Short post today, since most of what we did was ride, eat, sweat, and sleep. Speaking of sleep, one element of this ride I hadn’t expected was the pleasure and challenge of sharing a room with a relative stranger in one’s mid 50s. Last night, around 11:30pm, just as I finished the blog, Jackie sat straight up in bed, looked right at me and let out a blood-curdling scream. I stood up slowly (after recovering from the heart attack) and spoke gently, hoping to convince her I wasn’t the intruder she imagined me to be. Turned out she had imagined a huge spider on the wall above my bed. After confirming she wasn’t sleep walking, we had a conversation and returned quickly to bed. I was strangely relieved I was not the source of her night terror.
Chicago Boss Girls made it to the bus with 5 minutes to spare. We had a 25 minute ride to the launch, and Bill, one of the founders of the ride and the person who recruited me to read Torah on Saturday shared a few observations and pieces of history. Much of what he talked about focused on re-forestation after experiences with the Ottoman Empire and British had left the country nearly decimated. Israel is one of the only nations in the world that entered the 21st century with more trees than it had 100 years ago. Since 1900 roughly 250,000,000 trees have been planted across Israel. In 1948 roughly 2% of Israel was covered in trees and this has now grown to around 8.5%. There are currently over 200 million trees in forests and woodlands covering some 300,000 acres. An additional 75,000 acres in Israel that are designated as forestland but have not yet been planted in and a few years ago the Jewish National Fund adopted a twenty year plan with the aim of significantly increasing their work and planting close to 4,000 acres of trees per year. (From Israel, 365 news)
You can see us getting on the bus, the bus from the outside, bus from the inside, and preparing for the ride.
There were a few huge hills going down we had been warned about, but the length and grade of the uphills were grueling too. during one of the worst uphill, we all got off and walked our bikes. I traded bikes with Jackie so she could sense how much lighter my bike was, and why she is struggling a bit more than me on the uphills (Hint-Perfect Chanukah present for Jackie, a new bike to replace her 25 year old cruiser).
Overall, riding 50 miles the first day through the tree-covered hills outside of Jerusalem, seeing street signs with names like Shalom Cohen, stopping to eat lunch in a kibbutz, learning how to say How Are You and Great in Hebrew and Arabic was a good distraction from the pain and the heat. (My favorite so far is Sbibaba. Or maybe Sbababa.)
During our break in the morning, we also got to hear from Alon Tal, one of the most influential environmental scholars and organizers in the world. He is also a professor at Stanford and the founder of the Arava Institute. He went through a few key areas of the environment and gave Israel a grade on each one. Interestingly, now that Israel is cleaning wastewater for agriculture, they don’t treat water as a precious commodity with drought protection in the same way.
They also don’t recycle or compost to scale, and when I asked why, the one response was that the current Conservative government just rolled back the tax on single use plastic because the Haridi for religious reasons use it.
Here is a clip from his talk–I received a 40 page paper today and after I read and digest I am happy to share more highlights:
The country was at 2 million people, have grown to 10 million, and is projected to double in 30 years. He and colleagues started an NGO called Crowded. The head of Knesset gave them 1.5 million shekels for studying population growth, (around $500,000). Jews may want growth but need sustainability. He noted there are three ways for any society to grow well. Empower women, empower women, empower women (he said it, not me). Give when a purpose other than having babies. We didn’t get into it but I imagine this goes for Jewish women as well as Muslim and Christian women.
Jackie may have struggle a bit on the uphill, but look at that rockstar leading the pack during a headwind. Did not phase her a bit! Also, I think my riding rest-face is slightly more serious and suffering. What do you think?
The end of the ride routed us through the busy streets of Ashkelon, which we white knuckled a bit, but the upshot was we had to stick together to cross traffic light intersections. Felt a little like team building and a little like Frogger.
We rolled into the beach town of Ashkelon around 3:30 pm. Some of us changed into bathing suits (me) and some went straight in to the Mediterranean in their biking outfits (Jackie). Sunset at the pier.
Basically wandering around exhausted, sleepy, not too hungry since we get amazing fruit, nuts and cheese here. I have eaten more persimmons this week than I have in a year.
The final activity of the day was a talk by Nigel Savage, who founded Hazon. They have since merged with Avodah, which is what they are now called. Hazon was known as the largest faith-based environmental organization in the US. Calling themselves “The Jewish Lab for Sustainability,” Hazon uses Jewish traditions and values, innovation, education, and community to bring environmentalism into the Jewish community.
Today really felt like I was surrounded by environmental rockstars. (Definitely do some internet research and check out Alon Tal, Nigel Savage, Hazon and Adamah. https://adamah.org)
Signing off for day one of the ride. Although I am actually finishing this after day two, which I will now try to update and share 🙂
Love,
Sarah and Jackie
A better future 
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