoyed the seder and especially the food itself, although was not partial to the baked apples.

“I am sorry!” said Mbah, “But apples should not be baked! They should always be very fresh.”

To this, Penkava, who normally lives in Calgary, Canada, simply shrugged. “I guess baked apples haven’t really gotten to Cameroon yet. I’m just happy knowing I can bake the things I love to eat without having to use any gas or electricity. The sun provides all the energy we need.”

Will she be able to use a solar oven during -40 degree winters in Calgary? “You know, that’s a really good question,” replied Penkava, “and I’ve been told it is possible, but it might be the biggest challenge when I go home. But you know what? I’m on it.”

The Green Apprenticeship and the Peace, Justice and the Environment College semester in Israel course are just two of the eco-education courses offered by the Center for Creative Ecology – see www.kibbutzlotan.com for more information.

How do you respond when you get a phone call from a woman who tells you that she needs your help to build a straw bale, solar powered health clinic for Bedouins living in an unrecognized village in the Negev desert located downwind from a toxic waste disposal site?
Our answer was, “Yes, on the condition that this is a community training program”. And with that began the connection between the human rights organization Bustan and Kibbutz Lotan’s Center for Creative Ecology. We advised the architects and engineers on how to build with staw bales and earth plasters , we ran a training seminar for members of the Bedouin community at Lotan’s Eco-Education park, we lead the construction, trained the work crews during the weeklong building festival (as representatives of Builders Without Borders, returned with crews of eco-volunteers to complete the interior and exterior plasters, maintained the building for five years, added an additional roof to protect the plasters from rain, supported the community in the struggle to operate the clinic and joined the community in celebration as doctors finally came to give treatments.

The story of the building of the Brian Medwed Memorial – Wadi El-Naam Bedouin Community Clinic is included in the book Architecture for Humanity (2006), Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises. Medwed Wadi El Naam Bedouin Health Clinic, pages 244-7.

Your financial support of our Center for Creative Ecology allows us to continue with outreach projects like this one and our free consultation service for all of the peoples in our region.