Yael Teff-Seker Ph.D.

Sunday, January 23, 2022 at 2 p.m. via Zoom

Environmental Cooperation in the Middle East

Please join Rabbi Greg Wolfe, Social Justice Committee, Adult Education Committee, Israel Haverim, and Israel Peace Alternatives in welcoming Israel Institute Teaching Fellow Yael Teff-Seker, Ph.D. for the third of a series of three programs.

In addition to regional cooperation on energy and water issues with its neighbors, Israel is also involved in joint initiatives to conserve and rehabilitate valuable marine, desert, mountain and valley habitats within and along its borders. Surprisingly (or not), several of these initiatives are taking place in politically peripheral, but ecologically valuable, areas. In this lecture, Dr. Teff-Seker will give a few examples of joint Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Jordanian initiatives that involve environmental education, habitat conservation, renewable energy, and sustainable water management. While these initiatives often remain “under the radar” of the general public, they have the potential to contribute both to a broader and more sustainable regional view of environmental issues, as well as important precedents for current and future peacebuilding efforts.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Yael Teff-Seker is a visiting assistant professor and an Israel Institute fellow at the departments of Religious Studies and Sociology at UC Davis. She has a Ph.D. in conflict studies from the Hebrew University (Jerusalem, Israel), and previously worked at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Ben Gurion University, and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. Her work focuses on social, political, and environmental issues, with specific emphasis on Arab-Israeli conflict and cooperation, environmental peacebuilding, environmental planning and policies, and peace education.