Staff

Rabbi Yonatan Neril, Founder and Executive Director
Rabbi Yonatan Neril founded and directs The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development and its Jewish Eco Seminars branch. He grew up in California and completed a B.A. and M.A. at Stanford University with a focus on global environmental issues. During his studies, he conducted research in India on renewable energy and in Mexico on genetically modified corn. In 2003 he came to Israel and studied at several yeshivot and received rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Zalman Nechemiah Goldberg of Jerusalem. For six years he has consulted with the Jewish environmental organization, Canfei Nesharim, as well as Jewcology, during which time he co-edited and was the lead contributor to two Jewish environmental publications, including the ebook Uplifting People and Planet: 18 Essential Jewish Teachings on the Environment. Rabbi Neril was a Dorot Israel Fellow and a PresenTense Global Institute and Scale Track fellow. He has led dozens of Jewish Eco Seminars programs in Israel and North America, in forests, synagogues, and urban ecology sites. He lives with his wife, Shana, and two children, in Jerusalem.

Marcos Cohen, Deputy Director 
Marcos completed a B.A. in architecture and urbanism at the Iberoamericana University in Mexico City, and an M.A. in environmental studies at Tel Aviv University, with a focus on arid lands.  He founded and co-directed the Urban Environmental Collective (Colectivo Urbano Ambiental), an international platform of professionals who aim to promote, coordinate, implement and operate environmental systems through urban planning and architecture. He also founded Global Woods, a company dedicated to the commercialization of certified wood, from Forest Stewardship Council, LEED and Global Relief organizations. Prior to that he worked as a project manager for CAPA Lab, a think tank focused on generating sustainable urban development proposals for the area of the peninsula of Baja California Sur, Mexico. In addition, he taught seminars on urban projects at the Iberoamericana University. He lives with his wife and two children in Jerusalem, and likes studying Torah, exploring ecosystems through trail running, and practicing chi kung.