Jun 21, 2020 - 12:00 pm EDT - 1:00 pm EDT 
(Catch the livestream on Hazon’s Facebook page.)
Week 10: June 21 – Watch here.
Members of Hazon's Jewish Youth Climate Movement founding team.
The Jewish Youth Climate Movement was founded by Hazon in 2020. We are dedicated to mitigating climate change by empowering teens, mobilizing our communities and taking action. JYCM believes in using Jewish values as a motivation to create a more equitable and sustainable world for all.
Tali, 11th grade (Grand Rapids, MI): Tali is passionate about envisioning a better world through a Jewish environmental justice lens. She cares deeply about social justice and making the world a better place- core Jewish values which she learned at Jewish summer camp. She is inspired and tries to live by the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quote “we can be whatever we have the courage to see”. She is a co-coordinator for Sunrise Movement Grand Rapids and is really involved in Sunrise, helping to plan and speaking at the West MI climate strikes in September and December 2019 as well as leading online training for other young people. When not at school or trying to save the world, she can be found teaching fairy camp, working on her garden, volunteering tutoring refugee middle schoolers in her community, or watching TedTalks.
Noah, 11th grade (Northampton, MA): Noah believes deeply in the pursuit of justice. This belief has pushed him to seek his biggest positive impact, and, so far, this has sent him on his path of progressive activism. Noah has pursued the end of the climate crisis in many different avenues, including grassroots activism, local government, legislative advocacy, and electoral politics. Specifically, he is one of the founders and leaders of Sunrise Movement Western Mass and is the chair of the Northampton Youth Commission. He served as a fellow for the Warren for President campaign and is currently serving as a fellow on the Alex Morse for MA-01 and Markey for Senate campaigns. He is excited to bring his climate activism and Jewish identity together in a platform that can both help him increase his climate movement recruitment efforts and further develop his Jewish identity.
Anna, 11th grade (New York, NY): Anna’s passions include literature, biology, and of course, environmental justice. These interests emerge in her extracurriculars: Besides being co-founder and co-president of Heschel’s Environmental Club, she is an editor-in-chief of her school’s newspaper and literary magazine. She spent last summer pursuing her interest in biology, working at a Columbia University lab that studies neurodegenerative conditions. She is excited to join the process of motivating Jewish people who are apathetic about the environment to care. Since today’s youth has been so outspoken about climate change, she finds it important to include youth in the Jewish perspective on it.
Eli, 11th grade (Tulsa, OK): Eli was born and grew up in Tulsa with a very strong and supportive Jewish community. Eli is on the Board of Directors of his synagogue, President of his BBYO chapter, and the Tulsa Representative of his region in BBYO. Along with leadership roles in his Jewish community, Eli is in the Model UN and the speech and debate team at his High School. He is also a competitive cyclist and went to Nationals this past December for Cyclocross. When he heard about the Jewish Youth Climate Movement, he was immediately intrigued by the thought that the young Jewish population could rally and combat and help other people and groups lead their own efforts to help combat climate change.
Week 9: June 14 – Watch here.
Rabbi Claudia Kreiman and Rabbanit Dasi Fruchter
Rabbi Claudia Kreiman is the Senior Rabbi at Temple Beth Zion (TBZ) in Brookline, MA. She grew up in Santiago, Chile and lived in Argentina. Rav Claudia moved to Israel in 1996, and received rabbinic ordination from Shechter Institute of Jewish Studies in 2002. She was the first Rabbi of Noam, the youth movement of the Masorti Movement in Israel. Rav Claudia moved to the US in 2004 and became the director of the Jewish Studies program at the Jewish Community Day School in Watertown. She has been part of TBZ since 2007 and is deeply invested in growing the social justice involvement at TBZ , and engaging community members in meaningful experiences of prayer. Rabbi Kreiman is the co-chair of the New England Jstreet Rabbinic Cabinet, she is one of the chaplains of the Fire Department in Brookline and currently serves as a board member of Boston’s JCRC. Rav Claudia is married to Rabbi Ebn Leader, who is on the faculty of the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. They have two daughters, Alma and Ariel.
Rabbanit Dasi Fruchter is the founder and spiritual leader of the South Philadelphia Shtiebel, a spiritual home for Jewish living, vibrant study, and community connection in South Philadelphia. She received semicha in 2016 from Yeshivat Maharat and completed her M.P.A. in Non-Profit Administration and M.A. in Jewish Studies from New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service. Rabbanit Fruchter is a passionate educator and community builder, and brings experience from working on the clergy team of Beth Sholom Congregation and Talmud Torah in Potomac, MD, the largest Modern Orthodox Congregation in the Washington Metropolitan area. She is drawn to creating communities that are warm and people-centered and she is fueled by the desire to create a world where more people have opportunities to lead, engage, and thrive in Jewish spiritual communities.
Week 8: June 7 – Watch here.
Rabbi Isaiah Rothstein and Rabbi Jill Jacobs
Isaiah serves as the Rabbi-in-residence for Hazon. Growing up in a multi-racial Chabad family in Monsey, NY, Isaiah sees himself as a human bridge, connecting disparate parts of the Jewish community. Isaiah went to Yeshiva University for rabbinical school and to receive his Master of Social Work. During his spare time, Isaiah is a Jewish Engagement and Diversity Consultant with his organization, the Union Street Sanctuary, and plays music with his band Zayah. Isaiah currently lives in Harlem, NY.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the Executive Director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, which trains and mobilizes a network of more than 2000 rabbis and cantors and their communities to bring a moral voice to human rights in North America, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories. She is the author of Where Justice Dwells: A Hands-On Guide to Doing Social Justice in Your Jewish Community and There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition, both published by Jewish Lights.
Rabbi Jacobs holds rabbinic ordination and an MA in Talmud from the Jewish Theological Seminary, where she was a Wexner Fellow; an MS in Urban Affairs from Hunter College, and a BA from Columbia University. She is also a graduate of the Mandel Institute Jerusalem Fellows Program. She lives in New York with her husband, Rabbi Guy Austrian, and their two daughters.
Week 7: May 24 – Watch here.
Shaul Bassi and Andi Arnovitz
Shaul and Andi are collaborating with Nigel on a new project, Living Under Water: Jewish responses to the environmental crisis.
Andi Arnovitz lives and works in Jerusalem, Israel. She is a conceptual artist, using etching, digital information and various printmaking processes, as well as fabric, thread and even porcelain to create both print series, artist books and large-scale installations. These pieces explore various tensions that exist within religion, gender and politics. Andi holds a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to becoming a full time artist Andi was an art director for several international advertising firms.
Andi has exhibited her work in England, China, The United States, Israel, Spain, Poland, Finland, France, Germany, Lithuania, Canada, Italy, Mallorca and Bulgaria. She has had many one-woman shows and participated in multiple group shows. Her work is in many private collections in both the United States and in Europe, as well as major universities, museums and institutions, including the US Library of Congress, the Israel National Library, The Museum of Art in Ein Harod, The Islamic Museum, Yeshiva University Museum, The Museum of the Diaspora, Yale University, UCLA, and The Smithsonian Museum of American History. You can see more of her work at andiarnovitz.com
Shaul Bassi is Associate Professor of English and director of the Center for Humanities and Social Change at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. He is the co-founder and president of Beit Venezia. A Home for Jewish Culture and was the coordinator of the cultural projects related to the 500th anniversary of the Ghetto of Venice (1516-2016), where he spearheaded the production of the first performance of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice in the Ghetto. He is the co-founder and former director of Venice international literary festival Incroci di civiltà. His books include Shakespeare’s Italy and Italy’s Shakespeare: Place, “Race,” and Politics (2016) and Essere qualcun altro. Ebrei postmoderni e postcoloniali (2011).
Week 6: May 17 – Watch here.
Andy Stern
Andrew L. Stern is the former president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the most successful union organizer, and one of the most important social justice advocates of his generation. Stern was a senior fellow at Columbia University. He is now a Senior Fellow at the Economic Security Project.
He is the author of two books, A Country That Works (2006), and Raising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream (2016).
Week 5: May 10 – Watch here.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow and Rabbi Phyllis Berman
Rabbi Arthur Waskow – Director, Shalom Center (Jewish Ethics). Since 1969, Waskow has been one of the leading creators of theory, practice, and institutions for the movement for Jewish renewal. In 2014 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award as Human Rights Hero from T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. In 2015 the Forward named him among “most inspiring” Rabbis in the US. Among his 22 books are Godwrestling (1978), Down-to-Earth Judaism, Godwrestling — Round 2 (1996) and Torah of the Earth. He also wrote the pioneering essay Jewish Environmental Ethics: Adam and Adamah in the Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics. He is a member of the Steering Committee of Interfaith Moral Action on Climate (IMAC). He had primary editorial responsibility for two pioneering anthologies on eco-Judaism – Trees, the Earth, and Torah: A Tu B’Shvat Anthology and Torah of the Earth: Exploring 4,000 Years of Ecology in Jewish Thought.
Rabbi Phyllis Berman is the founder of the Riverside Language Program in New York City for adult immigrants and refugees, and was its director until her retirement in 2016. She is a teacher and prayer leader in the Jewish Renewal movement as well as a political activist who writes about and has been arrested for non-violently protesting for immigrant rights. Berman has been actively involved in the Jewish Renewal movement, serving as Director of the Summer Program of the Elat Chayyim Center for Healing and Renewal, co-leading retreats for the Awakened Heart Project and at the Hazon/Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, and teaching at ALEPH kallot. She was ordained by ALEPH in 2003 and has been recognized for her spiritual activism.
She has co-authored books with her husband Rabbi Arthur Waskow including Tales of Tikkun: New Jewish Stories to Heal the Wounded World, A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven: The Jewish Life-Spiral As a Spiritual Journey, Freedom Journeys: Tales of Exodus & Wilderness across Millennia, and The Looooong Narrow Pharaoh & the Midwives Who Gave Birth to Freedom. Her articles have been published in magazines and online.
Week 4: May 3 – Watch here.
The Passows
Rabbi Shuli Passow is a Jewish educator and communal professional, currently serving as the Director of Community Engagement at B’nai Jeshurun in New York City. She brings her background in community organizing to oversee Israel, social justice and hesed programming; build new opportunities and pipelines for lay leadership; and develop innovative structures to engage and connect synagogue members. Prior to her ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary, Shuli was the Director of Community Initiatives at the Jewish Funds for Justice (now Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice), where she worked with synagogues across the country to support their involvement in congregation-based community organizing. Shuli has more graduate degrees than she cares to admit, but is most proud of the learning she has done outside of any academic institutions: becoming an open water S.C.U.B.A. diver, being certified as a yoga instructor, and, most importantly, being a mother. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and their two sons, and aspires to one day play the ukelele.
Dani Passow is the Orthodox Rabbi at Harvard Hillel and a Harvard Chaplain. He has also worked as a research scientist in The Program in Placebo Studies and at The Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School, and has published multiple papers in peer reviewed science journals. He is currently a graduate student in biostatistics at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. Dani received his rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and also studied at Yeshivat Maale Gilboa and Yeshivat Har Etzion.
Nati Passow is the Cofounder and former Executive Director of the Jewish Farm School z”l and an Assistant Professor in sustainable food systems at Temple University. He has been working at the intersection of Sustainable agriculture, food justice, and Jewish traditions for over 15 years. Nati lives with his family in West Philadelphia and has been busy planting seeds in his garden and hanging with his kids.
Week 3: April 26 – Watch here.
Alon Tal
Alon Tal is founder of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense, and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies; and a co-founder of Ecopeace: Friends of the Earth, Middle East;This is My Earth; the Israel Forum for Demography, Environment and Society; Aytzim: Ecological Judaism; and the Green Movement political party. Tal was appointed chair of the department of Public Policy at Tel Aviv University in 2017.
Week 2: April 19 – Watch here.
Ruth Messinger
Ruth Messinger, President of American Jewish World Service (AJWS) from 1998 to July of 2016, is currently the organization’s inaugural Global Ambassador working to engage rabbis and interfaith leaders on behalf of oppressed and persecuted communities worldwide. She is a member of the World Bank’s Moral Imperative Working Group on Extreme Poverty.
Ruth is also currently doing international human rights work for AIDS Free World and serving as the inaugural Social Justice Fellow at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and as the Social Justice Activist-in-Residence at the JCC of Manhattan.
Ruth has awards from many national Jewish organizations and honorary degrees from five major American rabbinical seminaries. Ruth is an active member of her congregation, the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, and serves on the boards of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Hazon, Aegis Trust and Surprise Lake Camp. She holds a B.A. from Radcliffe College and an M.S.W. from the University of Oklahoma. She is married to Andrew Lachman and has three children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Week 1: April 12 – Watch Here.
Susan Silverman and Yosef Abramowitz
Rabbi Susan Silverman is a Reform rabbi and the sister of comedians Laura Silverman and Sarah Silverman. She and her husband, Yosef Abramowitz, co-authored the book Jewish Family and Life: Traditions, Holidays, and Values for Today’s Parents and Children. She worked as a congregational rabbi in Maryland and as a Jewish educator in Boston and moved to Israel in 2006.
Yosef Abramowitz is President and CEO of Energiya Global Capital as well as co-founder of the Arava Power Company. He is an activist and former candidate for President of Israel.
