Entertainment luminaries going dark for Jerusalem’s Earth Day 2010 celebrations

Striving to be both eco-friendly and enjoyable is the name of the game for this Thursday’s Earth Day Street Fair, organized by Jerusalem’s New Spirit organization and set to include acoustic music sets, wall projection art and green-themed educational encounters.

 

The fair is one of many Jerusalem area Earth Day events, but it is definitely in the running for most fun. New Spirit, which aims to keep young Jerusalemites living in Jerusalem, sees environmental activism as one more way to keep the city’s youth involved in its future. The guiding logic dictates that if you care about a place, you will be more likely to stay there, a statement which can be applied just as well to the earth as to Jerusalem. In addition to providing revelers with a good time, New Spirit’s fair aims to show Jerusalem’s youth how they can interact with the environment not only to their benefit, but also to the benefit of the environment.

Then, at 20:10, President Shimon Peres will shut off Jerusalem’s city lights, a symbolic act meant to highlight the dangers energy use pose to the environment. The lights-out will be part of a nationwide wave starting in Tel Aviv 10 minutes earlier and jumping from Haifa to Dimona and points in between.

Recycling workshops, eco-friendly stands and local artists and musicians will keep the New Spirit party hopping from 17:00 to 23:00, and Shira Z. Carmel, a Jerusalem musician who has been active on the local scene for some time now and is currently working on her debut album, will be one of the musicians performing, along with her four-person band. As Carmel explains to GoJerusalem.com, “As Jerusalemites, we can improve our relationship with the Earth by being less possessive and more ‘green.’ We can recycle more, take care of everything that’s around us. There are all these gardens and small green spaces that we can take care of by creating community gardens and things like this. There are projects working towards this end, but there’s always more that can be done.”

Regarding her own performance at the fair, Carmel notes that “This is one more example of young people taking the initiative into their own hands doing more things for Jerusalem and for Jerusalem’s young people. I am going to debut a new song at the fair, so that’s special for Earth Day. Also, my band all plays acoustic instruments. I am a big believer in acoustic music, which fits in well with the idea of reducing electricity use.”

Indeed, in honor of Earth Day, the fair aims to utilize minimal electricity and admission is free, though hundreds of people are expected, so get there early.