c. 2000 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) At the Shalom Institute Camp in the Malibu mountains of California, Rabbi Arthur Waskow sits before a group of environmental professionals, scientists, health practitioners, rabbis and educators. He outlines his plan: a strategy for making the end of global warming a Jewish imperative.

Waskow, a leader in the Jewish renewal movement and director of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia, is a leader among Jews turning their religious sensibilities to the plight of the natural world.

Creating a distinctly Jewish response to ecological crises, they are drawing environmental teachings and practices out of a Jewish tradition that once revolved around the agricultural calendar of the land of Israel.

American Jews enjoying affluence have a responsibility to stop pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Waskow tells the activists who gathered recently from across the country for a four-day retreat sponsored by the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL).

As part of Waskow’s plan, loan funds should be set aside to help “retrofit” Jewish community centers, synagogues and homes with high-efficiency insulation, he says, and with heating sources using natural gas rather than oil or coal.

“Imagine a Jewish community 10 years from now in which it’s as `shmutzik’ (dirty) for a Reform or Conservative Jewish family to buy a sport-utility vehicle as it would be for an Orthodox family to serve pork to guests,” he says.

As part of Waskow’s “Eco-Judaism” philosophy, he calls for a major shift in the practices of many Jews, who, like their non-Jewish neighbors, are enjoying a boom economy where retail sales of luxury goods can hardly keep up with demand.

All this is happening as a major celebration is planned in Washington on Saturday (April 22) to mark the 30th anniversary of Earth Day. This year, the Passover Sabbath falls on Earth Day, a point not lost on people like Waskow.

A growing number of Jews are determined to bring about that change in lifestyle, to preserve the world they view as God’s Creation. What’s more, this fusion of environmentalism and Judaism is leading many Jews who were disconnected from their heritage to rediscover their tradition in unexpected ways.

Protecting open space and reducing air pollution, building environmental justice coalitions and fighting for ecological protections threatened by globalization, small bands of Jewish environmentalists have been organizing across the country.

In San Francisco, a Jewish environmental group testifies at hearings in favor of protecting ancient forests. In Boston, another group advocates for fish ladders for herring in the Charles River. And in New Jersey, another group, responding to deregulation of the power industry, organizes a campaign to get synagogues to choose “green” power sources.

After decades of slow progress, over the last five years their numbers have grown dramatically _ and none too soon, say many participants. COEJL, once just a single small office, is now a movement with 12 affiliates in North America.

Since 1993, they have worked with thousands of synagogues, schools, camps and other Jewish institutions and tens of thousands of Jews in addressing local environmental challenges. COEJL now lists 27 participating groups, including many mainstream organizations such as Hadassah and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

“We hear the clock ticking,” said Mark Jacobs, executive director of COEJL. “We know the time for many species and ecosystems and people is short.”

The connection between Judaism and environmentalism is not self-evident. Today’s ecological crises could never have been anticipated by rabbinic thinkers of ages past. While Jewish concepts like bal tashchit _ a prohibition against needless destruction _ do provide guidance, not all Jewish teachings can be construed as ecological.

Even the Creation story itself has proven problematic. In Genesis, God gives humans dominion over all other living creatures. This notion troubles some who believe the human desire to dominate nature leads directly to environmental destruction.

“Judaism has often affirmed a very strong hierarchy of humans over the rest of creation. Is that the Judaism we want to continue?” asks Rabbi David Seidenberg, a Seattle-based Conservative rabbi and theologian.

Seidenberg, like many ecological thinkers, rejects the idea that humans are separate and above nature, arguing instead that people are just one strand in the complex web of life on Earth.

But if some Jewish teachings prove problematic, many others do not. Most Jewish festivals rooted in the Torah, such as Tu B’Shvat _ the New Year of the Trees festival _ are agriculturally based.

The result is hundreds of ecologically focused new liturgies, and practices for all seasons. None of these expressions can easily be categorized as Reform, Conservative or Orthodox. Jewish environmentalism seems to have succeeded in bringing together a religiously diverse group whose common goal allows members to work together without many of the tensions that have fractured much of the Jewish world.

Fifteen-year-old Katie Fernback traveled across the country to represent her New Jersey synagogue at the retreat.

“I came because I wanted to get my temple more involved in environmental issues,”she said. “As God’s people we need to take a special responsibility to take care of creation.”

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Like Fernback, many young Jews, raised on recycling and school lessons about the fragility of ecosystems, have embraced Jewish environmentalism. For some mainstream groups, for whom “continuity” _ ensuring a Jewish future _ remains a central concern, that appeal to youth is reason enough to join the cause.

But the movement’s newfound legitimacy concerns some activists, who worry acceptance may come at the expense of radical changes they hope to implement.

“The environmental movement has done such a great job that 80 percent of the American people identify as environmentalists,” said Michael Oshman, founder of the Green Restaurant Association in southern California. “Yet we are consuming more; miles per gallon are going down; food quality is going down.

“The whole Jewish tradition is about mitzvot _ commandments. And mitzvot are, `What did you do with your hands today? Did you create a better world, or did you not?”’

While many segments of Judaism develop an increased environmental sensitivity, some prominent Christian evangelicals are saying the environmental movement has embraced “faulty science and economics, strident street theater and demands for immediate, drastic action on problems that are often hypothetical.”

Led by Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, a group of evangelical heavyweights released the “Cornwall Declaration of Environmental Stewardship” on Monday (April 17) that says ominous warnings of global warming due to fossil fuels are questionable at best and that the welfare of humans, not animals, should come first.

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Many activists believe that the American Jewish community, like the rest of the country, is leaving environmental damage they must attempt to repair. And that damage is directly related to a level of affluence unprecedented in Jewish history.

“There’s no issue that’s of greater import for the Jewish community than addressing consumption,” said Rabbi Fred Dobb, a Reconstructionist rabbi from Rockville, Md. “It’s wonderful that people are willing to identify as environmentalists. But if they’re identifying as environmentalists, and still driving SUVs and purchasing products made with oppressed labor, then it is so shallow as to be meaningless.”

DEA END IDELSON