Michelle Gorshteyn =jajaanimal_gmail.com
Rachel England= magentajeans_gmail.com
Atz' Chaim BBG is part of a Jewish Youth group called BBYO (B'nai B'rith Youth Organization). It is split into different chapters of boys and girls. Atz' Chaim happens to be a girls chapter in the cities of San Jose and Campbell. We also belong to the region of CRW (Central Region West).
Atz' Chaim BBG #2043 started in 1976 and folded in the late 90's. Luckily, we re-started in 2002 and have been going strong ever since!
This page is for members to check for details for upcoming events. Events are posted weekly. To RSVP for an event just fill out the contact form.
chevysfundraiser
The message board is an important place for members to talk about events, ideas, life and random stuff.
To go on the message board CLICK HERE!
U.S. To Host Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks In D.C.
Israeli and Palestinian leaders will tackle their toughest disputes in direct talks beginning early next month in Washington, U.S. officials announced Friday.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued the invitation to the two sides, asking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to launch the talks Sept. 2 in Washington.
Clinton conceded that difficulties are ahead. "Without a doubt, we will hit more obstacles," she said, but she added that negotiators should be able to reach a comprehensive peace agreement within one year.
She said President Obama has invited the leaders to bilateral meetings on the day before the talks.
U.S. special envoy George Mitchell told reporters at the State Department that the mediators facilitating the talks would "proceed with patience, perseverance and determination," but he said the initiative should come from the two parties themselves.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II also have been invited to Washington to attend the talks, Clinton said.The U.S. has been working with the two sides as part of an effort launched by the so-called Quartet, a diplomatic team of negotiators from the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. The Quartet, whose lead negotiator is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, issued a statement saying it would support the parties during the talks.
In Jerusalem, Netanyahu's office issued a statement welcoming the U.S. invitation and the "American clarification that the talks would be without preconditions.''
"Reaching an agreement is a difficult challenge, but is possible,'' the statement added.
The chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, told NPR that the guidelines laid out for direct talks were acceptable to his side. "It's doable," Erekat said, "it's time for decisions."
But Erekat repeated a Palestinian demand that Israel extend its moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank. "The Israelis have a choice now, settlements or peace ... If they don't extend the moratorium, that means they don't want the negotiations."
Israel says any extension will have to be negotiated.
Palestinians weren't united in welcoming the talks.
Sabri Saydam, of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, said many members of Abbas' own Fatah party oppose the negotiations because, he said, the Palestinian public doesn't believe in them.
"The people so far don't see any success stories that can encourage them to accept going to direct talks," Saydam told NPR. "If we go to peace talks, then we lose the people."
The talks would be the first direct negotiations between the two sides since December 2008. Indirect talks, known as "proximity talks," have been going on since May, with Mitchell shuttling between teams of Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
The issues to be discussed are the most difficult remaining before the Israelis and the Palestinians can reach a peace deal that would create an independent Palestinian state and security assurances for Israel.
They include the status of Jerusalem, which both sides claim as their capital city, and the question of whether Palestinians who fled Israel during the fighting in 1948 and their descendants have a right to return to the properties their forebears left behind.
Other issues include the question of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the borders of a proposed Palestinian state. When the proximity talks began, Netanyahu said all issues would be on the table, but only after the primary issue Israeli security had been discussed.
Ben-Gurion University Is passionate about reducing Its ecological footprint
It may not be the first, or the only, university campus in Israel to receive the Green Campus label from the Ministry of Environmental Protection, but Ben-Gurion University (BGU) in the countrys Negev desert can be singled out for having the most passionate and involved administration.
BGU is going green with gusto, says Gil Yaacov, who represents Green Course, Israels 6,000-member, nationwide student activist group which is leading the fight for environmental issues at 23 of the countrys colleges and university campuses. Yaacov says that rather than a passing grade, the Green Campus label represents a commitment to live up to.
BGUs academic staff boasts one of Israels most famous environmentalists environmental lawyer and activist Dr. Alon Tal, founder of some of Israels most prominent green NGOs and solar energy pioneer Prof.
David Faiman, who is leading the way in exploring solar energy as a viable, commercial, renewable energy source. The university is also responsible for intensive research in desert agriculture, and has an entire research center dedicated to water.
University president Prof.
Rivka Carmi says the Green Campus initiative at BGU began more than a year ago, in an effort to make the university deeply rooted in environmental responsibility in all aspects.
Established by Green Course in 2005, the Greening Campuses Project is endorsed by the Ministry of Environmental Protection. The goal is to encourage academic institutions to adopt environment-friendly management policies. Campuses that qualify receive a Green Campus label plus bragging rights.
DECLARING THEIR intention to become a Green Campus links researchers to practices that students can implement in their daily lives on campus: [Ben- Gurion University has been] fighting desertification, [working] in energy, primarily solar energy, but also in alternative energies water and managing water resources. We must also be leaders in environmental involvement and responsibility, Carmi says.
Heading the Green Campus efforts is Prof. Dan Blumberg, chair of the Department of Geography.
In order to promote awareness toward the environment within the universitys boundaries, weve been working on three main levels education, academia and community, says Blumberg, noting that the campus has already set up collection services to recycle bottles, tins, paper, batteries and electronic equipment. It also uses special homegrown sensors for turning lights on and off.
Special solar water heaters have been installed in the dorms to maximize the hot tap when hundreds of students are vying for a shower, and energy-saving light bulbs are standard. Working with the campus maintenance teams, the grounds staff takes note when energy is being wasted, and is quick to find solutions.
Scholarships dedicated to projects such as compost heaps on campus, are bringing delight to students who are eager to actively join the worldwide green movement.
We probably have the largest environmental set of programs in the country, with several departments focused on the environment from management, to geography, and environmental engineering.
We are also working extensively with the administration of the university to turn it into [an] energy-efficient [campus] with a lot of outreach to people in the surrounding communities such as Beersheba, and the kibbutzim, Blumberg says.
Among the programs set up by BGU is an education program at a nearby Beduin school, where the university students and teachers have created a gardening area made with recycled materials.
Its not only teaching awareness, says Blumberg, but understanding environmental issues. As for green research at BGU, its already well established, with an environmental branch in nearly every department. The school has also developed a starter fund to generate more research and proposals concerning the environment.
Its too early to talk about halving energy costs or providing hard statistics, but Blumberg notes that every building has a receptacle for collecting batteries and used electronics.
The maintenance unit is putting up maps showing where the facilities are, and their main partners are the students. The students are helping us set this up.
The idea to go a deeper shade of green originated with the Ministry. Yaacov from Green Course says BGU is in good company, joining Haifa University and the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, both of which already have Green Campus labels.
Tal, BGUs environmental star, lectures on topics such as desertification and public policy, and climate change and public policy. He says hes impressed by the vision of the universitys current and prior presidents.
He stresses community service as one of the three necessary pillars (the other two being teaching and research) to successfully teach environmentalism on campus.
EXAMPLES ARE a park that BGU has helped build in the poor Beduin city of Rahat, where 60 percent of the population is under the age of 18. It was their first park. The university also offers green scholarships to students from Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.
Tal lauds BGUs past president, Avishay Braverman, for committing funds to build a dedicated university train station, so students without cars can commute.
Over the last couple of years at BGU, the environmental flavor has taken a dramatic upswing, says Tal.
To my mind, environment at BGU its not just a department its a commitment for the university.
Yaacov is pleased with the progress made at BGU, but admits that no campus in Israel is truly green yet, although many are on their way. Green Course should receive some of the credit for fueling this change from the bottom up, as it engages students who have the energy and passion for environmental activism.
We work with them one step before their mortgage and family and commitments in life. This is when they have time and energy to act as activists, he says, adding that the 13-year-old Green Course is something like Americas student chapters of PIRG the US Public Interest Research Group.
In addition to the groups local and national achievements, its main contribution is the activism tools it has made available to the public. These have helped those seeking to protest the establishment of a new coal power plant, or to build a new public transportation network in their community.
Tipping his hat to BGU, Yaacov concludes that the campus is a good example of how you can take leadership on the management level, and create a budget for improving issues.
Is Beer Israels New Wine?
Out of beer. Life is crap! states the blue T-shirt brewmaster David Cohen wore on a recent afternoon.
But it is unlikely the New Jersey native will ever face such a crisis.
Tucked into an industrial zone of Tel Aviv, Cohen established the Dancing Camel Brewing Company in 2006.
Although he prizes his brewery as being the first production microbrewery in Israel, others have followed recently the stomps of the Dancing Camel in the quest to give the Jewish homeland its own distinctive flavor.
Today, Israel boosts a dozen boutique breweries scattered around the country, such as the Golan Brewery in Katzrin, Malka Brewery in Western Upper Galilee and Negev Brewery in Kiryat Gat. And more are soon to come.
The rumor is that after the wine revolution, the land of milk and honey is now undergoing a beer awakening.
Some say Israelis are acquiring a more sophisticated palate, some that the rise of imported premiums are changing the way beer is perceived, some that the country is simply mimicking the United States, where the microbrewery phenomenon started in the late 1970s.
Some give credit to the local home-brewing community that is pushing the way and fueling the atmosphere.
Others say that the trend was just bound to happen.
PEOPLE ARE shifting from big beer names to boutique beers, said Cohen. I heard hundreds of times that beer is the new wine in Israel.
Big beer names being Goldstar and Maccabee, produced by Tempo Beer Industries, and Carlsberg and Tuborg, brewed by Israel Beer Breweries.
According to beer consultant Gad Deviri, these mainstream beers hold 70 percent of the beer market in a country whose population drinks only 14 liters of beer per person each year. Czechs, with their 160 liters of yearly beer consumption per inhabitant, could well scoff at Israeli folks before taking another swig.
But even if Israel cant compete with some countries in quantity of beer consumption, it holds its own on sophisticated craft beer production, thanks to emerging boutique breweries.
Cohen started home-brewing in his kitchen back in the US way before making aliya in 2003. He brought his family with him, and a dream to create Israeli beer by adding local ingredients such as etrog and date honey.
Nothing screams Israel more than dates, he said.
Cohen wants to challenge and amuse people with his beers. Recognizing the indigenous herbs and spices in the brews, Israelis can connect to their homeland and think with a smile: This is a beer that belongs to Israel.
The Dancing Camel offers five year-round and seven seasonal brews, all with an Israeli twist such as the Gordon Beach Blonde, named after the popular Tel Aviv beach. A refreshing summer treat, its pronounced herbal flavor of mint and rosemary makes it a blonde ale with a kick.
A blonde ale is not such an exciting beer, said Cohen.
But a blonde ale with nana is a much more interesting experience.
The Trong Wit, a 6.5 percent alcohol-content Belgianstyle wheat beer with a floral aroma of etrogim, is brewed during Succot. The Leche Del Diablo, a chili pepper beer, fires up the throats of daredevils every first Friday 13th of the year. With a 10.5 percent alcohol level, the Golem IPA beer, named after the legendary savior of the Jews of Prague, comes out with every full moon.
Drafts can be enjoyed at the microbrewery pub, open at 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, or at another dozen locations in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Dancing Camel bottled beers are also on the shelves of some boutique wine stores.
Cohen says microbreweries are born out of a passion for beer and the desire to create something innovative and intriguing, rather than designing a brew the larger percentage of people will gulp without too much thought.
Yet, the very first microbrewery in Israel was established out of a passion for business, said Tel Aviv Brewhouse primary owner Giora Ben-Ari.
The Brewhouse opened its doors on Sderot Rothschild in 1998, in an establishment once used as a bank. It sits apart from the Dancing Camel, for it is a microbrewery within a restaurant that sells its beers on the premises only.
The Brewhouse produces three lagers, blonde, red and dark, and four fruit beers cherry, ginger, cider and shandy. All beers, which are not pasteurized and have a short shelf life, are enjoyed fresh out of the tap.
We gave Israelis all kinds of tastes before deciding that those were the choices Israelis liked the most, said Ari.
While many dishes are cooked with beer at the Brewhouse, Ben-Ari does not pair food with brews.
What if you ask for a recommendation to go with your beef and lamb kebab? I would always suggest a beer, but the thinking is selling, he said.
Cohen is all for it.
I think its much more interesting to match beer with food than to pair wine with food, he said.
For instance, he recommends the American Pale Ale with lamb dishes, as the citrussy aroma derived from the hops brings out the flavor of this meat. The sharpness of blue cheese helps uncover the softer chocolate notes of the Midnight Stout, otherwise hidden beneath the roasted barley.
ALTHOUGH THE Dancing Camel offers only New York deli-style sandwiches, people can experiment with food and beer matching whenever they feel innovative in their own kitchen.
But if you dont feel like cooking, bring your date to Porter and Sons, where the Dancing Camel brews can be found along with another 50 premium imported and local beers on tap.
This beer restaurant, which opened last March on Fourth Street in Tel Aviv, is based on the innovative food and brew paring concept.
We wanted to give Israelis the experience of having quality beers with their meals instead of wine, said coowner Yoav Alon.
On the menu are yellow tale tartar in olive oil, lemon and herbs, grilled pork chops in an orange, pineapple and chili sauce, and roasted spare ribs with homemade B.B.Q. sauce.
No question it is a trend today to pair beer with food, said Daniel Alon, co-founder of Jems Beer Factory in Petah Tikva. Launched last year, the brewpub serves kosher meals along with six styles of drafts brewed at the factory, from a German-style wheat beer with clove and banana hints to a dark lager with aromas of caramel and toasted malts. Live music shows add to the atmosphere on Sunday nights.
For now, Jems Beer Factory drafts are savored on the premises only, but bottled brews will be available at the microbrewery starting next month.
But microbreweries, producing from 300 to 1,000 liters of beer per batch, are not the only ones to make an impact within the Israeli boutique beer market.
The Laughing Buddha Brewery, a nano-brewery that started operating recently, is a joint adventure of two Russian friends, Vladimir Gershonov and Dmitry Grabak.
Producing only 50 liters of beer per batch, it experiments with existing recipes while creating new ones.
One time, the pair even brewed a beer with a cactus fruit.
Their ever-changing concoctions can be tasted at the nano-brewery in Tel Aviv. A handful of permanent beers are bottled, such as the Honey Flower Wheat, a Belgian-style wheat beer with a flowery gentle aroma of chamomile and honey.
But if you are in the mood for a more historical flavor, swing by Abir Saloon on Dizengoff and try Abir, a revival of a brew first produced under this brand name in 1952 by what is today Tempo Beer Industries.
Oren Avrashi, speciality beers manager at Tempo, said that Abir was named after a non-branded beer that was first designed for English troops in the country during the British Mandate for Palestine. The legend says that British soldiers were thirsty for booze and would walk into a bar demanding a beer. Hence, a beer became Abir, which means knight in Hebrew.
For now, this English, classic-style IPA will be found only at the saloon that will officially open in September.
Impatient to try some intriguing beers? About 100 Israeli and international brews will be all in one spot this week in the Old Train Station Plaza for the sixth annual Jerusalem Beer Festival Lchaim!
Officer held for stealing and selling Gaza flotilla laptops
An Israel Defense Forces officer suspected of stealing laptop computers from passengers on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that the navy raided in May, and then selling them to other officers, was remanded by a military court yesterday.
Two other soldiers, who had been detained for questioning on suspicion of buying the computers, were released.
The officer, a second lieutenant, was arrested along with six other soldiers earlier this week on suspicion of stealing at least six laptop computers from the aid flotilla.
The officer allegedly sold some of the computers directly to other soldiers and sold the remainder with a mediator's help. The mediator allegedly bought a laptop for himself from the officer for NIS 1,200, then brokered deals to sell the others to three other soldiers.
The suspected mediator was one of the two soldiers released yesterday. His attorney denied the allegations and said his client did not know the laptops had been stolen from the Turkish ship.
Haaretz reported in June that an Italian journalist detained by the IDF following the flotilla raid said his credit card was used to purchase items after it was confiscated by the Israeli authorities.
Manolo Luppichini was aboard the Sfintoni-8000, one of the smaller boats in the flotilla, when naval commandos took it over. The soldiers searched every passenger and confiscated everything they found, he said.
"They took two cameras, microphones, a stand and other equipment from me and my photographer," he said. "They took my wallet, passport, bag and all my personal effects."
This year, every BBG and Aleph must fill out these two forms and send them in to the regional office, but you only have to do it ONCE for the entire year!
Enrollment and release form
Medical Form
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Dreidel AZA #2525=
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If you are a 14-18 year old Jewish girl, living in San Jose, Atz' Chaim BBG is the right place for you. We hold weekly events at houses in and around San Jose. If you are interested, fill out this contact form and you will be contacted as soon as possible.
"From the outside looking in, you cannot understand it. And from the inside looking out, you cannot explain it."
