Lilith
In 2019, Rabbi Jennie Rosenn—a veteran of the Jewish nonprofit world—founded Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action. In March 2021, Steven Spielberg selected the organization, which has quickly sprung into the center of the vibrant climate justice movement, to receive a portion of his million-dollar Genesis Prize.
Arielle Silver-Willner: What drove you to start Dayenu?
Rabbi Jennie Rosenn: I once thought of “the environment” as out there, and was less viscerally connected than I was to people, to civil and human rights issues. But a lot of things contributed to my awakening.
I remember reading reports on the climate crisis and realizing that this was coming much faster and more furiously, and that terrified me. Without major change, climate collapse was going to happen in my lifetime! And the future for my children, let alone my grandchildren, was in peril. Would there be enough food to eat? Water to drink? Clean air to breathe? I felt like, “Where the hell have I been?! People have been talking about this for years. How did I not get it?”