{"id":34126,"date":"2020-01-31T03:44:35","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T11:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=34126"},"modified":"2020-01-28T22:04:48","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T06:04:48","slug":"promoting-fair-trade-in-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2020\/01\/31\/promoting-fair-trade-in-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"Promoting fair trade in Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Raz Frogel (photo from Fair Trade Israel)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Raz Frogel, 23, has taken it upon himself to increase the number of fair trade items on Israeli store shelves.<\/p>\n

Frogel, who lives in Dror Israel commune in Haifa, first read about child labour and improper working conditions when he was 16 years old. The article was about people working in cocoa fields and, after reading it, he announced to his parents that he would no longer eat chocolate, and explained why. He then spent the next two years in search of a solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was 18 years old, I found fair trade and started doing research about it and looked into where I could find fair trade products,\u201d Frogel told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cWhen I was released from the army, I started the fair trade movement in Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his research, Frogel came across a 2016 article in the Independent<\/em>: jewishindependent.ca\/many-benefits-of-fair-trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized nobody in Israel tried to promote fair trade or was trying to change the situation,\u201d said Frogel. So, he took on the responsibility \u201cand started to spread word of fair trade in Haifa, trying to make Haifa the first Fair Trade City in Israel. There are 2,000 cities in the world with the designation of fair trade towns,\u201d he said, \u201cbut none in Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frogel said many people try to shame companies into becoming fair trade employers, but he sees this as a wrongheaded approach, akin to movements and groups promoting the boycott of Israeli companies and products.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to focus on the good companies and give them our support, and not on companies with what we see as wrong or bad practices,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to shame anybody. I just want everybody to go fair trade.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a first step to achieve this goal, Frogel is trying to raise awareness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you walk on a street in Israel, you can ask 10 people what fair trade is and maybe one will know,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, before we can go to the companies and ask for fair trade products and change behaviour, we need to educate the public, create awareness.<\/p>\n

\u201cTen years ago, there were no vegan products in Israel, but, when the community and demand grew and grew \u2026 there is now no coffee shop without soy milk or something like that. So, with fair trade, we need to copy this process. We need to raise awareness, create demand, and create communities that create demand. Then, we need to go to companies and ask for fair trade products.\u201d<\/p>\n

About 20% of Israelis live in poverty, the majority of whom are women, some of whom are paid less than minimum wage and suffer from other unfair labour practices. With this in mind, Frogel connected with an organization working to empower women. So far, Achoti <\/em>(My Sister) is the only business in Israel that uses fair trade.<\/p>\n

While fair trade in the food industry is a relatively known issue, Frogel pointed out that the fashion industry is also problematic.<\/p>\n

If workers need to be paid more, that extra cost could be added to the price of the product. But, the extra money paid to the workers could come from another part of the industry chain. And, while investors want the highest possible return, it is up to us \u2013 the end users \u2013 to determine the value of a product by voting with our dollars or shekels, said Frogel. If the demand is high enough, more producers could be encouraged to enter the market, thereby increasing supply and placing a downward pressure on prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there is no price to pay,\u201d contended Frogel, \u201cbecause, when you look at the U.K., the cheapest products in the store are fair trade, like Cadbury or Nestle … and Starbucks. When you look at fair trade in places where it\u2019s common, it\u2019s cheaper than non-fair trade products. When we talk to people, we try to explain to them that, when there is a demand, the prices of products will come down and everybody can support it.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, it\u2019s very expensive to buy fair trade in Israel,\u201d he admitted. \u201cI can\u2019t lie. But, we\u2019re working on it and I don\u2019t think fair trade should be more expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Frogel is working on bringing fair trade to Israel, he hopes that readers will join the global movement, wherever they are, and join a local fair trade initiative to promote it in their communities.<\/p>\n

Currently, Fair Trade Israel has a Facebook presence and the organization can offer tax receipts to donors through Achoti.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are trying to raise Friends of Fair Trade, wanting to raise a lot of support from all over the world, to show that fair trade is part of Jewish values,\u201d said Frogel. He wants to see Israel become \u201ca fair trade movement leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting by focusing on Haifa, and Israel in general, Frogel is organizing events and doing advocacy work in schools and businesses. As far as getting Haifa recognized as a Fair Trade City, he is working to fulfil the requirements for such recognition, such as attaining a high level of fair trade awareness and product availability. \u201cWe have a lot of support from the city council and have a group of great people leading this project,\u201d said Frogel. \u201cWe have stores with fair trade products, but not in every neighbourhood. We started programs in schools in the last month and we have special programs on campuses to raise fair trade awareness and product availability.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information, visit achoti.com (which is in Hebrew) or contact Frogel at frogel.raz@gmail.com.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raz Frogel (photo from Fair Trade Israel) Raz Frogel, 23, has taken it upon himself to increase the number of fair trade items on Israeli store shelves. Frogel, who lives in Dror Israel commune in Haifa, first read about child labour and improper working conditions when he was 16 years old. The article was about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4329],"tags":[3200,4237,5371,9633,1959],"class_list":["post-34126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","tag-economics","tag-free-trade","tag-justice","tag-raz-frogel","tag-tikkun-olam"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}