Living an Environmentally Conscious Jewish Life

The Jewish spiritual tradition offers ways to think and act in harmony with nature and for the benefit of the environment.

By Rabbi Fred Dobb for MyJewishLearning

The created world is both bountiful and fragile.

A Jewish environmental activist suggests that treating it with respect and care should be an integral part of our living out the Jewish concepts of Torah (instruction/learning), avodah (service/worship/work), and gemilut hasadim (acts of kindness).

"O child of Adam, when you return to Nature, on that day you shall open your eyes… You shall know that you have returned to yourself, for in hiding from Nature, you hid from yourself… And you will recognize on that day…you must renew everything: your food and your drink, your dress and your home, the character of your work and the way that you learn -- everything."

So wrote Aaron David Gordon, the pioneer-philosopher of Labor Zionism, at the dawn of the kibbutz movement in 1910. A century later, with species disappearing and pollution rising and the globe warming, it's time to do what Gordon said, in ways he could not have imagined, and indeed "renew everything." We must bring our entire being to the sacred work of Creation care -- and in so doing Jews are blessed with millennia of thought and experience to draw upon.

Awareness

The Jewish tradition offers myriad opportunities for uttering a formulaic blessing. We've got blessings for seeing heads of state, Torah scholars, and ugly people. Blessings over sunsets, meteors, rainbows, reunions, and bad news. Blessings for bread and baked goods and fruit and vegetables, all different. In the Talmud, Rabbi Meir suggests reciting 100 blessings each day (Menachot 43b) -- one every ten minutes of our waking lives. In other words, Jews should be constantly aware of the world around us, and should respond through gratitude and prayer.

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Celebrating Jewish Food in the Sunshine State

By Michael Kaminer for The Jew and the Carrot

My most pungent memories of annual childhood trips to Miami Beach involve food. There were free bowls of pickles at Rascal House, matzo ball soup at Pumpernik’s, danish at Wolfie’s.

But as a new exhibition at the Jewish Museum of Florida – FIU reveals, there’s much more to Jewish food in the Sunshine State than deli. As its title implies, Growers, Grocers & Gefilte Fish: A Gastronomic Look at Florida Jews & Food highlights key roles Jews have played in Florida’s food industries, from citrus groves to farms to canneries.

Among the highlights at the meticulously curated show: A full size replica of a revolutionary rolling chicken coop invented by a Jewish farmer; a giant soft-sculpture bagel, encrusted with 32,000 Swarovski crystals, by Coral Springs artist Jonathan Stein; and a recreation of Wolfie’s legendary lunch counter, complete with stools and menus.

The Forward spoke with Jo Ann Arnowitz, the museum’s executive director and chief curator, about the show’s tasty offerings.

Why were Jews drawn to food—related businesses in Florida in the first place? Based on what I saw in the show, there seems to have been an unusually high concentration.

Jews who settled here from all points on the globe adapted to their lives in the Sunshine State by working in any type of business where they could make a living, including becoming produce growers and cattle ranchers — not professions that naturally come to mind when you think of Jewish family businesses.

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Israel, Palestinians, Jordan Sign Water Deal

Sure it’s not a land deal, but maybe we’re getting somewhere?

By Adam Chandler for Tablet Magazine
As Oscar Wilde semi-famously wrote in Lady Windermere’s Fan: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Of course, the Middle East is not a four-act comedic play about a Victorian mother and daughter who are knocking boots with the same man (although sometimes it feels that way, nu?). Nevertheless, it seems important, extremely important, to note good things when they happen. If outrage (real or manufactured) can be summoned on a daily basis, why not take a holiday and summon some goodwill?

With that grandiose thing said, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Jordan inked a deal yesterday to build a pipeline between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea. The deal was signed in Washington, D.C., and will help provide drinking water to all three parties as well as help revive the Dead Sea, which has been slowly drying up for years (or ever since tour guides started warning visitors against peeing in it).

The project will bring about 100 million cubic meters of water a year from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea to slow the drying up of the latter. It also will establish a seawater desalination plant in Aqaba, Jordan, to provide fresh water annually for all three signatories.

The World Bank is financing the project at a cost of $200 million to $400 million, with the three signatories to repay the bridge loans being used.

Silvan Shalom, who is Israel’s Minister of Energy and Water (it seems big deal when there’s a water minister), likened the deal to a dream of Herzl’s, by which he may have meant to “make the desert bloom,” but perhaps he meant more than that.

Sure, there were some detractors, but they were largely pessimistic about the deal on environment grounds.

Eli Raz, a geologist and biologist at Israel’s Dead Sea and Arava Science Center, praised the project as a symbol of regional cooperation, but said it would do little to alleviate the Dead Sea’s woes. The Dead Sea is losing roughly 1 billion cubic meters of water each year, he said, while the project would only return about 10 percent of that amount.

“As a symbol, it’s very good. In respect for the Dead Sea, the deficit, the water balance, this is nothing,” he said.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry is returning to the region (yet again) for the second time in two weeks to press the Israelis and Palestinians on their flagging peace talks as well as continue to sell Israel on the Iran deal. Here’s what Kerry said at the JDC Centennial:

Kerry, who said he speaks two to three times a week with Netanyahu, addressed the peace talks. “I believe, as President Obama does, that Israel will be far more secure if we can also put to test the possibilities of the two-state solution. And so we will continue to attempt to do that despite the skepticism, despite the cynicism in some quarters.”

Kerry also swore again that the United States will not let Iran build a nuclear weapon. For more fanciful thinking on the dream of elusive peace, check out Jeffrey Goldberg’s thought experiment in which he argues that Israel should offer the Palestinians exactly what they want (with the previously established parameters in mind) to test them as a true partner for peace.

King Solomon and the Olive Trees

By Miriam Kresh for The Jew and the Carrot


It’s Hanukkah, and we’ve been hearing a lot about olive oil. But consider the olive tree; its noble wood and generous shade; its gnarled beauty; its fruit, and the pungent oil pressed out of that fruit.

A trip to the Galilee brought me to Druze villages where residents traditionally make their living from the olive harvest. My guide was Nivin, a young Druze woman. We drove past modern olive groves planted against green hills. She indicated where to stop, at the edge of another olive orchard. This one’s trees are 2000 years old.

They thrive on winter rains alone, and for this reason, the ancient farmers spaced them well apart, making room for each one to receive sunshine and moisture without competition. It was a cool, blue afternoon, and we walked between the great, silent trees with a certain awe. They had been set down into that soil as flexible saplings when Solomon’s Temple still stood.

The trees continued to grow slowly throughout the centuries, making new wood that curved outward, so that each tree’s heart was exposed, or curved back towards the mother tree so that a wooden hollow was formed that’s big enough for an adult to stand in. And those ancient trees are still producing fruit. Their branches were so heavy with sun-warmed, blue-black olives that they bowed almost to the ground.

As we walked through the orchard, Nivin told me a Druze folk tale, about the olive and King Solomon. King Solomon had the supernatural power of understanding all living creatures’ languages. He would leave his palace to walk through fields and forests, conversing with beasts and plants, gathering and distilling their wisdom. For this, all natural beings loved him. When the great king died, nature went into mourning. The trees deliberately shed their foliage, so that their bare branches rattled sadly in the winter gusts. But not every tree did this. To the disgust of the others, the olive stood in its full glory of green and silver leaves.

“Why aren’t you mourning the passing of Solomon?” the trees asked the olive. “Don’t you care? Look at us. The mulberry, the almond, the oak — all our greenery has fallen to the ground. Everyone can see how sad we are. Yet you are indifferent. You haven’t shed one leaf. Where’s your heart?”

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The New Jewish Food Commandments

Guidelines to ensure that fresh, local, and environmentally friendly food lands on your kids' plates

By Natasha Rosenstock for Kveller

Most of us are familiar with the Ten Commandments (or at least the Charlton Heston movie) and know all about those golden rules to live by. But while that covers idolatry and adultery, when it comes to the food we feed our family, a newer perspective could be of use.

Of course the Bible has its fair share of rules--keeping kosher, anyone?--but in these health-conscious and environmentally friendly times, it seems like we could use some additional rules, ones with an eye toward organic, local, and ethically produced food. Here are 10 new food commandments to ensure healthy and delicious eating habits that are good for you, your kids, and the environment.

1. Eat less meat, fish, and chicken. Make sure that what you do eat is grown in an ethical and sustainable manner.

Eating less meat is healthier for your body and the universe. Raising animals for food is often not just an unhealthy practice for the animals and those who eat them, but contributes to air, soil, and water pollution. Ethical, healthier, kosher options include KOL Foods, a company that ships out of Silver Spring, MD and Brooklyn's Grow and Behold Foods.

2. Eat dinner together as a family every night.

Eating dinner together every night helps children learn that life should not be composed of endless junk food snacks. When we eat real food, our body knows how to process it, we know we've eaten, and we feel full. Eating dinner together also gives parents an opportunity to model good eating habits, such as eating whole grains, piling your plate with steamed veggies, and limiting meat consumption.

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