Published: 8 June 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Ahead of his presentation at Limmud Oz, Israel’s green energy guru Josef Abramowitz tells Elhanan Miller about his vision for the country’s future, and the untapped potential he sees in Australia
WHEN YOSEF ABRAMOWITZ was invited to address members of Knesset from the Labor party a few weeks ago, he decided to open with a passage from Theodor Herzl’s utopian novel Altneuland.
“I said that 120 years ago, Herzl envisioned a ‘green state’ without pollution, without traffic jams. All transportation, industry and agriculture were to be electric. He envisioned enough green energy both for us and for our neighbours. For peace,” Abramowitz recalls.
“At the end of the book, Herzl highlights his candidate for president: a young Zionist entrepreneur named David, who brought economic growth to the country and is a doer. An oleh to Israel with an accent, even though it wasn’t an American accent like mine.”
Israel’s renewable energy pioneer was in the Knesset collecting endorsements for his second presidential bid. Backed by 15 Israeli environmental organisations, he managed to recruit parliamentarians as disparate as Amichai Chikli from Naftali Bennet’s Yamina party, and Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz.
In his attempt to convince the Joint Arab List’s sole Jewish representative Ofer Cassif to support him, he found himself singing Avanti Popolo next to the socialist MK’s red flag. At the finish line, however, Abramowitz fell three signatures short of collecting the 10 needed signatures.
“There are big political forces out there, and we are an interesting footnote in this race,” he says. “But we do represent what world Jewry is more interested in: a non-partisan Zionism they can be proud of. My motivation is to serve.”
His interest in converting sunlight into power began in 2006, when he relocated with his family from Boston to Kibbutz Ketura in the southern Arava.
