Yosef Abramowitz: 2012 Honoree

Yossi Abramowitz loves Young Judaea, which he considers the most influential experience of his on-going do-gooder journey.  He was elected to regional mazkirut in charge of social action in Uri Tzafon (New England), served as a madrich at Sprout Lake for three summers (82-84), a madrich at TY (85) and a merakez at CYJ California (85) and Tel Yehudah (86).  And he attended Year Course in 1982-83, which sparked his special relationship with Kibbutz Ketura.

The Jerusalem Post recently named him the 26th most influential Jew on the planet, Haaretz put him on the top 10 list of most influential Anglos in Israel and Green Prophet hailed Yossi as one of the top 11 Eco-Heroes in the Middle East.  All because he showed up one sunny summer day with his family to Kibbutz Ketura and thought it would be a good place to start a global solar revolution.

Along with David Rosenblatt (year course 83-84) and Ed Hofland (Ketura member), Yossi is considered one of the founding fathers of the solar industry in Israel when the trio formed the Arava Power Company, today Israel’s leading solar developer.  (aravapower.com)

Long before Arava Power, Yossi was a well-known educator and activist.  He launched some of the most influential websites—MyJewishLearning.com, InterfaithFamily.com, birthrightisrael.com, BabagaNewz.com and a dozen others; served for a decade as executive editor of the journal Sh’ma; launched some of the most exciting print publications, like BabagaNewz and JVibe; co authored with his wife, Rabbi Susan Silverman, the best-selling Jewish Family & Life: Traditions, Holidays and Values for Today’s Parents and Children (Golden Books); and won the Covenant Award for Excellence in Jewish Education (2004) and over a dozen journalism awards.  Yossi was instrumental in popularizing the concept of Jewish peoplehood (peoplehood.org), and naming Cheshvan Jewish Social Action Month.

He first met and came to admire Simon Klarfeld in Jerusalem, when Yossi served as the elected chairperson of the World Union of Jewish Students during the dark yet exciting days of the Soviet Jewry movement.  Yossi’s standard activist bio reads:  he conducted two hunger strikes, helped organize Soviet Jewry demonstrations in 23 countries, helped release Prisoner of Zion Alexei Magarik from solitary, negotiated successfully with the KGB, was banned from pre-democratic South Africa, held at gunpoint in Northern Ethiopia, was arrested outside the Soviet Embassy in Washington, led the takeover a building at Boston University, served with Coretta Scott King on the MLK national holiday commission, won $7 billion in benefits as a corrective to the welfare reform bill, and was co-nominated three times—in his capacity as president of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews–for the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to create a human rights movement in Russia after the fall of Communism.
Most importantly, he and Susan are the parents of five great kids: Aliza (Sprout 2001-05; who is serving in the IDF), Hallel (Sprout 02-05; and TY), Adar (Sprout 05), Zamir and Ashira.  They sojourned in the Arava desert for three years before moving up to the mountains of Jerusalem.