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JWeekly

What can one person do about climate change? For Grace Wallis, the answer is simple: a lot, but not enough. “Individual actions don’t create direct change, immediate change, in the areas that are most effective — which would be policy change,” she said.

That’s why the 23-year-old Stanford grad student is focusing not only on modifying her own personal actions but also working to mitigate climate change at the state level, lobbying lawmakers in the Capitol on issues such as fracking and pollution. She’s been doing it with the help of climate organization Dayenu, a New York-based national endeavor that is helping to mobilize the Jewish community on what it sees as the No. 1 issue of our time.

“Policy is really impactful, and community is really impactful in the face of climate change,” Wallis said. “And that’s what Dayenu is really about.”

Founded in April 2020 by Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, Dayenu was set up to give ordinary people the tools and information they need to get educated, raise awareness and pressure elected officials on environmental issues. They’re encouraged to set up their own groups, called “circles,” to work autonomously at the community level, but with coordination and support from the national organization. According to Dayenu’s director of organizing Vicki Kaplan, there are nine Dayenu Circles in the Bay Area so far, with more forming each week.

“I think the fact that people are starting Dayenu Circles shows just how much appreciation there is in the Jewish community for bolder and more direct collective action to address the climate crisis,” Kaplan said.

Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Steven Spielberg said Thursday that he will donate his $1 million Genesis Prize to 10 nonprofits that are working for racial and economic justice. The film director and his wife, actress Kate Capshaw, will match those donations with $1 million of their own.

In February, Spielberg received Israel’s prestigious 2021 Genesis Prize in recognition of his contribution to cinema, his philanthropic works and his efforts to preserve the memory of the Holocaust.

“America is facing a crisis, and our responsibility is to act now,” Spielberg said in a statement, adding that Judaism and Jewish history provide “the ethical precepts commanding us to work for a more just and equitable world.”

Spielberg will donate to Avodah, Black Voters Matter, Collaborative for Jewish Organizing, Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action, Jews of Color Initiative, Justice for Migrant Women, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Native American Rights Fund, One Fair Wage and Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

“We admire these organizations for their honesty and moral imagination and urge all those who share this vision to join us, so that the work of these non-profits may continue and grow,” Spielberg said in a statement.

Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, Dayenu’s founder and CEO, said the group was honored by the donation.

“This grant is a timely recognition that climate justice is a Jewish issue, and that confronting the climate crisis requires addressing racial and economic injustice,” Rosenn said in a statement.

JEWISH NEWS

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is fighting climate change one vegan meal at a time.

Veganism transforms an individual and the whole family unit, Yanklowitz said, because it makes people more thoughtful about what they are eating and why. It also heightens their awareness of the impact they are having on the environment.

“I’m very grateful for those working on political revolutions, but I want to be on the side of a spiritual revolution that starts person by person, home by home,” he said.

From changing an individual’s diet to garnering community support for legislative changes, Jewish leaders across the country gathered to discuss the best ways to take on climate change.. Yanklowitz was one of five activists who addressed the relationship between Judaism and environmental activism during the Judaism, Science and Medicine Group’s annual conference hosted by Arizona State University via Zoom on Feb. 28, 2021.

In 2014, a Public Religion Research Institute survey found 78% of American Jews consider climate change either “a crisis” or “a major problem” — the highest proportion of any religious group in America.

But that sentiment doesn’t necessarily translate to action.

“There was amazing work happening, there continues to be great work happening and we need more — for the Jewish community to fully show up in all of our people and power and play a critical role in the larger national climate movement, and in turn, the global climate movement,” said Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, founder and CEO of Dayenu. She launched the organization last April to mobilize the American Jewish community to confront the climate crisis.

Religion News Service

As the Biden administration gears up to combat climate change, I’d like to see the leaders of my religious community at the forefront of those rallying to the cause.

It’s not as if the Jewish rank and file are unconcerned. Back in 2014, a PRRI survey found that fully 78% of us consider climate change either “a crisis” or “a major problem” — the highest proportion of any religious group in America. And there’s no shortage of Jews involved in large secular environmental organizations, to say nothing of a number of small Jewish ones.

But the leadership of the communal umbrella organizations has pretty much been missing in action.

How come?

The question was posed at the opening panel of the Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest, an online agglomeration of discussions, performances, presentations, rituals and workshops that took place at the end of January around Tu B’shvat, the festival known as the “New Year of the Trees” that has become the annual focus of Jewish environmentalism.

“Why isn’t climate change high on the communal agenda?” asked organizer Lisa Colton.

The Forward

After four tumultuous years, many Americans saw Inauguration Day as a turning point for our nation. The swearing-in of President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and a new Congress marks a new chapter in U.S. history, but it should not — and can not — be seen as a “return to normalcy.” There is nothing normal about this moment.

In the last year, we’ve witnessed a deadly global pandemic, taken refuge from raging wildfires and destructive storms, participated in record-breaking mobilizations protesting police brutality and systemic racism, voted in a historic election and watched in horror as white supremacists attempted to stage a violent coup. These converging crises make clear what many of us have known for a long time: that our society is in need of a re-assessment.

Going back to “normal” is no longer an option. Addressing these existential crises will be the work of our lifetimes. As we enter the Jewish holiday of Tu B’Shvat, the “new year of the trees,” we reflect on what it means to be rooted in that work.

Jewish News

On Jan. 27, the Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest kicked off five days of free virtual programming both celebrating Tu B’Shevat and calling for climate action. Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, founder and CEO of Dayenu, told viewers the time has come — even that the time is past — for the Jewish community to be passionately involved in climate justice.

“It’s about whether we believe that every human being is created in the image of God,” Rosenn said during one of the festival’s opening panels held live on YouTube.

David Machbitz, 18 and an engineering major at Arizona State University, shares Rosenn’s passion. He will be one of hundreds of presenters in the national festival.

When he first became interested in climate activism, it took him by surprise. He spent most of his time thinking about school and science, but in 2019 he suddenly became interested in social justice and political action. Inspired by Greta Thunberg, he started thinking more deeply about climate change during his senior year in high school. He remembers watching Thunberg’s activities and thinking, “Whoa! This is something I should do something about.”

Jewish Boston

In August 2015, I received a surprising email. It was from Brian McLaren, an evangelical author and activist, inviting me to be part of a historic ecumenical and multi-faith response to Pope Francis’ Laudato Si encyclical and visit to the United States that September. The event was called “Coming Together in Faith on Climate,” and I was one of two national Jewish leaders asked to present, alongside the likes of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.

Five years ago, there were only a handful of rabbis and cantors who were taking public action on climate change. It was a strange feeling to be one of them. On the one hand, as a newly minted rabbi, I was excited by the opportunities to speak, write, sing, and organize for climate justice, often in interfaith contexts.

The Jewish News

Dayenu is a new movement of American Jews confronting the climate crisis “with spiritual audacity and bold political action.”

Concerns about climate change and its impact on our world “loom like big clouds” over everything for Josh Bender of Ann Arbor. The Michigan State University graduate, now in his second year of rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, says he’s made environmentally focused changes in his daily life like eating less meat and avoiding single-use plastics.

But he wanted to do something to tackle the global problem on a larger scale.

“With big societal changes you can sometimes feel powerless to do anything about them,” Bender says. “I remember during the election, I wanted whoever the nominees were to be people who got what a serious generational issue this is.”

The Forward

In this election, American Jews are voting on climate like our lives depend on it — because they do.

Over the past eight weeks, we — together with more than 800 other Jews and in partnership with more than 40 Jewish organizations — have been reaching out to voters across the country as part of Dayenu’s Chutzpah 2020 campaign.

Jews young and old, from across the country, have been gathering (virtually) twice a week to contact voters in key states, especially those experiencing immediate impacts of the climate crisis like triple-digit heat in Arizona, flooding in Michigan and frequent hurricanes in Florida.

We identified voters who are “climate-concerned” using research from Yale University’s Program on Climate Change Communication and matched this data to voters who are Jewish, as well as those who are infrequent voters. We contacted them to boost voter turnout and urge leaders to have the chutzpah to take bold action on climate change.

Dayenu volunteers, ranging in age from middle school students to baby boomers, have reached out by phone and text to voters across Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

We set out with a goal to reach 200,000 voters. By election day, we have reached more than three quarters of a million voters.

JWeekly

For those who live in the Bay Area, Sept. 9 was a day they will never forget. Nina Schmier remembers waking up that morning to a completely orange sky, the bizarre byproduct of an intense wildfire season that has become an annual occurrence for Californians.

“I felt like everything was breaking down in our world,” said Schmier, a 16-year-old who attends Hillsdale High School in San Mateo.

The recent blazes in the state, scientists say, were worsened by a warming planet.

But are voters in the upcoming election focused on climate change? It’s an issue that can easily get buried, with the national conversation dominated by Covid-19, the possibility of a disputed election, racial justice protests, the economy, debates over health care, Amy Coney Barrett’s ascension to the Supreme Court, the spectre of right-wing fringe groups and the war against disinformation.

But for Schmier and others, those orange skies were a foreshadowing of a disastrous future.

Now, she is one of many young activists determined to keep climate change at the forefront of voters’ minds.