by Michal Strutin, San Jose. Steering committee member, Dayenu Circle of Jewish Silicon Valley
Published in The Jewish News of Northern California, May 2, 2025
At the end of Passover, we stop praying for rain because the rainy season is over and, hopefully, grains have started to grow. Here in California, the dry season has started, which should be a cause for celebration. Yet because of climate change, our dry season is now significantly hotter and longer. This means more burning forests, heat-related deaths, crop loss and migration. The dry season is here, but it isn’t a cause for much celebration.
This past January, the L.A. fires killed 30 people and destroyed more than 12,000 homes, countless other structures and the historic Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center. The estimated cost is between $250 billion and $275 billion, likely the most costly wildfire in U.S. history. What happened in L.A. is hardly an outlier. California’s 2018 Camp Fire, for instance, took 85 lives and destroyed roughly 19,000 structures, including the town of Paradise. The damage then was also in the billions.
We know that climate change is caused by fossil-fuel emissions. Yet, the oil and gas companies that produce these emissions get direct subsidies from the federal government amounting to tens of billions of dollars per year. Tax breaks and indirect subsidies raise that amount into the hundreds of billions. Those subsidies endanger people, forests and economies.
Here in California, our leaders have introduced the “Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act of 2025.” If passed, this bill would establish a state fund for climate disaster recovery and resilience projects, paid for by fossil-fuel polluters. Our community must demand that our state legislators pass this bill. You can contact yours at dayenu.org/take-action-california.
Let’s give our children and their children hope and a healthy planet.