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Jewish Environmentalists Explore Purpose, Community and Action
Who are you? Who is your community? And what do you need to be doing now?
These fundamental questions are key to making change in any community. Yet many leaders spend little time focusing on them, or identifying how to communicate them to their audiences. Last year, I helped organize a leadership training for lay leaders seeking to make environmental change in their Jewish communities. One of the focuses of the discussion was inviting people to state their purpose. I was surprised how many of these active Jewish environmental leaders could not clearly explain ...
Environmental Tip of the Week: Try to avoid disposable eating utensils!
Cross posted in Environmental Tip of the Week
from Maxistentialism on Tumblr
So what happens to plastic utensils when you're done with them and you throw them out? "According to the Clean Air Council, enough paper and plastic utensils are thrown away every year to circle the equator 300 times. It is estimated that close to 40 billion individual plastic utensils—meaning 14 and 18 billion plastic spoons—are produced each year, and with such low rates of reuse and recycling, most of ...
Exciting Environmental Event in Philadelphia!
Looking to take your religious environmental leadership to a new level? Register NOW for:
Ground for Hope-Philadelphia – an exciting interfaith environmental education and training event!
Join GreenFaith and other local environmental and religious organizations on April 10th and 11th – you’ll get lots of tools to help your faith community create meaningful, effective environmental programming.
Click below for a full event description and schedule:
http://greenfaith.org/programs/ground-for-hope/ground-for-hope-ph...
Honey from the Rock: A Question
Better Place, the brain child of Israeli born Shai Agassi, is making an impact worldwide, and that is even before one car has hit the streets. Better Place is the first company of its kind to develop an economically viable model to propagate the mass the production and purchasing of electric vehicles based on a subscription service. The subscription service, described as being similar to a cell phone subscription, means that the battery belongs to Better Place and depending on the package, the consumer will have various choices of charging and battery replacement ...
Landscape Architecture in the Image of God
I have questions. Before getting too deep in to the specifics, let me frame my concerns. According to Kabbalah and the axioms of Heschelian thought, the human experience is fundamentally limited. We can never know everything. Most of the time, we are too fragmented to grasp the fullness of God and too self-aggrandizing to pay attention to the intricacies of the universe. Nonetheless, we are all expected to intervene and to act, to live as an image of God (B’Tselem Elokim) without actually being a God.
As a landscape architecture graduate student, I am forced ...
PROTECT OUR HEALTH NOW – TELL THE SENATE TO STOP “DIRTY AIR” BILLS FROM PASSING
BACKGROUND:
Despite clear scientific evidence of the harm being done to our air, land, and water, by greenhouses gases, Senators and Representatives have introduced a barrage of bills that would roll back the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement of Clean Air Act safeguards. The Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011 (H.R. 910/S.482.) would allow polluters to continue to spew unlimited amounts of carbon and other pollution into our air.
These safeguards are already saving lives and improving the health of millions of Americans. Congress must not halt ...
life and death and gardening
This resource's content is attached.
Question of the Week #17
Rabbi Nathan Martin, Director of Student Life at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and Jason Bonder, student representative on the RRC Green Committee (and chair of the Recon Riders Team for the Hazon New York Ride), ask the Jewcology Question of the Week.
Environmental Tip of the Week: Buy organic food!
Cross posted on Foodiscovery and Environmental Tip of the Week
Yes, it tends to be more expensive but organic growing practices are much better for the environment, and for health as well. Of course, the environment and health are connected. Folks, I just learned that workers at non-organic ("conventional") farms have died due to constant exposure to chemicals! Have a look at this discussion on Facebook for more information, websites to look at, etc.
Where to buy organic food? A lot of regular grocery stores, like my QFC at University Village, now ...
It’s time to increase our unity
First of all, I want to apologize, because I won’t write about any environmental topic. I just want to refer to the situation in Israel, that we have been living in the last couple of weeks. Our brothers and sisters that either were killed, or are suffering after the trauma, deserve this words.
Every situation that we live has a meaning, an underline message. Of course there is no way to understand why that specific family (Z.L) from Itamar was brutally killed, or why the victims of the terrorist attack at the bus stop were there, but still, we must ask ...
Scientists’ Retreat a Success!
On March 25-27, Canfei Nesharim hosted the first retreat of our Science & Technology Advisory Board. The board is comprised of Orthodox environmental scientists, who have expertise in specific areas of environmental science and are also committed to educating the Orthodox community about protecting the environment. Five scientists from around the world gathered at the Kemp Mill Synagogue (KMS) in Silver Spring, MD, for a weekend retreat. Four additional environmental scientists joined us by phone for the business meeting on Sunday afternoon.
The packed ...
Topsy Turvy Bus gets a Tour of American Hebrew Academy’s Geothermal Campus; Congo Line Ensues
My favorite part of being a Teva Topsy Turvy Bus Educator is getting to interact with incredible Jewish communities throughout the country. From the Jewish Farm School Retreat to Chabad of Key West, from Miami community preschools to GW University Hillel, we have had the opportunity to teach and learn from thousands of eager, intelligent young people hoping to redesign human impact on the creation. We have found community after community psyched to 'go green' and we get to be a big fat YES! punctuating the changes they are already making.
We are ...
Top 5 ‘Religious’ Excuses for Not Believing in Climate Change Rebuked
A response to growing frustration with the ‘religious’ right and the naïve.
Excuse #1: God told Noah that God would not destroy the world again, so it can’t happen.
Response: There is a classic story about a man who hears on the radio that a flood is coming and will destroy his home. His response, “Nothing to worry about, G-d will save me.” A man comes door to door telling everyone to evacuate, “G-d will save me.” The flood levels rise and so people come by boat and helicopter to save the man, “G-d will ...
Clean Green this Pesach!
Pesach is coming! The first seder is Monday night, April 18. In the frenzy of cleaning, we sometimes forget the importance of protecting the environment. To keep you centered in this busy time, Canfei Nesharim offers resources to help you remember, and remind your community, to "clean green."
Great resources to help you clean green this year:
Recipes for green cleaning products,
Links to eco-friendly cleaning products for order,
Tips for healthy Pesach cleaning,
and some reminders about what Pesach is really all ...
Scholarships Available for New Riders on the 2011 Hazon California Bike Ride
2011 Hazon California Jewish Environmental Bike Ride
Hazon’s 2nd Annual California Bike Ride celebrates participant’s decision to give up their personal vehicles.
"The Hazon Ride was an inspirational, eye-opening experience that revealed many of the heart-warming aspects of Judaism that get lost amidst the whirlwind that we know as modern life." - Bill Robbins, Los Angeles
Hazon has received an anonymous gift that will allow us to offer both a registration rebate and fundraising match for new Hazon riders. This generous scholarship will ...
The Holiness of Eating
This weeks Torah parsha, Shemini, begins on the eighth day of the ceremony to ordain the priests and consecrate the Tabernacle. Moses instructed Aaron to assemble several types of animals and a meal offering as sacrifices (called korbanot in Hebrew) to God, saying: “Today the Lord will appear to you." (Leviticus 9:1–4.). At one point, Moses becomes angry at Aaron and his sons for failing to eat the sin offering at the proscribed time and place. The parsha concludes with a listing of which animals are considered clean and therefore permissible ...
Question of the Week #16
Judith Erger, the Governance, Leadership Development, and Architecture Specialist for the Union for Reform Judaism, asks Jewcology's Question of the Week!
Environmental Tip of the Week: You can find creative new uses for things!
Cross posted on Environmental Tip of the Week
Sometimes you can reuse something you'd otherwise have to throw out! It can also save you from having to buy new stuff. For example, the nice little box my husband's iPhone came in was sitting in our closet, unused. Also sitting in our closet were random coins and dollar bills that were constantly falling on the floor. I'm now using that box to keep our spare change!
Eden Village Camp Video and Events!
Dear Friends,
We're thrilled to present our first-ever Eden Village Camp video!! We hope you get a sense of camp from it, and emerge smiling.
Please share this with anyone who might like to know that there is a Jewish organic farm, wilderness and arts camp!
Also, please visit our Spring events page! Tons of exciting family programming coming up, including Sugar Mapling this Sunday, Beekeeping 101, Family Farm & Picnic days, and more. http://www.jewishfarmschool.org/edenvillage/
Warmly,
Vivian, Yoni and the Eden Village family
Finding “Finding”
Every Wednesday night, I attend Chabad at Binghamton's Supper and Study (a forum for Jewish young adults to eat together and reflect upon Jewish texts). The topic of our dinner conversation last week did not focus on how cute my chevruta's shirt was, nor did it center around who's dating who or the unfair professor or the impossible midterm. Instead, we spoke about the tragic murders of six members of the Fogel family in the settlement of Itamar in the northeast Samaria. We discussed everything from our frustration towards the lack of media ...