The Heschel Center's founder and director, Dr Eilon Schwartz wrote the following reflections on Israel's 60th anniversary for the website of the Heinrich Boell Foundation, a key Heschel Center supporter:

Israel is a country of striking contrasts – of extraordinary achievements alongside dramatic failures. Observing Israeli society on the sixtieth anniversary of independence, there are many reasons for despair, but also for true optimism. We choose the latter.

In Israel, like around the world, environmental awareness is coming of age. For too long, the debate in Israel about "peace and security" had allowed decision-makers to avoid central social-environmental issues. As a result, there has been massive damage to the physical environment, and the social fabric needed to sustain it. But crisis often leads to opportunities, and more and more people, in Israel and around the world, are realizing that business-as-usual is not an option.

What Israel needs most is visionary leadership for the future, which can direct the society on a path to ensure ecological health and social justice for all its inhabitants, and translate the growing awareness of a crisis into true societal change. At this historical moment, it is clear that that leadership is lacking, but also that there is an emerging movement committed to an alternative vision for Israel's future.

The Heschel Center's mission statement states:

… Israel is embroiled in a social-environmental crisis which threatens its sustainability, endangering the fabric of the society, the lives of the inhabitants and the resilience of the land itself. Water, land and air are polluted, open spaces are disappearing under piles of concrete, public assets are being sold for the benefit of a select few rather than the common good, while poverty is growing rapidly alongside the extreme wealth of the few. There is a wide public desire for change and yet there is no guiding vision other than a narrow view of "economic growth," which is exhausting our social and environmental resources for the interests of a small group.

We envisage a society where real progress and growth are defined in terms of ecological health and social justice, where we all participate in the making of the decisions that affect us through fair and transparent process, where values of community, common destiny and compassion are the basis for our actions.

In December, the Heschel Center will celebrate its tenth anniversary with a national conference aimed at forging this growing network of sustainability advocates into a well-synchronized movement for a sustainable future. Israel is small enough, and still young enough, to allow for the possibility of systemic change. We are inspired daily by the idealism of young and old, religious and secular, Jews and Arabs – who believe that a sustainable future is possible, and that we have the power to shape our future. We look forward to celebrating Israel's 120^th anniversary in a country shaped by their compassion and commitments.