Naomi Tsur

Naomi Tsur is the deputy mayor of Jerusalem, where she heads the city’s environment, urban-planning and historic-conservation committees. This is only her second year in office, but Naomi already has made significant contributions to Jerusalem’s environment by developing a circuit of city bike paths, limiting private-car use in the Old City and initiating a dialogue with Palestinians about how best to handle waste. This past Tu B’Shvat, her efforts led to an additional 10,000 tress being planted in Jerusalem. Before joining city government, Naomi directed the Jerusalem Branch of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, and gained approval for the preservation of Gazelle Valley, the first urban nature park in Israel. She also founded the Sustainable Jerusalem Coalition, which successfully campaigned to protect the Jerusalem Hills. Naomi speaks about Israel’s environment around the world, and frequently serves as a representative at worldwide conferences, including the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, 2002), the International Healthy City Conference (Belfast, 2003), and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (Capetown, 2006).

Dr. Eilon Schwartz

Dr. Eilon Schwartz is the executive director of the Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership, which is dedicated to building a sustainable future for Israel rooted in environmental health and social justice. He is a faculty member of the Melton Centre for Jewish Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he teaches advanced-degree courses in Jewish environmental education, the interrelationship between Zionism and the environment, and environmental-policy ethics. Eilon is on the board of directors of Green Course, the Israeli students' environmental organization. He has published both academic and popular articles and lectures widely on the Israeli environment. Eilon previously served as one of the GZA representatives on the board of directors of Keren Kayemet L'Yisrael / Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF). Eilon is also a co-founder of the Green Zionist Alliance.

Dr. Daniel Orenstein

Dr. Daniel Orenstein is a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Urban and Regional Studies, Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology and a faculty member at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. His work focuses on characterizing patterns of urban sprawl in Israel and their ecological implications, as well as population-environment interactions as expressed through land use — and he has been published widely, including in the Jerusalem Report, the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz and the Forward. Recently, Daniel served on the academic advisory board for the political campaign of Israel's Green Movement Party. Daniel completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Davis; his master’s degree at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; and his PhD at Brown University, where he initiated the Middle East Environmental Futures Project, bringing together 40 Middle Eastern and North American environmental scholars to develop an innovative, interdisciplinary and policy relevant environmental study for Israelis and Palestinians. Previously, Daniel has taught at WUJS Institute and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A former member of the board of the directors of the Green Zionist Alliance, Daniel also has served as the GZA representative on the JNF-USA board of trustees. He lives in Haifa with his wife and their three children.