Israel's Bob Browns to Visit Australia

A full-page advertisement in The Australian Jewish News (4/10) for this year's Jewish National Fund (JNF) Gala Dinner reminded me of our rambammed student politicians (class of 2010), the subject of my October 1 post, A Transformative Experience.

You'll recall:

"Tania Levi, a KKL-JNF guide, was explaining the importance of KKL-JNF's water projects to a group of young Australian politicians who were visiting Israel as part of a fact-finding mission to the Middle East. Members of the group included Duncan McDonald, John Shipp, Xavier Williams, Jesse Overton-Skinner, Eloise Howse, Jesse Marshall and Joel Burnie... This was the first time that the group had heard about KKL-JNF, so Tania briefly reviewed KKL-JNF's history... emphasizing the fact that KKL-JNF is Israel's largest and oldest green organization and leads the country's water recycling efforts." (Young Australian politicians visit KKL Negev water projects, KKL-JNF, The Jerusalem Post, 8/8/10)

Alas, the above KKL-JNF press release didn't record the gormless group's reactions on learning that Israel's JNF was actually a tree-hugging outfit.

If they had, maybe we'd have read about the chorus of cools, awesomes, amazings, and I-had-absolutely-no-ideas from Duncan, John, Xavier, Jesse, Eloise, Jesse and Joel at this revelation.

Having learnt all there is to know then and there from the lovely Tania about Israel's cool, awesome, truly amazing Jewish Green - sorry, National - Fund, I imagine they'd all be looking forward to attending this year's JNF Australia 2013 Gala Dinner where they'll get to hear from Israel's leading green activists, Yaacov Peri MK and Avigdor Kahalani, keynote and guest speakers respectively:

"Minister Yaacov Peri is a former head of Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency and was the President and CEO of Cellcom. He is currently Minister of Science, Technology & Space and a member of the Yesh Atid party in the Knesset."

"Brigadier-General (ret.) Avigdor Kahalani served with distinction in the IDF in a career spanning 30 years. He is most famous for his heroics in the Yom Kippur War for which he received the highest military decoration, the Medal of Valor."

Green credentials don't come much better than that. And only $70 per head too!