Pollution_de_l'air

Tisha B’Av, Copenhagen and Climate Change

Rabbi Yedidya (Julian) Sinclair, Director of Education, Jewish Climate Initiative, and Hazon Rabbinical Scholar Recently I was asked an interesting question by an Israel environmental leader. “I was a bit surprised and somewhat dismayed,” he began, “to find out that the date chosen for the Copenhagen Planning Seminar was also Tisha B’Av.” A bit of background for the uninitiated: 1.         The Copenhagen Summit in December is a gathering of world leaders that aims to bash out a successor agreement to the Kyoto protocol that will limit CO2 emissions going forward. It is widely seen as a critical moment in the global effort to address climate change. 2.         The particular Seminar spoken about here is a gathering of Israeli environmental NGO’s that will propose an Israeli position for the Copenhagen Summit. Israel has not so far taken an official line on global warming. That is probably about to change. The new environment minister, Gilad Erdan, is one of the very few in recent years not to see the appointment as a consolation prize for not receiving a “real” ministerial job.” Erdan gets it. He understands that the environment really matters. The Tisha B’Av seminar includes a meeting with him. 3.         Tisha B’Av […]

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Copenhagen, Climate Change, and Jewish Fast Days

by Rabbi Yedidya (Julian) Sinclair, Hazon Senior Rabbinical Scholar The Copenhagen Summit in December is a gathering of world leaders that aims to bash out a successor agreement to the Kyoto protocol that will limit CO2 emissions going forward. It is widely seen as a critical moment in the global effort to address the threat of climate change. There is a remarkable groundswell of concern and activism in the world that is building in advance of this event. People everywhere are raising their voices, demanding that, this time, our leaders do right by the earth and by our children. In the Jewish community too, there is an awakening of passion and activism around this issue. The Shabbat of Parshat Noach, October 23rd-4th has been declared Global Climate Healing Shabbat and Hazon will shortly be going public with a Seven Year Plan for the people to address climate change and sustainability. How can the current period in the Jewish calendar help us to understand what’s going on and what’s at stake? We are in the middle of the three weeks that are bounded by the fasts of the 17th Tammuz until Tisha B’Av. Let’s first note they are two out of […]

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Hazon Food Programs: What’s Happening?

“Does every Jewish institution need a farmer?” The question struck me a few weeks ago when I was at the Long Island Hazon Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) site for a “Meet the Farmer” night. Rabbis, cantors, and educators are usually seen as necessary staff in a Jewish organization; and in this room full of CSA members, some new and some returning, it seemed that a farmer should be considered essential as well.  For the Forest Hills Jewish Center in Queens and the Reconstructionist Synagogue of the North Shore in Long Island, Maggie, from Golden Earthworm Farm, is their farmer. Maggie spoke about the time, attention, and thought that went into building each member’s box of vegetables each week. In addition, she felt privileged that through the support of these institutions, she was able to live her life as a farmer. Since 2004, when Hazon launched the first CSA site in the Jewish community, Hazon has been on the forefront of the new Jewish Food Movement. In 2008, when 560 farmers, rabbis, educators, students, chefs, and foodies attended the Food Conference, Hazon became the home of this movement. The Food Conference, like all of Hazon’s Food Programs, examines food through the […]

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Green with(out) Envy: Struggling with the Tenth Commandment

Rabbi Yedidya (Julian) Sinclair, Hazon Rabbinical Scholar and Cofounder of Jewish Climate Initiative On Shavuot morning next Friday, in synagogues around the world, we will read the Ten Commandments. It’s remarkable, when you think about it, what a success they’ve been. Over the past 3000 years the Jewish people has done an extraordinary marketing job on conveying these basic ethical and spiritual laws. Across the Western world today they are acknowledged as axioms of civilized life. Well, mostly. My friend (Hazon Rabbinical Scholar) Steve Greenberg likes to qualify that success as follows. “We Jews have done a pretty good job in delivering nine and a half out of the Ten Commandments to the world. The half that we have delivered is the side of Shabbat that is about employment; the universal right to have one day off work each week.  The half that we haven’t is the part of Shabbat that is about refraining from shopping, driving, flying – the part that deals with our relationship to the created world. We need to deliver that half of the Shabbat commandment to the world now.” Rabbi Steve makes an important and timely point. Shabbat is a precious spiritual and ecological resource. […]

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Pollution in the Promised Land

By Rabbi Julian Sinclair, Hazon Rabbinic Fellow Yom Haat’zmaut. Here in Israel we celebrated Yom Ha’atzma’ut last week; fireworks, barbecues, mutual congratulations on how much we’ve achieved in 61 years (absorbing millions of immigrants, sustaining a vibrant democracy, building a dynamic economy, etc.), and a certain amount of soul-searching about how much we still haven’t: (peace, intra-Jewish harmony, a national soccer team that qualifies for the World Cup finals etc etc.). In honor of Yom Haatzmaut, I read a brilliant 500 page book; (rather sad, I know, but that’s the kind of kid I’ve always been…). Professor Alon Tal’s “Pollution in the Promised Land: an Environmental History of Israel” is the definitive work on the subject. In retrospect it was also the perfect read for the day. Tal’s book does much more than its subtitle claims. As you would expect it tells the story of how Israel’s rapid economic development has come at a high environmental price; it traces the roots of Israel’s current water crisis to bad planning and short sightedness in the early years of the State; one chapter relates the staggering success, or disastrous stupidity (depending on your perspective) of the JNF’s forestry policies. (The JNF planted […]

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The True Cost of Food

Barbara Lerman-Golomb, Director of Education and Outreach, Hazon From PresenTense Magazine – February 2009 Last winter I was at a retreat hosted by a Jewish organization when on the buffet table I spotted something white. It was watermelon, in February in Upstate New York, which was literally unnatural and tasteless. I thought about our unsustainable demand for food and all the energy it took to get that watermelon from farm to fork and wondered, what is the true cost of our food? Like all our lifestyle choices, our food choices increase our carbon footprint and therefore affect our health and the health and sustainability of our planet. According to the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, around eighty percent of the energy used in the US food system can be attributed to processing, packaging, transporting, storing, and preparing food. In fact, after transportation, the food sector uses more fossil fuels than any other sector of our economy. (more…)

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The World Turned Upside Down

(A slightly different take on Tom Friedman, the meltdown, quantitative easing, the Age of Awareness, Jewish history, Purim, Pesach, Zipcar and birkat hachamah.) Dear All, Tom Friedman’s piece in the New York Times this week (The Inflection Is Near?) provides a clear summation of how most environmentalists understand our current financial crisis, and if you haven’t yet read it I recommend it – You can read the article here. My one sentence precis: we’ve been overconsuming the world, and our behaviors are no more sustainable, in aggregate, than Bernie Madoff’s investment strategy. I want to argue that he’s right, but that we’re not properly following what should be the policy implications of what he argues; and, further, that Jewish history provides a particularly cautionary note on some of where we now might be headed. (more…)

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Second Thoughts on the New Millennium

We entered the new millennium as planned, hosting a shabbat dinner in Jerusalem. We went to synagogue – in black tie – and afterwards had eighteen friends for a more-lavish-than-usual but nevertheless recognizable Friday night dinner. We made kiddush over the wine (champagne, in this case) and the traditional blessing over the bread. We had a great dinner, looked back, looked forwards, played one or two games, sang songs. At midnight we began the traditional bensching, the grace after meals, to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, and included a prayer for peace in the future. All in all it was a great evening. The following morning the house was devastated. We had plates and debris everywhere; streamers and balloons, leftover pudding, candlesticks, washing-up stacked in heaps. We had wine glasses and champagne flutes and little shot glasses from those important impromptu l’chaims. By contrast with how beautiful it had looked when we first returned from synagogue, it indeed seemed like terrorists had wandered in during the night and done their worst. (more…)

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2008 Israel Ride Official Blog

We did it! – David Eisenberg – Monday, November 17 We did it! It is hard to believe that it is only six days since we cycled out of Jerusalem — five days of cycling, a wonderful, relaxing Shabbat in Mitzpeh Ramon, and, today, 282 miles later, we pedaled into Eilat! I still owe some details on the past few days, each of which had it’s own unique and special character. Even though this was my third Israel Ride, it was still a remarkable experience. (more…)

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Agriprocessors Statement

CONSORTIUM OF JEWISH GROUPS RESPOND TO PLIGHT OF IMMIGRANT WORKERS IN POSTVILLE IN WAKE OF FEDERAL RAID ON AGRIPROCESSORS ENDORSE HEKHSHER TZEDEK NEW ETHICAL CERTIFICATION INITIATIVE OF THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:Heather Wolfson                               hwolfson@mazon.org New York, NY (June 27, 2008) – In the wake of last month’s federal raid on the Agriprocessors meat processing facility in Postville, Iowa, where hundreds of illegal immigrants were arrested, a consortium of Jewish groups devoted to social justice have issued a statement calling for a response to the “human tragedy” of the raid and urging cooperation to work towards a “long term structural change,” within the kosher meat industry. (more…)

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