July 31, 2008

When Gov. Jon Corzine peered beneath the hood of a Nissan-Renault sedan in a Tel Aviv parking lot last week, he was looking into Israel’s — and perhaps the world’s — future.

Corzine, on a weeklong trip to Israel, was meeting with Shai Agassi, who heads a potentially revolutionary effort to bring a huge fleet of electric cars to Israel. Agassi’s Better Place Project envisions a network of recharging stations and a payment system inspired by simple monthly cell phone plans. Thomas L. Friedman, writing in Sunday’s New York Times, called Agassi the “Jewish Henry Ford” (yikes) and said he typified the entrepreneurs who are moving into clean energy “with a mad-as-hell, can-do ambition to replace oil with renewable power.” Agassi, he wrote, “could sell camels to Saudi Arabia.”

Israel seems a natural place to imagine a cure for our addiction to oil. It’s a small country, with first-world energy needs. Its neighbors use their underground riches to fund a war of attrition with Israel. Its allies, like the United States, must constantly compromise their ideals in order to fill cars, trucks, and oil burners.

Corzine’s trade mission coincided with an effort here by Allyson Gall, NJ regional rep of the American Jewish Committee, to excite state Jewish leaders about a comprehensive effort to make energy conservation a Jewish issue. Like Agassi, she understands that Jewish activism in this regard is good for Israel, good for America, and good for the Jews.

Activists like Agassi and Gall have seen the future, and it is green.

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