Winter 2016 Issue Also Focuses on Israel’s Groundbreaking Water Conservation Efforts
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The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was created nearly 70 years ago to assist about 750,000 Palestinian refugees of the first Arab-Israeli war. Today, UNRWA has a budget of $1.25 billion, employs some 30,000 Palestinians over five countries and territories and serves 5 million—and it has, for decades, faced allegations of anti-Israel bias.
Because this partiality spreads beyond UNRWA, B’nai B’rith International President Gary P. Saltzman discusses why now it is more important than ever that B’nai B’rith’s presence be felt at the United Nations as a whole. But the United Nations is only one of many challenges that Israel has faced. Less than 10 years ago, Israel was experiencing what Middle East water experts were calling the worst regional drought in 900 years. Today, thanks to innovative techniques, like reclaiming 85 percent of its waste water, Israel’s water shortage has evaporated. |
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B’nai B’rith Executive Vice President and CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin writes about his trip to Australia, where he reconnected with the country’s vibrant Jewish community.
And finally, in the late 19th century, many Jewish immigrants, escaping pogroms and severe mistreatment in Europe, came to America. Some, then also seeking escape from conditions in city sweatshops and tenements they found here, attended an agricultural school in Woodbine, N.J. to prepare them for a life of farming. Learn all about this unique Jewish experience.
