As we celebrate the anti-authoritarian roots of Purim in early March, we start the work of mobilizing our community to show up in great numbers at the No Kings rallies on March 28. Why is Dayenu – for six years dedicated to organizing the American Jewish community to take climate action – embracing this day of action?
It’s all of a piece: There is no climate justice without democracy and justice. And there is no democracy under a would-be king.
At his State of the Union address on February 24, President Trump relished once again in rhetoric that depicts gruesome violence. It was just his most recent effort to paint a picture of “American carnage” as described in his 2017 inaugural address.
It was also profoundly – and tragically – ironic. Because the very heart of this administration is defined by violence, as well as authoritarianism and lawlessness.
Recent glaring examples are the murders of innocent people by ICE, and the ongoing military invasion of our cities. They illustrate the dehumanization that is baked into the Trump administration’s handling of every policy it makes – including climate.
Our Jewish values compel us to act in order to preserve life, a concept in Jewish tradition known as pikuach nefesh. Our values obligate us, as climate activists, to dedicate our work to sustaining life l’dor vador, from generation to generation.
Everything this administration does violates those values, and endangers our individual lives and our collective future.
This is an administration so devoted to lying to cover the truths it does not like that it is destroying decades of scientific study and rulemaking in order to deny climate reality. The recent decision by the (so-called) Environmental Protection Agency to repeal the landmark Endangerment Finding is “like tossing out the Ten Commandments,” notes Dayenu’s founder and CEO, Rabbi Jennie Rosenn. “They are not only denying something that’s fundamentally true about the world, but have eliminated what enables our federal government to live and act in alignment with our core values.”
It is an administration so beholden to the health of the Stock Market as the ultimate good that it makes decisions that endanger the very livability of our planet. It bows down to the fossil fuel industry with senseless policy decisions that drive up carbon emissions that may doom our planet – knowing that those hurt first and worst are the most vulnerable and powerless.
It is so invested in a system of White supremacy that it will sacrifice the lives of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people in frontline communities where fossil fuel projects condemn them to early deaths. And invade countries in the Global South – killing scores of people – to gain access to oil.
It is so opposed to a healthy democracy that it will ignore and silence demands for a transition to clean energy solutions.
It is so ignorant that it will not see or acknowledge the underlying causes of immigration to our country – including the devastating impacts of the climate crisis in other parts of the world that drive people to migrate in order to find food, shelter, and work.
It is so dedicated to violence on a structural and individual level that it imperils all our lives, every day. We must rally with our neighbors, allies, partners, and friends to say NO MORE.
As people of faith, we have a moral calling to do all we can to build power to defeat authoritarianism. We must lift up our voices, organize our communities, and mobilize in solidarity with our friends, neighbors, and communities all across America to defend our rights, our freedoms, and our democracy.
Join us on March 28 to say: No Kings. No Tyrants.
