The Jewish holiday of Purim (this year celebrated on February 24) is a great time to add an eco-twist to your Jewish practice. The holiday includes sending gifts of food to friends (called "mishloach manot"), creating costumes, giving charity to the poor, and preparing the festive Purim meal. In all of these celebrations, there are many opportunities to conserve precious resources and share environmental education messages with your friends and neighbors.

If your community really gets into the mishloach manot, it may feel like "keeping up with the Greenbergs" requires wasteful quantities of cellophane, ribbon, and styrofoam for your mishloach manot packages! But regardless of your community, you can create healthy, earth-friendly, beautiful and economical mishloach manot for Purim. Because you'll be giving gifts to others in your community, it's also a great time to share your environmental values with your community.

Several years ago, Canfei Nesharim developed a selection of five eco-friendly and fun themed package ideas for you or your group to prepare and distribute this Purim. To make this as easy as possible, we found many of the products on the web and included a price key to help you track costs. {Many thanks to Stephanie Frumkin for preparing this information!}

The five packages are the following:

• Lunch Break
• Health Nut
• Cold Kit
• Pesach Welcome Kit
• Blessing the Sun (Birkat HaChammah)

They can be viewed on Jewcology here. (And here's a printer-friendly version of them.)

To increase your impact, don't forget to include a note telling people WHY you have decided to send an eco-friendly mishloach manot package. You can find a sample note here. Simply print and send!

Also check out:

• Ten Tips for an Environmentally Friendly Purim
• Purim as a Model for Making a Difference
• Order great eco-reminders to drop into your mishloach manot – must order by February 14 to receive in time for Purim!

Whatever your plans for Purim, make it an opportunity to express your sustainability values — and to educate your community about them!