Harry Potter's witching hour -- the release of the seventh and final volume of his adventures -- has incurred the wrath of the trade and industry minister of Israel, Eli Yishai, Reuters reported. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," by J. K. Rowling, is scheduled to go on sale in Israel at 2 a.m. on Saturday, during the Jewish Sabbath, and Mr. Yishai, a member of the Orthodox party Shas, said: "It is forbidden, according to Jewish values and Jewish culture, that a thing like this should take place at 2 a.m. Saturday. Let them do it on another day." But Israeli stores pledged to proceed. "We will hold the launch as planned because we are contractually bound to do so," Alona Zamir, a spokeswoman for the Steimatzky book chain, said. "The book will go on sale here at the same time as in other places around the world." Mr. Yishai said, "We will certainly issue fines and prosecution orders, but I hope it won't come to that."
They said it
"Amy’s a real singer with the right attitude to carry off dumb stuff I write about." -- Pink on why she wants to write a song for fellow Jewish singer/drinker Amy Winehouse.
The Dallas Mavericks' Marc Cuban is still looking for ways to spend his billions as word comes out that he's now interested in buying the Chicago Cubs.
Shia Labeouf scores the coveted cover of the new Vanity Fair magazine.
Zach "The Cad" Braff is now cavorting with Drew Barrymore.
Either Germany doesn't like movies about murdering Hitler or they just don't like Tom Cruise's belief in Scientology. Well, it appears to be the latter.
And speaking of Germany, it seems the fine folks at Vonage are Nazi bastards.
From our July/August 2007 issue. This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
1. Get a home energy audit Before you can cut energy usage (and costs), you need to know how much energy your house consumes. You can have this done professionally or do it yourself. Watch out for drafts; not only do they waste precious energy, but you'll catch a cold. In fact, you worry us; go put on a sweater.
2. Unplug appliances when not in use There's no reason your toaster oven needs to always be plugged in. This also means your cell phone/camera/laptop/mp3 player chargers, too. To make things easy, plug them all into one power strip and just flick the off switch. You can leave the fridge plugged in, though; rotten food is a bigger waste.
3. Turn it off And not just on Shabbat. Your lights, TVs, radios, oscillating fans, whatever. Don't leave them on. And if you're going to be away from your computer, take the time to shut it down, or set it to go to sleep instead of displaying those silly energy-wasting flying toasters.
4. Keep your car fit and tidy As far as gas mileage is concerned, junk in the trunk is not a good thing. More weight puts more strain on the fuel, so if your spare tire doesn't need that anvil or that sumo wrestler for company, don't bring it along. Also, properly-inflated tires and clean oil can give you up to 15% better gas mileage, so take your car for regular check-ups.
5. Be aware of product packaging. No more wrappers within wrappers within boxes. Buying in bulk ensures minimal packaging waste. Many products now come in packages made of recycled or recyclable materials. And don't buy any more bottled water. You know that metal, faucet-y thing in the kitchen? Water comes out of that, and filtering it is cheaper and creates less trash than a twenty-four pack of plastic bottles in a cardboard box wrapped in cellophane.
6. Reduce your snail-mail paper trail. Do you think paper just grows on trees? Well, it does, and it's costing us a lot of trees. Sign up for paperless billing, get your bank statements online, even get your name removed from junk mailing lists (for more information, see the Junk Mail Campaign at www.newdream.org). And you know, you can even get bits of this magazine online. Yes, Maxim too.
7. Buy local and organic. Buying local and in-season produce saves fuel and boosts your local economy. And organic is just healthier. Yummier, too. No growth hormones, no pesticides, no synthetic fertilizers, no water pollution. Eating organic food is as green as green gets. Next to a seasick leprechaun.
8. Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs. Get ready for a crazy statistic: If every American home replaced just one regular light bulb with an energy-saving compact fluorescent bulb, it would save enough power to light three million homes. For a year (and that would be a nationwide savings of about $600 million). That not enough for you? These bulbs can last ten times longer than your regular bulbs, and you save about $30 in electricity over each bulb's lifespan.
9. Recycle. You already know the "recycle your paper/plastic/glass/aluminum" shpiel, but there's so much more to it. Don't throw away your old cell phone or computer or ink cartridge; they can all be recycled. Don't throw away your prom/wedding/little-black dress; your clothes can be recycled, too (and should be. Synthetic fabrics never decompose, while decomposing wool contributes to global warming. No joke. And global itchiness. Joke). Reuse grocery bags and plastic drink bottles. Use both sides of a piece of paper. There are so many ways to reduce garbage, and it's so easy.
10. Explore green power. Aside from replacing all your major appliances with Energy Star products (which I recommend, if you have the shekels), the best way to reduce your house's non-renewable energy use is to use (wait for it) renewable energy (you didn't see that one coming, did ya?). Contact your power company and see if they support or provide any of a number of green power options. Your home could be running efficiently on wind, solar power, or landfill gas (much cleaner than it sounds) in no time.
11. Conserve water. Turn the water off when you're shaving or brushing your teeth, and when using the tap, run a small stream, no wider than a pencil. Take quicker showers. Don't run half-full loads of dishes or laundry. And if you have a pool, don't let it sit unused, or used by only one person; invite some friends (and me) over for a swim. We'll call it "poolpooling." I'm sure it's good for the environment somehow. Maybe.
This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
-- Text by Helen Herbst / Photo by C. Taylor Crothers
From our July/August 2007 issue. This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
Two new books, A Wild Faith: Jewish Ways into the Wilderness, Wilderness Ways into Judaism, by Rabbi Mike Comins and The Way into Judaism and the Environment, by Jeremy Benstein, PhD, approach Jewish thought as it relates to the nature and the environment, but they take two different approaches to the subject matter. The former touts the virtue of meditation and intimacy with the wilderness and includes forty-plus practical exercises to enlighten the spirit. While A Wild Faith works to bring Jewish faith into the environment, the other works to bring the environment into faith. The Way into Judaism and the Environment uses scripture and other traditional sources to connect contemporary earth issues and environmentalism to Jewish spirituality. Whether you’re a tree hugger, like Rabbi Comins, or just interested in living green and living Jewish, like Dr. Benstein, these books will have something for you.
This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
From our July/August 2007 issue. This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
I am not ashamed to say that I know nothing about organic foods. I couldn’t tell you which all-natural toothpaste to buy (or what you could gain from a wormwood supplement for that matter). But what I can tell you is that Return to Eden, a family owned Atlanta health food store, doesn’t just sell organic food. Jodi Wittenberg, who owns and runs the welcoming institution with her husband Josh, brings a unique concern to her work that is an ever-growing source of inspiration to stores of a similar nature.
“The market for organic foods has become more focused on business than on integrity,” says Jodi as she sips an all-natural soda. “Most businesses are simply recognizing the trend in organic foods.” Return to Eden however, strives to be “a pillar of education and knowledge” about the health food world. Whether it be by hosting unique “Kosher Tours” — a way for observant Jews to have familiarity with kosher organic foods — or giving away free samples at community events and health fairs, Return to Eden ensures that people are fully aware of a healthier lifestyle.
But it was not always easy to cater to every customer. “Fifteen years ago, when the store began, we had a different idea of health food and had no background in retail,” Jodi recalls. “We were thrown into a new world of food.” Starting out, they only had strictly vegetarian products on their shelves, or would often have to send customers to Whole Foods, their main competitor, for certain products.
After learning the ropes they now offer more products (kosher sushi, anyone?) and information to the public both through their showroom and their elaborate website. What really made the difference though was incorporating a holistic approach to health in the home. By making natural and organic products a part of their own life they now have a greater understanding of proper health. Jodi converted her entire house so that it would be chemical free, and every water source is run through a filter.
As far as human impact on the environment Jodi’s outlook is biblical. “The Torah lays down a number of agricultural laws that say how to take care of the land.”
Jodi’s success comes from tying together all aspects of her lives — her family, her work, and her Judaism. Living her life one day at a time which, according to her, “is a great philosophy — period,” Jodi grows with her family and co-workers to make the world a healthier place to live. Now if I could just remember where I put my wormwood.
This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
From our July/August 2007 issue. This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
Dallas mayor Laura Miller may be stepping down from her political post this summer, but she leaves behind a proud legacy of environmental protectionism.
During her five-year term as mayor, the 48-year-old former investigative reporter spearheaded one of Dallas’ biggest public works projects ever — a 10,000-acre greenbelt along the Trinity River that could hold a dozen Central Parks. Though perhaps her greatest gift to the city of Dallas is how she fought — and beat — big coal by stopping the TXU Corporation, the Texas energy giant, from their original plan to build 11 new coal plants, which would’ve spewed 78 million tons of planet-heating pollution each year — the equivalent of 11 million SUVs. (The company has now agreed to only build three of those plants.)
Miller doesn’t have any immediate plans after she exits the mayor’s office except to spend time with her husband (former Texas state representative Steve Wolens) and her three kids. Although rumor has it that she would like to join forces with the Environmental Protection Agency. They’d be lucky to have her.
This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
-- Text by Benyamin Cohen / AP Photo by Harry Cabluck
From our July/August 2007 issue. This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
When the new Hillel building at the University of California, Santa Barbara was erected in 2001, administrators and contractors took pains to design an environmentally sound structure. What resulted was a building largely constructed out of biodegradable materials, where lights are motion activated and there is no air conditioning, although automatic windows open when the temperature gets too high.
While unique, the Santa Barbara Hillel is not alone. As friends of the environment, synagogues across the country are joining an interfaith group of congregations that are lighting their houses of worship with energy efficiency and making other efforts to go green.
Through the Regeneration Project, a campaign to mobilize religious groups in response to global warming, several hundred synagogues have joined the eco-friendly effort. Started in 1998, the campaign has grown to include 23 state-based projects, know as Interfaith Power and Light, aptly named for its efforts to promote renewable energy and sustainability, in many cases simply by swapping a building’s light bulbs for more efficient ones. A megachurch in Plano, Texas has already saved a half million dollars in utility bills — and they’ve only been on the program for less than a year.
Nationwide, there are about 4,000 participatory congregations. Roughly a fifth of them are Jewish, organizers say. “Every major religion calls for stewardship of creation,” says Susan Stephenson, executive director of the Regeneration Project. “We recognized that this was a moral issue as well as an environmental one.”
This past May, a group of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish religious leaders wrote a letter to the White House and members of Congress, calling for immediate action to limit greenhouse gas emissions. “Global warming is not just a scientific or political issue — it is a moral issue,” Rabbi David Saperstein, director of Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, wrote in the statement. Other signatories to the letter included Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia and Rabbi Stephen Pearce, the religious leader of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco.
Congregation Emanu-El, through its environmental committee, is a leader in synagogue-based green practices. Its “Green Emanu-El” initiative promotes energy efficiency in the building, including zoned heating, plans for efficient lighting and usage, and pollution prevention programs.
“By Jewish law, we are mandated to take care of the earth,” a synagogue administrator, Terry Kraus, wrote in an email message. “This is an important social justice issue for our congregation.”
This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
-- Text by E.B. Solomont / Photo Courtesy the Regeneration Project
From our July/August 2007 issue. This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
For 48 individuals and families at Atlanta’s Shearith Israel synagogue, Sunday mornings from May to October are eagerly anticipated. That’s when a local organic farmer whom the group financially supports through pre-paid co-op memberships brings the weekly bounty.
The Shearith Israel co-op is an example of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and is one of a growing number of synagogues and JCCs in the U.S. partnering with the Jewish environmental organization Hazon. Hazon started the Tuv Ha’Aretz (meaning both ‘good for the land’ and ‘good from the land’) CSA program back in 2004.
“We wanted to see Jewish families support local farmers and put their purchasing power with local agriculture,” says Leah Koenig, food projects coordinator for Hazon. Not only is this concept noted in Jewish tradition, but a diet rich in fresh vegetables “is what it means to eat fit in the 21st century,” she adds.
The Shearith Israel community readily embraced the idea, says Dan Finkel, a congregant who was instrumental in bringing the Tuv Ha’Aretz program to his Conservative synagogue. And in its first year, the co-op already has a waiting list. “It really took off quickly,” Finkel says. “It was an idea people were ready for.”
Matching grants from Hazon enable CSA sites to offer an educational component such as speakers or cooking demonstrations. Koenig says that Hazon is creating a curriculum that uses Talmudic and contemporary texts to discuss food and other so-called green issues.
The CSA season runs for about 20 weeks from roughly the Jewish agricultural holidays of Shavuot to Sukkot, and part of the fun is that Tuv Ha’Aretz members never know exactly what they’re getting each week. At a recent pick up, Shearith Israel members took home a number of items including arugala, strawberries, kohlrabi, onions, spinach, and bokchoi.
And something else seems to be growing, notes Finkel. “People come with their bags and boxes, and then stay and talk and hang around,” he says. “It’s starting to form into a community.”
This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
-- Text by Fran Nachman Putney / Photo by Rich Vintage
From our July/August 2007 issue. This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
What Michelle Kaufmann is doing is so downright cool, so revolutionary, that we think everyone else should be watching, learning and emulating her out of the box building technique.
Kaufmann has taken the trend in mid-century design a leap further — by updating the prefab homes of the 1950s with modern, beautiful and earth-friendly features. The concept for mass producing her modular homes began when she and her husband constructed their own pre-fab home and found that it saved them serious time and money — some 20 percent in the cost of production, and it took only four months to build in the factory as opposed to the 14 months that building on location would have taken (not to mention the amount of waste saved by building to specification in a factory).
Kaufmann’s avant-garde innovations have earned her the attention of prestigious mass media outlets and architectural publications. But she says her product is meant for everybody. Because “green” pre-fab homes not only offer a sensible, energy-efficient value, but they contribute to the health of their residents — inside the house and on the planet they call home.
AJL: Where do you draw inspiration for your designs? MK: I really design to collaborate with nature as much as possible ... designing not for how things look, but how they feel. A good friend of mine once said it is difficult to find a badly designed barn — and I think there is some truth to that. If we look to the essence and function and climate, and find a solution that works towards the ideal blending of these elements, then we end up with a beautiful design. My hope is not for someone to look at one of our homes and say “Wow, that looks so cool,” but rather, “Wow, this house feels so great.”
AJL: How do you see the “green building” crusade faring? Do you feel isolated, or do you feel that we’re on the brink of transforming housing on a massive scale? MK: When we started this work five years ago, it seemed like we were on an isolated island with a few great thinkers and creators. Now, luckily, it feels like it truly has become a global concern, where almost everyone is aware and cares. We are hearing about the issues at hand (and it is good to have that information), but without hearing much on the solutions. My goal is to offer accessible sustainable solutions. People want to go green, they want healthy environments for their families, and they want lowered energy bills, but it is not always easy to find the accessible solutions. We are working hard to change that and educate to show solutions and paths for creating solutions.
AJL: What’s been your favorite project and why? MK: While I have to say that I really love all of our work, I feel very strongly about the sustainable communities and multifamily projects. It is important that green building is an option for everyone, at all income levels. The communities are where we can really make the biggest impact for people right now.
AJL: What’s been the most challenging? MK: It has all been pretty challenging, but as my husband says, I’m just naïve enough to not know that we shouldn’t be doing most of the things that we are doing. There is some real truth to that. To achieve our main goal of making thoughtful, sustainable design that is accessible to more people and hopefully soon, accessible to all, we are rethinking ourselves as architects (a big challenge), and reworking the way we build. We are constantly trying to achieve the goal of minimizing waste, minimizing energy usage, and maximizing efficiency in terms of how buildings are built and used over time. We find challenges at every step of the way, and just when we think we have a solution, a new challenge comes out of left field. Luckily, we have an amazing team of great thinkers who cover the field well.
AJL: How many clients have you worked with? Where is most of your business? MK: We only have 18 homes completed to date. However, we will have 100 completed by the end of the year. And we expect to complete 200 green, beautiful homes next year in a few different communities. Most of our work to date has been in California and Washington, with a few projects in Hawaii, Colorado, and Oregon. By next year we plan to offer our homes on a national level.
This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
-- Text by Rachel Pomerance / Photo by Cutter Cutshaw Photography
From our July/August 2007 issue. This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
In a commitment to help stave off global warming, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has teamed up with Global Green USA taking out full-page ads in major newspapers to raise awareness about going green. For its part, Starbucks is trying to minimize their carbon footprint by seeking to reduce the energy used to operate their stores and the energy and emissions associated with roasting coffee.
From our July/August 2007 issue. This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
It’s not every day the mayor of a major American city invokes the principle of tikkun olam, repairing the world, in addressing the public about new governmental initiatives. But not every mayor is Michael Bloomberg, whose $32 billion initiative to make New York “the first environmentally sustainable 21st-century city” needs all the help it can get in gaining public acceptance.
“In my faith, the Jewish faith,” Bloomberg told a crowd of Harlem church-goers, “there is a religious obligation ... to make the world whole. ... And that responsibility is found among people of good will in every faith.”
In making the world whole, Bloomberg’s “PlaNYC,” with its 127 proposals for a “greener, greater New York,” would affect New Yorkers’ entire universe, from home to work to play, and the transportation in between. In preparation for an expected population increase of a million people over the next quarter century, the plan aims to reduce the city’s energy consumption, decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent, and improve New Yorkers’ overall quality of life.
Bloomberg’s most controversial and most widely publicized proposal aims to reduce traffic congestion by charging vehicles eight bucks every time they enter Manhattan below 86th Street during peak hours. But the mayor’s got lots of other tricks up his sleeve, like expanding the city’s ferry system and network of bicycle paths, creating a rapid transit bus system, and waiving taxes on hybrid vehicles. Oh, and speaking of hybrids, Bloomberg plans on converting the Big Apple’s entire fleet of yellow cabs into hybrid vehicles. To conserve energy and other resources, PlaNYC would upgrade power plants, offer incentives to building owners to recycle water, retrofit buildings for more efficient energy consumption, increase the use of solar power, and urge all New Yorkers to use longer-lasting, energy efficient bulbs. Bloomberg would also plant one million trees in the next decade to invigorate the city’s water cycle and air quality. And, to prevent a housing crunch, he would create land by building platforms over highways and rail yards and construct on top of them.
While such idealism carries a hefty price tag, Bloomberg insists it’s better to pay now, while the city’s economy is in good shape, than to pay the potentially higher costs to the population’s health and the environment later. As he said, echoing the words of the sage Hillel, “If we don’t act now, when?”
This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
From our July/August 2007 issue. This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
The Monastery of the Holy Spirit is located on a former cotton plantation about an hour south of Atlanta is the rural town of Conyers, Georgia. It is here that 48 Trappist monks live on a couple thousand acres of land in complete peace and solitude.
As it turns out, Trappist monasteries are required to be self-sufficient as explained in the 48th chapter of the Rule of Benedict which states “You are only really a monk when you live from the work of your hands.” To this end, each Trappist monastery produces some sort of retail item to help sustain them financially. In some European monasteries, Trappist beers (famous throughout the world) are quite popular. In the U.S., it’s mostly food items. Which explains the Abbot’s Table Jamaican Jerky Marmalade I spot on the top shelf of their gift shop on a recent visit.
As for this particular monastery, their expertise is fudge. Yes, fudge. All kinds of fudge. Monk’s fudge comes in a variety of flavors and is made in the on-site “fudgery”. But putting their future in the fudge sector is proving troublesome. Sales have slipped lately and now only spike around the holidays. “They’re seasonal items,” Brother Callistus, one of the monks, tells me. The bonsai trees, which the monks intricately tend to, also aren’t a huge moneymaker anymore.
They’ve tried launching several new products over the years with varying degrees of success. In the early 1980s they had a large business of baking more than 6000 loaves of bread weekly. More recently, their attempts to corner the market on stained glass windows have proven unsuccessful. And their crackpot idea of selling ostrich eggs didn’t really pan out either. But to the monks’ credit, that last one wasn’t their fault. A visitor to the monastery had promised them it would be the next big thing.
One area where they’re starting to see a profit is at their retreat house, which can hold dozens of guests at any given time. During my visit, I see a group of Presbyterian ministers who make an annual pilgrimage to the monastery. They pay for the privilege to stay on the premises and bask in the innate holiness of this place. They also contribute by helping till the fields and planting in the garden.
The monastery's latest big idea is hopping on the bandwagon of a new trend called “Green Burials”. These simple burials, which resemble what’s already being done throughout Israel, include no embalming. They are given a choice of no casket or a bio-degradable wooden one. This ensures the least amount of impact on the land. “Most coffins are not biodegradable,” says Callistus. “And neither is formaldehyde.” The monastery takes great pride in this newest initiative, feeling it’s important for the holy fraternity to be good stewards of God’s green earth.
And they have plenty of green earth. Two thousand acres to be exact. It’s all land that they have promised to never develop. So its here that people can purchase “plots” in their forest where they can bury loved ones. A small marker will designate each gravesite. The monks will be working in conjunction with South Carolina-based Memorial Ecosystems, Inc., who will handle the day-to-day operation of the burials.
The monks are already accepting pre-sales for plots and, with any luck, this will prove more profitable than the ostrich eggs.
This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
From our July/August 2007 issue. This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
A revolution is taking place in the small kosher butcher section of my very large retail chain grocer. Almost overnight, the traditional Styrofoam plated shrink-wrapped cuts of meat were replaced by pieces of poultry and beef packaged in less wasteful vacuum-sealed plastics, specially tailored to the shape of the meat. The display was eye-catching to say the least. Yet, while I’m always eager to keep up with the latest meat-packaging trend, my meats’ new digs was only a small part of what made it a welcome addition to my kitchen.
As it turns out, these meats came from Wise Organic Pastures, a producer of “double certified” poultry and beef, which means its produ
Israel gets its panties in a wad about the upcoming Shabbat release date of the final Harry Potter book. From today's 
Two new books, 
Dallas mayor Laura Miller may be stepping down from her political post this summer, but she leaves behind a proud legacy of environmental protectionism.
For 48 individuals and families at Atlanta’s Shearith Israel synagogue, Sunday mornings from May to October are eagerly anticipated. That’s when a local organic farmer whom the group financially supports through pre-paid co-op memberships brings the weekly bounty.
In a commitment to help stave off global warming, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has teamed up with Global Green USA taking out full-page ads in major newspapers to raise awareness about going green. For its part, Starbucks is trying to minimize their carbon footprint by seeking to reduce the energy used to operate their stores and the energy and emissions associated with roasting coffee.
