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JeremyBenstein

See, Touch, Smell, and Taste Sustainable Food in Israel

By on April 29, 2011 in Events, Food, Israel, Israel Sustainable Food Tour

by Dr. Jeremy Benstein, The Heschel Center, Tel Aviv This coming fall, November 2-7, 2011, the Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership, together with Hazon, will be hosting the second Israel Sustainable Food Tour. This exciting program is a unique way for North American Jews who are passionate about sustainable food to be exposed to the rapidly developing field of sustainable food in Israel. It is also an important opportunity for Israeli activists to meet likeminded counterparts and hear about their experiences, successes, challenges, insights and inspiration. Since Heschel’s original National Sustainable Food Conference a little over a year ago, which attracted 600 people with 40 roundtables and working groups, we have been working to create a coalition of people and organizations who are interested in promoting sustainable food in its myriad guises and contexts. We have been meeting with farmers, academics, government officials, health and nutrition experts, consumer policy groups, educators, nutritional security advocates and more to create the connections necessary to promote a shared agenda backed by leading stakeholders from all sectors. (more…)

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Uri L’Tzedek’s Food and Justice Haggadah Supplement

By on April 6, 2011 in Food, Holidays

In a quest to introduce discussion of food, social justice, and ethical consumption to the Passover Seder, Uri L’Tzedek has created the Food and Justice Haggadah Supplement.  Along with the Uri L’Tzedek team, 26 collaborators contributed essays that make up the supplement, among them Nigel Savage, Hazon’s Executive Director. Uri L’Tzedek is an Orthodox social justice organization whose mission is to fight suffering and oppression. Through their work in community based education, leadership development and action, they aim to create discourse, inspire leaders, and empower the Jewish community towards creating a more just world.  In the Food and Justice Haggadah Supplement, they have created a thought-provoking collection of short reflections on topics including hunger, labor and exploitation, responsibility to the poor, ethical consumption, ethics of eating, and redemption, all of which build from the structure and story of the Seder.    Scattered throughout the supplement are various “ACT” suggestions, featuring easy ways that readers can transform all of these ideas into action. In his contribution, Nigel explains that Passover teaches consciousness, restraint, and the responsibility to share with others, and urges the reader to apply these lessons to all meals during the rest of the year.  He ends by reminding Seder-goers, […]

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Hazon in the News- March 2011

By on March 31, 2011 in In the News

Press Collaboration At Your Service [PDF] in PreseTense (Siach) Hazon offers second Bay Area bike ride on JWeekly.com An Eco-Kosher Restaurant May Be Coming to a Town Near You on Yahoo! News Refining Our Souls in JewishJournal.com Introducing RepairLabs on Jewschool Nu? This Week in Jews and Social Justice on Pursue Kashrut is an expression of the values we maintain as Jews on Jewish Community Voice Let It FLOW in Boulder Jewish News A natural fit: Boulder Jews in food business Intermountain Jewish News

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Finding a Spiritual Home

By on March 30, 2011 in New York Ride, Rides, Spirituality

By Rabbi Ezra Weinberg, New York Ride Co-Chair To all you seekers of spiritual community out there, I have one piece of advice. Do not limit your search to only traditional religious institutions. Do support your local synagogue, but also be aware that spiritual community comes in many forms. The Hazon community has become one of my spiritual homes. For me, the term “spirituality” refers to when the different pieces of one’s life start to tell a coherent story that inspires action. The backbone of spiritual experience occurs when seemingly disconnected parts of my life begin to feel interconnected—what I like to call the “connecting of the dots;” when coincidence becomes impossible to ignore. This is only one limited explanation for a widely used elusive concept, but this “connecting of the dots” experience happens to define my relationship with the Hazon community, including how I first got involved. (more…)

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Why Jewish Environmentalism

By on March 9, 2011 in New York Ride, Rides

What is Jewish environmentalism? 1. The beginnings of a Jewish environmental ethic emerge out of Bereishit, – Genesis – through the two creation stories, which set up models of our relationship as human beings with the rest of creation, and which obligate us to tend and to protect the world. 2. Our agricultural roots, celebrated on holidays and in sacred texts, are intended to connect us to the land. 3. The cycles of the Jewish year are grounded in the natural world and our connection to it 4. Shabbat – stopping and resting on the Sabbath – teaches that there are higher values than production and consumption. Resting on Shabbat – one day in seven – lies at the heart of a healthy relationship with oneself, one’s friends and one’s family, and the wider world. 5. The biblical concept of shmitta – having the land rest on its seventh year – provides an equivalent model of rest for the land itself. 6. The biblical concept of peah – leaving the corner of the field unharvested for the poor to pick themselves – connects ecological issues with human values: our obligation to see that people live free of hunger and that […]

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What Would Noah Do? Shabbat Parshat Noah and A Global Climate Change Campaign (10/9 – 10/10)

By on March 9, 2011 in Climate Change

      10/10/10 is a globally acknowledged date to help bring awareness to the significance of climate change.  It is all too appropriate that Shabbat Noah falls out on the same weekend.  Our Shabbat and day of action is in participation with the 350.org campaign, an international effort that’s building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis. September 2 , 2010 By Ilana Krakowski, a senior in the Double Degree Program between Barnard and the Jewish Theological Seminary and a committed Hazon intern If you received a divine message that the world and all of its living beings were to be destroyed, what would you do? Difficult, huh? In the story of Parshat Noah, we see that Noah remains silent when God tells Noah the plan for the Flood. Many readers of this Torah portion have perhaps, understandably, ridiculed Noah for his tacit acceptance of the world’s destruction.  (more…)

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Welcome Letter to the 2010 Hazon Food Conference

By on March 9, 2011 in Food, Food Conference

Roger Studley Co-Chair, Food Conference West December 24, 2010 Dear Hazon-niks, friends, and fellow Jewish food activists — Roger Studley here, co-chair — along with Rabbi Marc Soloway — of this year’s Hazon Food Conference. I’m thrilled that all of you are here to join in the work of the New Jewish Food Movement. Unfortunately, I’m not able be here myself, but I have a very good excuse ….. a two week-old son! His name is Ezra Meir and he’s absolutely beautiful. My wife Chai and I are in awe and in love, and all three of us are getting used to the new rhythms of our life together at home in nearby Berkeley. Having a child makes the future more real, more immediate. It reminds you forcefully of the absolute necessity of living sustainably on a healthy planet. It makes us ask… Will our child inherit a world in which food policy is driven by corporate greed or by the goals of health and sustainability? Will our child inherit a world in which food is a just distant commodity or one in which it is a source of nourishment and connection with which he is intimately familiar? Will our […]

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The Unity and Purposefulness of Creation

By on March 9, 2011 in Jewish Texts

By Rabbi Gavriel Weinberg Tu b’Shevat is an appropriate time to appreciate the greatness of Creation, and to honor it. We read in the third chapter of Pirke Avot (Chapters of the Fathers) a mishna that symbolizes the essence of the Torah’s regard for the purposefulness of all God’s creation. Ben Azai would be accustomed to say: He used to say, Despise not any man, and carp not at any thing; for thou wilt find that there is not a man that has not his hour, and not a thing that has not its place. (Translation by Charles Taylor) The mishna can be divided naturally into two subjects: Regard for essential purposefulness of any human being and that of anything that is not a human being. The second category, that of non human, has an interesting and peculiar use of the Hebrew language: AL TEHI MAFLEEG LKAL DAVAR. The above classic translation translates the verb MAFLIG as carp (to find fault with). Others translate MAFLEEG as dismissing of any thing. There are many other numerous attempts to translate such a unique word. Even though the numerous translations for the word MAFLEEG give a sensible meaning to the mishna, without a […]

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A Jewish Perspective on the “Tragedy of the Commons”

By on March 9, 2011 in Jewish Texts

By Rabbi Akiva Wolff Tu b’Shevat is an appropriate time to reflect on our relationship to the natural world, and our responsibility to it. In 1968, in one of the seminal articles written on the subject of environment protection, Garrett Hardin assured himself a place in the annals of the environmental movement. His article, titled The Tragedy of the Commons, became a ‘must-read’ for every budding environmentalist in the nation if not the world. The Tragedy of the Commons describes the ruination of a common pastureland, called the commons, by the herdsmen who share it. Each herdsman knows that for every additional animal he adds to his herd, he will recoup all the benefits, whereas the costs – in terms of pasturage for the animal and any damage to the commons caused by additional overgrazing – will be shared by everyone. Therefore, each herdsman tries to maximize the size of his herd, at the expense of everyone else. In Hardin’s words: “Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit – in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his […]

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The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

By on March 9, 2011 in Food

By Michael Pollan – Penguin Press, 2006 Reviewed by Natan Margalit From Tikkun Magazine, August 2006 Ben Zoma used to say, “What labors Adam had to carry out before he obtained bread to eat! He ploughed, he sowed, he reaped, he bound the sheaves, he threshed and winnowed and selected the grains, he ground and sifted the flour, he kneaded and baked and then at last he ate. Whereas I get up in the morning and find all these things done for me.” –Babylonian Talmud, Brakhot 58b Claude Levi-Strauss once said that food is not only good to eat, but also good to think. Our meals are statements that help us to understand ourselves and our world. Of course, the Bible makes this connection between food and thought with Adam and Eve’s fateful meal from the Tree of Knowledge. In today’s world of complex, industrial food chains, however, that connection is broken. Food seems to come from the supermarket, manufactured and packaged. Ignorance, not knowledge, characterizes modern eating. Even more disturbing is the fact that food categories that we might imagine are more transparent, more ethical, such as organic food – and kosher food — are increasingly involved in this […]

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Ecological Problems – Living on Future Generations’ Account

By on March 9, 2011 in Jewish Texts

By: Rabbi Yehudah Levi The Primary Source of the Problem Before we can hope to solve the problems of ecology in the technological age, we must get at the roots of these problems. These lie primarily in our basic attitude toward the purpose of our life—in our choice of priorities. In the secular society, the top priority is self-interest. Any sense of responsibility toward the world at large is—if it exists at all—extremely secondary. Let us illustrate this with a typical example. In a certain industry, it is standard practice to use a manufacturing process which is highly economical, but at the same time contributes to the destruction of the protective ozone layer in the atmosphere. If we were to suggest to the manager of a company in this industry that he use an alternative process which reduces pollution, but is more costly, he would answer, “My first responsibility is to the stock¬holders. I do not have the right to tell them to reduce their profits in order to preserve the quality of the atmosphere fifty years from now.” From a secular standpoint, this claim is difficult to refute. The Secular Approach Present efforts to stem this tide focus mainly […]

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Great Strides in Greening Israel

By on March 9, 2011 in Education, Israel

David Krantz is President and Chairperson of the Green Zionist Alliance September 21, 2010 On Sukkot, we are all immigrants, dwelling in temporary lodging in the desert on our way to the Promised Land. We leave the safety of our homes and go to dwell outside, to connect with God and begin our spiritual journey to Israel. For most of us, this experience lasts only for a week. But for the thousands who make aliyah annually to the modern State of Israel, the immigration experience is year round. Instead of temporary sukkot, they live in absorption centers where they learn how to be Israeli. They’re taught to care about the land of Israel. And soon, thanks to the work of the Green Zionist Alliance (GZA), they will be taught that caring about the land means caring for the land. That’s because the GZA this June passed legislation in Israel that will lead to all absorption centers in Israel developing community gardens for new immigrants to use and connect to the land. Environmental education will be incorporated into the immigrant experience at all absorption centers in Israel.   That’s from one piece of GZA legislation. And that’s just the beginning. With […]

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From Waste to Wonder: Steps to a Spiritual Ecology of Living

By on March 9, 2011 in Spirituality

By Natan Margalit, Published in Tikkun July/Aug 2004 There are no words which, in themselves, are useless. There are no actions which, in themselves, are useless. But one can make useless both actions and words by saying or doing them uselessly. -Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz The Waste Culture Not long ago, as I was composting the rinds and peels collecting in my kitchen, my mind wandered to the words of a mystic rabbi who claimed that whenever any event happened in the world, it surely has a reason for existing—that it is up to us to find the spark of holiness even in our greatest mistakes. Those things that we’d like to hide from, tuck away, and forget, he said, must be held up to the light, because there is something in them, some energy which could hold the key to our happiness and fulfillment, that is calling to be redeemed. We live in a waste culture. Gangsters “waste” their rivals; partiers who drink too much alcohol get “wasted.” A recent book by Kevin Bales identifies the shocking reality of the contemporary slave trade as the story of “disposable people.” Another book, Wasted Lives, by sociologist Zygmunt Bauman (reviewed in […]

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Cosmic Consciousness, Man, and the Worm: Ecology and Spirituality in Jewish Tradition

By on March 7, 2011 in Reflections, Spirituality

By: Rabbi David Sears Ecology is a highly practical branch of science. Nothing could be more “down to earth” than preservation of the planet. Yet there is a facet of ecological awareness that is often overlooked. This is its spiritual dimension. When we act as self-absorbed individuals, with little regard for anyone or anything that exists outside ourselves, we immediately fall into moral and spiritual error. As the Yiddish saying goes, “A blind horse heads straight for the pit!” Thus, countless laws in the Torah adjure us to open our eyes, and act responsibly and compassionately toward the world around us. Among other ecological mandates, it promulgates the laws of bal tashchis (neither to destroy wantonly, nor waste resources unnecessarily); the prohibitions of cutting down fruit trees, or trees surrounding an enemy city in wartime; the laws of covering excrement, and removing debris from public places, etc. In doing so, the Torah indicates that although we may feel at odds with nature, having to struggle to survive, in truth the world comprises a potentially harmonious whole in which each element is precious. Rav Avraham Yitzhak Kook (1865-1935), Chief Ashkenazic Rabbi of pre-state Israel and a leading 20th century thinker, expresses […]

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After the Fire: It’s Time to Help – and Heal

By on March 7, 2011 in Israel

By David Krantz NEW YORK (Dec. 6, 2010) 42 people dead. 250 homes ravaged. 12,300 acres razed. 5 million trees burned. In the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in Israeli history, we are left wondering how we can help Israel recover after the fire. Fortunately, many organizations are taking quick action, and there are many ways that you can help. Donations to any of these organizations will help fire-relief efforts. (more…)

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