Who is Jeremy Benstein?

Benstein holds a B.A. degree from Harvard, a master's degree in Judaic Studies from the Schechter Institute and a doctorate in environmental anthropology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He works extensively in leadership development and capacity building with environmental activists and educators in Israel and worldwide. Jeremy Benstein's interests focus on the interplay of religion, culture and values with questions of sustainability, topics he explored in his book "The Way Into Judaism and the Environment "(Jewish Lights Publishing, 2006).

You are the co-director of the Heschel-Center in Tel Aviv, an institution that raises environmental awareness and education. What is your current work focus?

Jeremy Benstein: The Heschel Center works on a number of key issues we are trying to promote. One of them is local sustainability, which means we are working with local governments or municipalities to promote programs in their local areas. A new focus we are working on now is the question of sustainable food which also has deep connections to Jewish teachings or the kashrut (RED: food that may be consumed according to Halakha which is termed kosher). There are many people that are concerned about this topic now and they are looking at the whole system of kashrut or eating kosher. They would say we do have a system that tries to make sure that we eat things that are acceptable to eat. And there are many questions that arise from a modern way of producing food: For example is it really kosher to eat the products of industrial agriculture which creates pollution and is a waste of energy and water? So people today are raising those questions, both in terms of social values and the environment.