1988 results for tag: Uncategorized

Teva Rocks All Ages – Teva Seminar 2011

May 3, 2011 | 29 Nisan 5771 No matter what your age, Teva is going to kick-start your summer at this year's Teva seminar. Our Congregational Education programs from "Nurturing Connections - Spirituality in the Early Childhood Classroom" to "Lech Lecha - Bringing up a Congregation to Raise Jewish Youth" for B'nai Mitzvah teens, to "Geshem - The Eco-Orientation of Prayer" for those of us young at heart will engage and energize all of us for a great sustainable summer ahead. And this year we ...

Israel: The New Saudi Arabia?

NEW YORK (May 1, 2011) — Together with large natural-gas reserves recently found off Israel’s Mediterranean coast, a new technology that may yield billions of barrels of oil in Israel may make the nation a global energy powerhouse. "Israel could attain energy independence," Dr. Yuval Bartov, chief technology officer and chief geologist at Israel Energy Initiatives — one of the companies pursuing oil in Israel — recently told The Jerusalem Report. But the potential oil rush is a mixed blessing for Israel: Although the country stands to reap tremendous financial awards — per capita, it could ...

Teva Ivri Observes Passover with the Help of a Composter and some Happy Chickens

Pesach has passed, and in Israel everyone is recovering from a week of eating matzah and intensive family time. We are happy to share two recently published Passover-related ideas, both of which raise environmental awareness in the realms of general observance and Jewish law (halacha): Biur Chametz in a Composter – Removal of Leavened Products Before Passover Harav Yuval Sherlow, an active member of Teva Ivri’s steering committee and a well-known spiritual figure in Israel, issued an halachic (Jewish legal) ordinance stating that it is permissible to bury chametz in a composter three days before the holiday, in place of ...

Chickens and Jews

Chickens and Jews By Jessica Nordell The sky was gray and feathery white the morning of the Backyard Chickens workshop with the Jewish Farm School, an ag-education organization that offers classes on the Farm at Eden Village near Cold Spring, north of New York City. The workshop had attracted a motley crew-- a homeschooling family from Jersey, a young couple from the Bronx, a woman who'd acquired some land that "came with chickens," and me, a city visitor up for the weekend to breathe clean oxygen. I'd spent that morning watching the mist lift off the lake and was ready to learn the difference between a brown egg ...

Preparing for Leadership Training #2!

Hi everyone, and chag sameach! I hope you are having a lovely Passover, and enjoying the spring weather. We're getting prepared for the second Jewcology leadership training, which will take place at the Teva Seminar on June 2. I hope you can join us! To give you a sense of the training and to whet your appetite for an engaging opportunity, I've posted the participant guide from our first leadership training on March 14. You can find it in the Leadership Trainings Community and can be downloaded from there. I hope you will join us for the training! P.S. We're still working on the details for the California training, so ...

Environmental Tip of the Week: Celebrate Earth Day! :)

Earth Day is today!!!!! I'm not going to write my own tips this week; just check out this info about Earth Day 2011 that has plenty of info! :)

Freedom Fruits

Are you feeling free? I am today cause it's my birthday and I'm feeling glad to be born and feeling too that this year it coincides with true growth. We are growing and I'm breathing more and taking time to look at the sky amidst the craziness, taking time to be disappointed and to smile through it. The sunshine came down in to our garden before Pessach with plenty dandelions all over part B of the Kalisher Community Garden (that’s in the works…) So many edible wild flowers – time for a grand feast! And so it was my friends, down came the wonderful master of wild edibles and spread his lovely stories ...

Holy! Healthy! Omnipresent! (H20)

Yesterday marked the transition in our annual cycle where we switched from praying for rain to praying for dew during the amidah. This ritual act, in combination with the two washings of our hands during the seder got me thinking about water, H2O. We have lots of prayers In Judaism for rain or other forms of precipitation, daily in the amidah and on special occasions like the 1stday ofpesach andhoshanah rabbah. We often recite al netilat yadiyah, the prayer said when ritually washing our hands, however, al netilat yadiyah does not mention water at all. In fact, there is no special prayer or blessing when consuming or utilizing water at all. ...

kosher crew atlanta

Today, to mark Global Youth Service Day, members of Kosher Crew Atlanta teamed up with Park Pride Atlanta and the Friends of Little Nancy Creek for a restoration project in the Buckhead section of Atlanta. A significant amount of invasive species were removed making way for a trail in the deep section of the park. Thanks to all who participated! Please check out the photos from today project on the Kosher Crew Atlanta Facebook Page

May It Be Enough

May It Be Enough I have always loved the part of the Pesach Seder when we go through Dayenu. I think the fact that the prayer is so fun for children who get to take their voices from a whisper up to a roar makes it one of those moments every year that brings years of Pesach memories flashing back. However, as I have grown older I tend to focus on the word itself: Dayenu. I think the idea of being thankful for every step that the Jews took as they were able to leave Egypt, make their way towards Sinai to receive the Torah, and then into the Promised Land where the Holy Temple was eventually built, is important. It is a great lesson ...

A Green Omer Counter

During the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot, we count the Omer, an opportunity to elevate ourselves spiritually and acknowledge the agricultural realities of the land of Israel. The mitzvah is to count each day on its day. An Omer Counter can support you in remembering which days you've counted so far. If you're like me, it goes like this: Every year I plan to count the Omer with an actual Omer Counter. I will check off the boxes every day so that I never lose track of what day it is, or forget to count a single day. Then, I spend weeks upon weeks cleaning and preparing for Passover. In the frenzy, I forget that the ...

Fracking Up Passover – The First Plague

Courtesy: Jim Lando, Dor Hadash Social Action Committee seder supplement 2011/5771 We offer this reading and letter writing opportunity for you and your guests this Pesach. Hag Sameach! The First Plague And the fish that were in the Nile died and the Nile stunk, and the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile, and the blood was in all the land of Egypt. – Shemot (Exodus) 7:21 The Nile was a miraculous source of life for the Egyptians. Worshipped as a God, it has no tributaries for its final 900 miles. It was the water of the Nile that drew Jacob’s family down to Egypt to escape drought and subsequently led to our ...

When Pesach & Earth Day Coincide

Dear chevra, On Monday night exactly one week before the first Pesach Seder, The Shalom Center sponsored an Interfaith Seder for the Earth. It was held at Mother Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia, the first independent Black church in American history. The weave of blessings, poetic texts from several religious and secular-ethical traditions, bursts of song, excellent vegetarian food, and activist letter-writing to several crucial Federal and state officials about fracking and the climate crisis was very powerful, and joyful rather than a “downer.” Earth Day is April 22, the fourth day of Pesach. Thursday evening April 21 ...

Hamakom (The Place), Public Space, Property, and Ownership

How might we better understand climate change, social inequality, and the sense of personal isolation that pervade much of modern society? In a metaphoric and material sense I believe the answer lies in societal conceptions of public space, property, and ownership. These elements are hallmarks of industrial society and in many ways define the boundaries and context of personal, corporate, and governmental relationships – temporally as well as spatially. The parceling out of land (the Dawes Act in the US, the Inclosure Acts in England, and many more) for individual ownership and sale has and continues to be a major driving force in ...

Tell the E.P.A.: No more methyl iodide

Cross posted in Environmental Tip of the Week and Foodiscovery I did not write this message; it's just the copied and pasted "email your friends" message from after signing a petition of sorts. Dear Friend, Methyl iodide is a nasty chemical. It is a known neurotoxin and endocrine disruptor, and scientists in labs handle only small amounts using special protective equipment because it is so toxic. But do you know where else it is used? As a pesticide on strawberries and other food crops. The battle against methyl iodide is being fought on several fronts. Last summer, Washington state banned the use of ...

Question of the Week #25

Seth Fineman, an intern for the Green Zionist Alliance: The Grassroots Campaign for a Sustainable Israel, asks the Jewcology question of the week: About what environmental topic do you want to learn more?

Register for Leadership Training at Teva!

Jewcology Public Narrative Leadership Training, June 1-2 (at the Teva Seminar on Jewish Environmental Education, May 31-June 3) Are you educating the Jewish community about protecting the environment? Have you faced challenges with motivating people to move beyond intellectual knowing and into action? Have you struggled with inspiring Jews who don’t have the same values as you? Or have you felt limits in your ability to engage those with environmental values into a place of activism and shared commitment? Jewcology is pleased to announce a new leadership training intended to address these specific issues, and to empower ...

Get early bird tickets today for EcoJews of the Bay’s 4 (Sustainable) Cups event 4/11

EcoJews of the Bay proudly presents: The 4 (Sustainable) Cups ~An EcoJews Fundraiser~ at ThirstyBear Brewing Company In preparation for Passover, celebrate Jewish sustainable values in brewing, distilling, winemaking & roasting at this unique panel discussion and tasting. L'chaim! http://4sustainablecups.eventbrite.com/ The evening's program will include: * A panel discussion with Stephen Ashton of Ashton Vineyards, Ron Silverstein of ThirstyBear, Paul Katzeff of Thanksgiving Coffee and representatives from Fair Trade Spirits exploring how their Jewish values ...

Hazon’s Kosher Meat Survey: We Want to Hear from You!

At the 2006 Hazon Food Conference, we posed two key questions: 1. If you’re a meat eater, would you continue to eat meat if you had to kill it yourself? And 2. If you don’t currently eat meat, but could be involved in the process of raising and slaughtering the animal, would you? People's responses varied, but it was clear that the issue was important to nearly everyone in the room. Since 2006, the world of kosher sustainable meat has seen the Agriprocessors scandal, the rise of several kosher sustainable meat businesses and hands-on kosher slaugher educational events across the country, and Hazon has worked steadily to support ...

The Future of Nuclear Energy and the Threats of Coal & Natural Gas

Like most of the world, I have been giving a lot of thought recently to the question of nuclear energy. Just 4 weeks ago, before the Fukushimadisaster, I was asked a question about Nuclear energy while presenting at Tribefest in Las Vegas. I gave my standard answer, an answer that has been haunting me for weeks. “Unfortunately, while nuclear energy may have long term environmental consequences, the imminent threat of climate change and the economic realities of the energy markets make nuclear a necessity in the short term.” What is clear in my answers was a miscalculation of the short term threat of nuclear energy, especia...