Dear friends,

I want to share with you about a few exciting developments with Jewish Eco Seminars.

Our team of Jewish environmental educators over the past year has had the privilege of engaging with tens of groups and over 1000 young Jews. In caves, national parks, forests, solar facilities, hotel banquet halls, and community gardens, they have explored the connection between Judaism, ecology, and Israel.

Here are a couple examples of our recent and upcoming programs:
• In October, our educators led a full-day program for 80 women studying in gap-year programs, including rappelling into the Luzit caves and engaging in group learning on Jewish teachings on water in Israel.
• We are beginning to teach a weekly college course for a Young Judaea program of Hadassa on Jewish Ecology in Jerusalem. The course features indoor Jewish environmental text learning together with outdoor excursions in and near Jerusalem.

Through hikes, stories, text-learning, music, and experiential activities, our programs reveal the following:
• Caring for the earth is an expression of Jewish identity.

• Jews connect to Israel when they encounter Israel’s natural beauty and innovation in green technology.
• Acting on Jewish ecological values promotes environmental change.

At an organizational level, I am also pleased to inform you that Jewish Eco Seminars has recently become part of The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development (ICSD), an organization I founded and direct. Jewish Eco Seminars now serves as the North American Jewish educational engagement and the Israel Jewish eco-tourism branch of ICSD.

In 2012, Jewish Eco Seminars aims to double the number of participants reached from 2011. In order to expand to a new market segment—North American summer camp and other teen trips to Israel and synagogue trips-- the Dorot Foundation recently approved a grant for Jewish Eco Seminars. Part of our budget has been met by Foundation support, and part by revenues generated from our seminars. As a growing non-profit startup, we rely on individual donors to help fuel our expansion.

As the end of the calendar year approaches, we want to ask you to consider supporting our innovative work. Your US tax-deductible donation will promote our securing potential long-term clients from the myriad summer teen trips and synagogue missions that visit Israel every year. JES aims over the next several years to generate a robust client base, which will enable financial self-sustainability of the organization. Donations can be made by clicking here.
Jewish Jumpstart, a registered US 501c3, serves as our US fiscal sponsor.

To be Involved in Jewish Eco Seminars in other ways, Click Here

Get involved by:
* Volunteering Your Services

* Connecting us to an institution you are a part of
* Bringing our educators to your community, in North America or Israel
* Interning with Jewish Eco Seminars
* Rating our programs
* Suggesting a new seminar topic

On behalf of the team at Jewish Eco Seminars, I wish you the best.

With warm regards,

Rabbi Yonatan Neril

Executive Director

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