(by IsraAID, www.israaid.org.il)
The new Jerusalem-based non-profit Tevel b'Tzedek ("The Earth-In Justice" - a phrase that comes from the Psalms that Jews sing every Friday evening to welcome in the Sabbath) will begin its first backpacker humanitarian program in Katmandu, Nepal this coming April.
The 3-month program integrates study and service internships for 20 Israeli and Diaspora young adults involving them in social and environmental justice programs in the developing world. The group will live together in a vegetarian-kosher and eco-kosher house, which will be non-coercively Sabbath friendly and user-friendly for religious and non-religious Jews of all streams.
Tevel b'Tzedek will coordinate service internships for the volunteers in strategic short-term volunteer positions through its local Nepalese partners, working on such issues as street children, slum rehabilitation, environmental degradation, health and education.
The educational leadership program will include the study of globalization, third world development, and the Jewish tradition of social and environmental justice from the Prophets to contemporary thinkers, including discussion and inquiry into the place of Israel and the Jewish people today in the contemporary struggle for a better world.
Tevel b'Tzedek will reach out to the thousands of young Israelis traveling through India and Nepal in their "post-army" trek with lectures, films, and short-term volunteering opportunities and the message that it is possible to become both more Jewish and more universal.
For more information on Tevel b'Tzedek please contact Micha Odenheimer: micha.odenheimer@gmail.com