Batel Spivack runs the Sustainability Department at the Romema Community Center on behalf of the Jerusalem Green Fund. The goals of the department are multifaceted but can be summarized as;

“to aid residents in improving their neighborhood to be cleaner, greener and healthier”.

 

In her role, Batel is developing and promoting the Green Visitors’ Center (GVC), an educational organic garden and greenhouse. The GVC is the hub of environmental activity, with weekly and monthly activities open to the Haredi community at large, courses in gardening, permaculture and sustainability for various age groups and a place where residents can connect with urban nature & ultimately with the Creator. During the Shmitta (Sabbatical) year of 5782 the GVC will be continuing activities in a halachically permissible fashion. 

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A group of activist women called Forum Nachal”a, Haredi Women for Neighborhood Advancement, is another aspect of the Sustainability Center’s area of activity. The Forum began as a grassroots initiative by the diverse residents and has grown into one of our ongoing projects. Nachal”a works together with the municipality’s respective departments in charge of city cleanliness in order to share “local” knowledge. As a result of the Forum, Romema has become a model neighborhood for citizen-municipal partnership. 

 

The neighborhood rabbinic leadership and residents are united in a 26+ year effort to conserve the Romema Valley as a place of recreation and natural undeveloped space for their benefit. Our plan to build a promenade (as yet incomplete) will simultaneously link Romema with Har Hotzvim (hitech center of the city) and preserve the area’s only open nature space as its “green lung” from an otherwise extremely densely populated neighborhood.

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To get involved in these or other related activities in Romema, you can contact Batel via email.

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