Features

The Source of Life, An Opportunity for Peace

By Rebecca Grossman, Program Director, The David H. Sonabend Center for Israel

What do you think about when you hear the word “water”? A simple element in nature, composed of two hydrogen atoms bonded to an oxygen atom, it is the crux of existence on Planet Earth. Humans, animals, and plants all require water to survive.

Water Scarcity: The Imminent Global Crisis

Unfortunately, the fact that we need it does not guarantee that we will have it. Around two-thirds of the world’s population, roughly 4 billion people, experience water scarcity at least one month a year; 1.2 billion people, one in seven, have difficulty accessing water. In some places that can mean spending almost the entire day walking to the well and back, a task that can keep girls from participating in school. In addition, the accessible water can be heavily polluted, causing a child to die every two minutes from waterborne diseases.

Our water shortage is more widespread than we might think. In my conversation with Seth M. Siegel, author of Let There Be Water: Israel's Solution for a Water-Starved World, he emphasized that in the next five to 10 years, we will start seeing a phenomenon of “water refugees,” and other parts of the world will need to manage how to absorb them. The issue is global, with water scarcity at one level or another affecting people in the U.S. Southwest, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, along the Po River in Italy, Brazil (home of the mighty Amazon), in Sub-Saharan Africa, Northern China, and Australia.

The problem has been spurred by climate change, in tandem with a sharp increase in human population and needs. The UN predicts that the world’s population will grow from 8.5 billion in 2030 to 10 billion by 2100, due to both increased life expectancy at birth and increased life longevity. Though these are huge successes for humanity, paired with our rising standard of living, they also mean significant increases in meat consumption, clothing production, and household and business needs; all of which require water.

Israel: A Light Unto the Nations

Israel is no different. Indeed, Israel is in the driest regions of the world, with nearly twothirds of its land consisting of desert and one-third only semi-arid. According to Siegel,

in his Tedx on Israel’s solution to a water starved world, Israel’s average annual rainfall has diminished almost 25 percent, while its population has increased eleven-fold in the last 30 years. Despite these challenges, Mekorot, Israel’s national water company, provides healthy, safe, 24/7 on-demand water throughout the country. Israel is selfsufficient in the production of fruits and vegetables while exporting billions of dollars of produce; it provides the Palestinean Authority with 60 percent of the water consumed in Palestinian homes in the West Bank; and also sends significant amounts of water to Jordan and into Gaza.

The key to such success in water has been, as spokesman for the Israeli Water Authority Itai Dodi stated, “long-term management of the water sector taking into account climate changes and population growth.” First and foremost, Israel was a water-conscious society even before its establishment as a state. Israel’s pre-state leaders created a culture and ethos that would not allow water scarcity to inhibit the country’s growth, putting money and minds to work on its water future. Furthermore, there is a technocratic governance of water, a system without subsidies that uses market pressures to help control consumption, and encourage conservation, efficiency, and innovation. Comparatively, Israel has one of the lowest water usage rates in the world, with around 50–60 cubic meters per capita for residential consumption and private gardening. And when this has not been enough, the Israel Water Authority has held awareness campaigns, the most notable in 2009 featuring Israeli celebrities Ninet Tayeb, Bar Rafaeli, and Moshe Igvy speaking about the declining water levels of the Kinneret and the need to consume water in moderation.

Conservation has led to many innovations over the years. In agriculture, the innovation of drip irrigation allows plants to absorb 95 percent of the water provided, so less water can be allocated to farms without compromising output. Netafim, an Israeli company, is the world's leader in pressurized drip irrigation technology, existing in 110 countries, working with millions of farmers on 10 millions of hectares, operating 33 subsidiaries, with 5,000-plus employees, and 17 manufacturing plants. More recently, N-Drip, formed by a team of scientists and agronomists, has introduced low-cost drip irrigation technology that operates without any external energy, running exclusively

with endlessly renewable gravity as its power source. This innovation has reduced the amount of carbon in the fields where it is utilized by more than 50 percent while increasing yields by as much as a third.

Israelis have even been at the global center of seed innovation, at times modifying DNA to make plants as drought-resistant as possible. For example, Israeli scientists have developed tomatoes with very short roots and almost no leaves, as well as wheat with a very short stalk. With financial support from JNF-USA, and others, Israel has also set up 230 water reservoirs, which help minimize the loss of water and optimize its utilization.

This management has also resulted in an emphasis on innovation and technology to manufacture water, with two-thirds of the water used by homes, offices, businesses of all kinds, and even agriculture coming from developed sources. Israel has been able to capture and treat wastewater to an ultra-high level of purity, and by 2015 used 86 percent of its wastewater in agricultural operations. In comparison, Spain, the next leading country, used only 17 percent of its wastewater.

The equivalent of 75 percent of water used in homes in Israel comes from another source: desalination, seawater reverse osmosis for which the Israeli government created five operational desalination facilities. According to Dodi, the percentage of water from desalination is expected to reach 90 percent in coming years.

This hypersensitivity to water scarcity has also led to more individual-use innovations to help those operating off the grid. One

Seventy-five percent of water for homes in Israel comes from desalination plants, such as the one at Ashkelon.

example comes from Tel Aviv University Professor Hadas Mamane, head of the Environmental Engineering Program and the Water-Energy (WE) Laboratory at the School of Mechanical Engineering, and doctoral candidate Dana Pousty, who have developed SoLED, a patented UV-LED water disinfection technology. This initiative is funded by the Asper Fund for Bringing Clean Water to the Developing World. UV-LEDs use ultraviolet light emitting diodes, similar to those in traffic lights, but on the UV scale. Ultraviolet light changes the genetic nature of a cell so that it will no longer replicate, which effectively kills bacteria. Set to a maximum sanitation level, water flowing through the UV-LED chamber is purified. Because it is solar powered, with a very low energy consumption, it can be integrated into existing solar panels or even powered by the water flow and combined with existing water filtration systems, or function as a standalone product. The innovation brings clean water to infrastructure-limited areas, with the ultimate goal to produce a scalable solution that could be manufactured for mass distribution in rural areas and low- income settings.

Other Israeli innovations in water technology can be explored at Start-Up Nation Central, including WellToDo, Sensoil, Tevet Water Technologies, WADIS, Cropx, and Lishtot. Of course, the incredible innovation and conservation of water that exists in Israel is not immune to political tensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In my conversations with Director Clive Lipchin and Fareed Mahameed from the Arava Institute’s Center for Transboundary Water Management, they explained how issues of water management become obvious once one enters the West Bank. Most of the supply comes from groundwater, through aquifers. Due to political regulations set up through the Oslo accords, Palestinians cannot access the majority of the groundwater, which is in Area C and completely controlled by Israel; they need to get approval from the Joint Water Committee, as do Israelis, to access water through wells in Area A, which is controlled by the Palestinians, even if on private Palestinian land. Usually, Palestinians are denied this action, as it is interpreted as a violation of the No Harm Clause, assuming they will over pump the water. Israelis in other regions, such as in the Arava, drill 500–600 meters deep, while Palestinians are denied access to drill even 50–100 meters. This keeps Palestinians reliant on Israel for water supply. It is a difficult balance between water rights access and ensuring safety and cleanliness of the aquifer.

Palestinians also need permission from the Joint Water Committee in order to fix or improve any aspect of the existing water

Water tanks are visible on roofs in Nablus

infrastructure. This has led to continual leaks, as well as a lack of wastewater treatment or sewer grids; sewer water gets dumped either into pits that need to be pumped or directly into the environment, making the Arava Institute’s work on treating it locally ever more important. As a point of comparison, Israelis treat 90 percent of their wastewater and use 80 percent, while Palestinians treat 10 percent and reuse less than 1 percent.

Furthermore, systemic access to water becomes extremely politicized and physically obvious. While settlers are provided with full access to running water, even enough to operate date farms, Palestinians in the West Bank are not. Instead, they have an intermittent water supply, with times during the week when they do not receive water through their pipes. As such, they must have a backup service, with water tanks on top of their houses, a distinct way to determine between settlements and Palestinian homes. The Arava Institute: Helping Marginalized Communities, One Project at a Time

Water does not, of course, know the boundary of city or country lines. As such, it is crucial for Israel to work with its neighbors on this pressing matter. The Arava Institute’s Center for Transboundary Water Management “provides a platform for regional water professionals and policy makers to cooperate in water conservation, desalination, wastewater treatment, and education. The Center facilitates direct communication among regional water professionals in the three lower riparian states of the Jordan River and Dead Sea Basin (Israel, Palestine, and Jordan).” The Institute focuses on environmental issues and works people-to-people, improving lives on the most basic levels.

Currently, the Institute is focused on wastewater surveillance and treatment,

including identifying the presence of COVID-19, as a tool to track how the virus is spreading across boundaries. For example, in more rural and off-the-grid areas, such as Bedouin communities, the concentration of COVID-19 in the wastewater was high, although infection numbers were low, signifying under-testing, which is often typical in marginalized communities.

Once the intensity of disease in off-grid communities becomes apparent, the treatment of wastewater is critical to preventing the spread of illness. The Laguna Innovation system helps communities such as Bedouins and Palestinian villages create totally independent, solar-powered, portable, automatic, and online streamingcontrolled wastewater treatment. The lack of permanence is especially important when working with unrecognized communities, within which any permanent building or system is illegal; even more so when working with government mandated school buildings, highlighting the contradictions in Israeli laws.

The work not only treats water for sanitary purposes, but also assists in eliminating the smell and empowers people to live more positive lives. Laguna Innovation is also working with the Jordanian Ministry of Tourism on an off-grid wastewater treatment system for the hospitality industry, so that water can be recycled and used for irrigation around hotels. The team believes that through a bottom up approach and grassroots transboundary collaboration the Center for Transboundary Water Management is contributing its part to build bridges of environmental peace between people, hopefully advocating for an end to the political conflict through peaceful environmental solutions. Water can both divide us as well as bring us together.

Water does not, of course, know the boundary of city or country lines.

To support the work of the Arava Institute, contact Friends of the Arava Institute to donate, assist with networking and partnerships, spread the word, and more. As Americans, we can lobby our politicians to do more of this work such as through the Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act (MEPPA). If you have any ideas, get in touch with the Arava Institute, as they appreciate any kind of help.

A Gateway to Spiritual, Mental, and Physical Wellness

By Rebecca Grossman, Program Director, The David H. Sonabend Center for Israel

Water is not only the life source of sustenance. It is also a pathway toward spiritual, mental, and physical well being. My conversations with Beit Issie Shapiro on hydrotherapy and with Debbie Rosas about the Nia Technique demonstrate that whether we are utilizing water literally or metaphorically, it can bring an immense amount of healing.

Healing Hydrotherapy In Jewish ritual, as The Jewish Woman website notes, the mikveh, or spiritual pool of water, “offers the individual, the community, and the nation of Israel the remarkable gift of purity and holiness.” In its purest form, a mikveh can be nature’s own oceans, rivers, wells, and spring-fed lakes. When such bodies are not readily available, or not easily made private, a man-made structure, akin to a pool with a specified quantity of natural water, serves this purpose. Water purification is so central to Jewish customs that mikvahs are typically one of the first infrastructures built in a new Jewish community. Complete immersion in water is also used to work on mental and physical health. The water provides a high-resistance, low-impact environment that helps support smoother exercise and movement while burning more calories.

This type of water environment is used to provide life-changing hydrotherapy for children with disabilities. Beit Issie Shapiro, an Israel-registered charity, runs one of the largest hydrotherapy programs in the world.

They shared this story from their work:

Yoni is a three-year-old boy with cerebral palsy. The muscle tone in his arms and legs is very high, and his back muscles are weak, which means that his body is bent over most of the time. Only in hydrotherapy can Yoni move his body, and he was making excellent progress until treatments ceased in March 2020 due to COVID-19. Two years later, Yoni finally returned to the water. While he was delighted, his hydrotherapist was extremely concerned, as Yoni’s condition had significantly deteriorated.

Yoni now urgently needs weekly hydrotherapy to ease his discomfort, learn to move his body again, and regain the function he lost in just a few months.

Weekly hydrotherapy is critical for children with severe disabilities at Beit Issie Shapiro, most of whom are unable to walk or crawl typically and spend their days either immobile in a chair or reliant on mobility aids like walkers. Hydrotherapy is a lifeline for these children. The buoyancy of the water eases their pain and muscle spasticity as expert hydrotherapists work one-on-one to improve each child’s muscle tone, balance, and circulation, while increasing core strength, range of motion, and stability. This dramatically improves the children’s health and quality of life and boosts their selfesteem by succeeding in an enjoyable and relaxing environment. The knowledge and expertise developed while treating the children at Beit Issie Shapiro are shared through its hydrotherapy training institute, which has trained thousands of hydro-therapists in Israel, the U.S., Europe, and even China.

ImmerseNYC, a project of the JCC, is open for in-person immersions at mikveh facilities in Manhattan and Westchester or virtually from your own home. Trained volunteer mikveh guides facilitate welcoming, transformative immersions for our diverse Jewish community that honor the sacred nature of our lives, bodies, and experiences, and reclaim an ancient ritual for a new world. Visit immersenyc.org to start your mikveh journey. A Metaphorical River

The flow of water can also influence even the most healthy people. In the Nia Movement, the concept of water is utilized in a basic mindfulness practice to sense the flow of stimulating brain and body information. This leads to a more fluid, relaxed, powerful, conscious, and satisfying way to move, be, and live.

The Nia Movement utilizes sound, touch, and sight to achieve a therapeutic physical and energetic alignment flow. When I connected with Debbie Rosas, founder of Nia Technique, Inc., she delved deeper into this beautiful and holistic perspective and way of movement and life.

How is water the grounding element for our physical and mental healing?

Moving as if in water is the first movement in Nia’s Five Stages of Self-healing therapeutic practice. Since the human body itself is mostly liquid and space, we are actually able to use the metaphor of water to delve into

Caroline Kohles, senior program director of The Davidson Fishberg Center for Health + Wellness at the JCC, leads a Nia class.

the form and function of our body. We can look to the fluid nature of our body to help us appreciate that as energetic beings we are fluid and we are designed to be in flow.

We can live life standing on the shore or by jumping into the river of life, learning to become as water and go with the flow, riding the waves of change, surfing the ups and downs of life. The shore is a metaphor that represents habits. It defines the edge of what you know and feel safe with. The shore is what is familiar to you, the foundation you stand on built from what you currently know. Nothing stands still. Health and well-being require that we move and go with the flow.

The river is a metaphor that represents the watery aspect of change and flow. This is the place of the unknown where your greatest potential lies, birthed from unknown wisdom not yet explored. Consciously jumping into the river, getting off the shore, is how you tap into the wisdom of the unknown. Learning to play in the river comes from resisting the urge to get back to the shore of habit and safety. The water aspect of the river teaches us to play with the tensions between habit, the known, and unknown to create new experiences. New, novel, and fascinating experiences are how we grow our brain and keep it healthy. In the flow, and watery aspects of the river is how we become physically and energetically adaptable and reflexive.

As human beings we are capable of reflexivity and self-reflection. Anthony Giddens, and a number of other social theorists and commentators view reflexivity as the guiding principle of modern selfidentity. In Giddens’ own words, “reflexivity refers to a world increasingly constituted by information rather than pre-modern modes of conduct” and involves "the routine incorporation of new knowledge or information into environments of action that are thereby reconstituted or re-organized.” In the sociology of knowledge, reflexivity refers to the circular relationships between cause and effect, especially as embedded in human belief structures.

What is an example of your therapeutic practice?

The Nia’s Body’s Way Workout is a sevenminute tune-up that physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually prepares you to stand up and walk in flow and in harmony with gravity and levity. What is unique about the seven-minute workout is the way I have combined these five movements with moving down and up from the floor, by creating the anytime, go-to movement experience to help you develop and sustain systemic strength, flexibility, mobility, agility, and stability in ways exercise alone cannot.

What activities do you have in connection with Israel?

The Nia Technique has instructors around the world, including in Israel! You can check out our Nia Community Spotlight with Orli Zahor.

In practice, The Body’s Way philosophy supports and aligns with the innovative thinking of Israeli medical sociologist Aaron Antonovsky and his concept of well-being, Salutogenesis [the study of the origins of health] is concerned with helping people move towards health rather than away from disease. Antonovsky’s well-being theory, Sense of Coherence, articulates three key conditions people require to effectively move toward health. Nia’s movement medicine

Nia is more than a workout

methodology embraces the theory in these points:

Comprehend: I understand. Applying The Body’s Way philosophy empowers participants to understand unique needs. Participants learn interoceptive skills to sense anatomy and somatosensory signals. Mind-body awareness establishes comprehension.

Manage: I feel confident I can move. Participants learn how to effectively manage their self-healing process using sensation to personalize and adapt movement effectively for their body. In Nia® Moving to Heal classes, participants follow simple, functional moves and practice therapeutic movement dynamics. Pattern repetition supports confidence and systemic stability— participants take their time to move according to their body’s needs.

Meaning: I know why I want to do this. Participants move according to intrinsic motivation. They establish and assess their movement goals. This is key to bodycentered fitness and movement medicine. Participants personalize according to what they need to feel better; feeling better is meaningful.

Check out the JCC’s ongoing Nia classes in the group exercise schedule! Or try the Na Five Stage “Taking Care of Your Body” Practice at home. Click here for an easy-to-follow guide and checklist.

Agricultural Innovation: From Waste to Nourishment

By Rebecca Grossman, Program Director, The David H. Sonabend Center for Israel

To gain a better understanding of how Israel is managing its agricultural sector, one of the main water users in the country, the TAMUZ team spoke with Michal Levi, chief scientist and senior deputy director general for agricultural innovation at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Let’s dive in!

What is the focus of research being done by the Ministry of Agriculture?

As part of agricultural reform currently being promoted by the Ministry, huge sums (hundreds of millions of NIS) will be allocated for this matter, with the understanding that in order to meet the demand for fresh food over the years— certainly while constantly dealing with climate change—we must find advanced and innovative solutions to improve agricultural growth, preserve and improve yields, and fortify our national food security.

Our role is to constantly think about the "agriculture of the future," and to ensure that farmers in Israel keep pace with technological development, so that they can remain competitive in relation to other countries.

Therefore, the Office of the Chief Scientist in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development budgets for applied research, that is, research that can be carried out in the field and examined for its effectiveness over time. The purpose of the research is to promote and strengthen agriculture in Israel in a global and future perspective, to position

Michal Levi

it as a trailblazer in technological innovation. This is doubly true right now, when global agriculture is facing the challenges of climate change; research can help promote agriculture and find solutions to these challenges.

How has technology changed the way you collect and analyze data?

Some of the research budgeted by the Office of the Chief Scientist deals with data collection and analysis. We live in a world where information is a very important value, and in today's technological reality, information collection capabilities can be improved significantly, by artificial intelligence, remote sensing, and more.

This information can be a catalyst for entrepreneurship, for further research, for the optimization of agricultural practices, and more.

A few months ago we started a data collection project in the Golan Heights. The intention is to establish a source of Big Data that will be a catalyst for entrepreneurship, together with farmers, as well as for connecting researchers to conduct research and create new technologies. This project will be able to assist farmers in databased decision-making processes and thus optimize agricultural practices, save resources, and increase profitability. What is the biggest challenge your ministry faces with regard to water usage?

The quality of water around the world in general is decreasing. Agriculture in Israel often uses brackish water and it is necessary to adjust cultivation methods, the variety of crop grown, and level of irrigation. In the Valley of the Springs in the Beit Shean area, studies are being conducted on various crops to build cultivation protocols adapted to water quality. Another example is the Salicrop company that developed a seed treatment method to improve germination and growth in saline soil.

What is the source of the water used for agriculture in Israel?

Israeli agriculture is constantly adapting to new challenges. The water used in agriculture is wastewater. Over 90 percent of the water in Israel undergoes cleaning processes and is put to use in agriculture.

What methods does Israel use to provide water for agricultural use?

The irrigation methods in Israel are varied and depend on the type of crop. A significant part of the cultivation in Israel is drip irrigated.

How has technology changed the way you distribute water?

Throughout history Israel has always had a shortage of water, especially water for

agriculture. Because of this, methods have been developed to conserve water, such as drip irrigation. The national carrier that delivers water from the Kinneret was actually the initial source of water for agriculture throughout the country. Over the years they switched to irrigation with wastewater, after developing effective methods for water treatment. Today there are agricultural plots that are irrigated with desalinated water.

In recent years we have been exposed to more technologies that help the farmer to irrigate efficiently and only where irrigation is required—precise irrigation. This is done by using sensors, remote monitoring, as well as connecting to weather forecasting systems. All this information is collected into algorithms, which of course take into account the type of crop, the type of soil, etc., helping the farmer make decisions regarding the opening or closing of irrigation, the required amount, and the exact area.

What is Israel’s use of water for agriculture, both in amount and percentage of total water usage? How does it compare to the rest of the world and how has this amount changed over time?

The scale of agricultural consumption in Israel is 1.2 billion cubic meters of water per year. Agriculture accounts for about 53 percent of total water use; in benign water (suitable for drinking), 30 percent. For comparison, in 1998, 63 percent of total water uses were for the benefit of agriculture, while 55 percent was benign water.

In what ways have you worked with farmers to reduce water usage?

Back in 2006, the water agreement was signed which, among other things, deals with principles to help agricultural farms to optimize the use of water. This agreement, signed between the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Israel Farmers’ Association, and the Government Authority for Water and Sewerage, provides financial assistance to agricultural farms taking action to improve and reduce water use, due to the increase in water rates.

In this framework, the Ministry of Agriculture provides annual financial support to farms that work to reduce the use of fresh water and increase the use of wastewater, while reducing depreciation (waste) of water. In 2022, 65 million NIS were allocated for this support. Also, the Water Authority supports sewage plants, where wastewater undergoes a purification process to reuse it for agricultural needs, among other things.

Can you explain the water crisis that Israel is experiencing, if any?

For more information about the water sector and crisis in Israel, read this report by the Knesset on the subject (in Hebrew).