This is who we are.

Friends,

We make it through the best we can. Each day, it rings in our ears, distracts us from work and loved ones, keeps us up at night and animates our nightmares: the October 7 Hamas massacre, the 240+ hostages, the fallen Israeli soldiers, the thousands of innocent Palestinians dying in Gaza.

We pray for the hostages to come home and for the Israeli and Palestinian people to know true peace.  And in that spirit, Adamah leaders will be joining the Israel March in Washington DC tomorrow Tuesday November 14. This will be a big-tent initiative, and we will be marching with other progressive Jewish organizations.

But beyond the marches, the speeches, and the statements, what is Adamah’s relationship to Israel? Building upon many years of Israel engagement work, we continue to build strong ties between American Jewish and Israeli environmentalists and peacebuilders. This work is not simple or easy, but it is more important now than ever. What does that work look like?

• Building on Hazon’s 20+ years of running immersive programs and bike rides in Israel, Adamah is proud to continue supporting the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and their groundbreaking work in peacebuilding through environmental cooperation. Located at Kibbutz Keturah in the Arava Desert, the institute is dedicated to preparing the future leaders of Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and around the world to cooperatively solve the regional and global challenges of our time.  Donate today
• Pearlstone, Adamah’s headquarters, is the proud host site of the only Jewish environmental shaliach (year-round Israeli Jewish educator) in North America. For almost ten years, we have hosted Israeli educators on our staff who infuse Israel connection into everything we do, with gratitude to our partners at The Associated and The Jewish Agency for Israel.  We hope to replicate this shlichut in other Community Impact Hubs in the years ahead, bringing more Israelis into authentic human relationships with our staff and participants all across the country.
• Yesterday, Pearlstone finished hosting our first annual Israeli Families Weekend, which quickly sold out in just four days. We aim to host more respite retreats at Isabella Freedman in the months ahead for Israelis, college students, and rabbis. There is a deep visceral need right now for loving Jewish communal space, and we are committed to meeting this need. To provide scholarships for these retreats, donate here.
• We are working with the USDA, Israeli Consulate, Israeli food and agriculture organizations, and others regarding the emerging food security crisis on Israeli farms, where thousands of volunteers are needed in the months ahead. We are in touch with our staff, alumni, friends, and partners in Israel to assist in mobilizing a response to this critical challenge. More to come on this soon
• Hakhel, the Jewish Intentional Community Network powered by Adamah and inspired by the Israeli intentional communities’ movement, grows and supports peer-led Jewish communities all across the Jewish Diaspora.  These budding communities learn from each other and from Israel’s communitarian culture. It was that culture which was so vividly on display over the past 6+ months of pro-democracy protests all over the country, and now that same movement has immediately, powerfully pivoted to crisis response during this war. Learn more about Hakhel from its leaders, Michal Guttman and Aharon Ariel Lavi, here.

While action is essential, open-minded learning and empathy is also critically important during this time. We recommend the following resources for thoughtful reflection, complexity, compassion, and hope:

• Israel’s War and the Diaspora: a conversation between Chanan Weissman and Yehuda Kurtzer hosted by the SAPIR Institute in partnership with the Shalom Hartman Institute. October 31, 2023.
• Frantz Fanon, Oracle of Decolonization by Eli Lake, for The Free Press. October 31, 2023.
• To my western leftist friends, from your Israeli leftist friend, by Yuval Idan for Medium. October 25, 2023
• The heroic legacy of Awad Darawshe, a victim of Hamas’ terror, by Judith Sudilovsky for the Jerusalem Post. October 21, 2023
• Diary of an IDF Soldier, by Yoni Heilman. SAPIR Journal October 2023.

With love and strength and community, we are going to get through this, together.