Some 20 percent of Israel’s Mount Carmel forest — about 9,900 acres —was destroyed in the fire that took place Dec. 2-4. The fire also killed 44 people and destroyed some four million trees.
It caused great psychological and spiritual damage, as well, according to Paz Goldschmidt, emissary from Israel to Milwaukee and director of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Israel Center.
Goldschmidt spoke on Jan. 5 at Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun to about 35 people gathered to hear presentations about and to discuss “After the Fire: Creating a Green Israel.”
She said that the area “symbolizes richness and beauty” and is one of the few places in Israel that is “green all year round.” Its destruction caused a great “sense of sadness… People couldn’t understand how it happened.”
But it also taught Israelis that they often “take nature for granted,” and “we shouldn’t do that,” she said.
Goldschmidt was one of four panelists discussing the topic. Second to speak was Rena Safer, a Milwaukee activist for the Jewish National Fund. She was in Israel at the time of the fire.
“People in Israel came together” in response to the event, Safer said. Many opened their homes to people whose homes had been destroyed, and collected clothing for people who had lost everything they owned in the fire.
Safer said that JNF, which is Israel’s “official forestry administration,” will have to proceed carefully to restore the forest.
For example, Safer said Israel can’t just cut down that charred remains of the trees right away because their roots still function to hold the topsoil down; so the forestry people have to wait until after the next flowering season, she said.
That began to lead discussion to wider environmental issues in Israel. Rabbi Shlomo Levin, spiritual leader of Lake Park Synagogue, spoke about environmentalism in Jewish religious law.
He pointed out that classical sources, like Deuteronomy 20 and Maimonides in the Mishnah Torah, are concerned with preventing the “waste” of natural resources, like fruit trees; but they do approve of using natural resources for “productive purposes.”
The modern problem, he said, is that “everybody can make a case for themselves” that their use of resources is productive; the classic Jewish sources did not consider the effects of “cumulative resource use”; and that what may be productive and useful in the short term may be destructive and harmful to others in the long term.
“In my opinion, we need to find a different basis for a Jewish environmental ethics,” Levin said. And this basis could potentially be found in the “Jewish imperative not to cause harm to others,” including to people of the future, he said.
Karen Schapiro, executive director of Milwaukee Riverkeepers and a member of the Green Zionist Alliance: the Grassroots Campaign for a Sustainable Israel, described the overall environmental situation in Israel.
For a small country, Israel is remarkable in its biodiversity. For example, it has 15.8 difference species of birds per square kilometer of land, one of the highest such densities in the world, Schapiro said.
However, Israel has had to emphasize development over its history simply to provide for the immigrants that came to it, she said. It has also become an affluent society. One indicator is that while Israelis has 22 automobiles per 1,000 people in 1950, it now has 500 per 1,000; and it has one of the highest uses of energy per capita in the world, she said.
It also has, in its inhabited areas, one of the denser concentrations of population in the world, with 70 percent of its 7.5 million people living in the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv-Haifa triangle, Schapiro said.
Israel has become world famous for its pioneering work in conservation, developing such technologies as drip irrigation, water desalination, and solar power. Nevertheless, it is enduring serious water pollution, water shortage, and air pollution problems, she said.
Schapiro and Goldschmidt both reported that environmental awareness is growing among Israelis. Although Israel’s Green Party only received two percent of the vote in recent national elections — not enough to win a Knesset seat — the Jewish Agency for Israel has determined to incorporate environmental education into the curriculum of its immigrant absorption centers, said Schapiro.
And Goldschmidt reported that increasing numbers of Israelis do not do the kinds of careless things she did as a child, like throw garbage out of car windows. Within Israel is a growing realization that “we have to protect nature,” she said.
The event was sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Israel Center, which are both core functions of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
To contribute to helping Israel and Israelis recover from the fire, see the Web site of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation (www.milwaukeejewish.org) for information about Israel Fire Relief, or contact the Wisconsin Region of the Jewish National Fund, 414-963-8733.
Loading ...