Living an Environmentally Conscious Jewish Life

By Rabbi Fred Dobb for MyJewishLearning.com    

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

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.”

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Can Miami Beach Survive Global Warming?

by David Kamp for Vanity Fair

Miami real estate is booming as never before—but rising sea levels driven by global warming might mean a major bust. The mayor, climate scientists, and other experts tackle the dilemma.

I. Paddling Home

In the summer of 2013, one of the leading candidates in Miami Beach’s mayoral race, a businessman named Philip Levine, released a TV commercial that showed him kayaking his way home through traffic in a Paddington hat and a plastic poncho, accompanied by his boxer, Earl, who was kitted out in a life jacket. “In some parts of the world,” Levine said in the spot, “going around the city by boat is pretty cool. Like Venice. But in Miami Beach, when it rains, it floods. That’s got to stop. Because I’m just not sure how much more of this Earl and I can take.”

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10 Teachings on Judaism and the Environment

Rabbi Lawrence Troster For The Blog/Huffington Post

1. God created the universe.

This is the most fundamental concept of Judaism. Its implications are that only God has absolute ownership over Creation (Gen. 1-2, Psalm 24:1, I Chron. 29:10-16). Thus, Judaism's worldview is theocentric not anthropocentric. The environmental implications are that humans must realize that they do not have unrestricted freedom to misuse Creation, as it does not belong to them. Everything we own, everything we use ultimately belongs to God. Even our own selves belong to God. As a prayer in the High Holiday liturgy proclaims, "The soul is Yours and the body is your handiwork." As we are "sojourners with You, mere transients like our ancestors; our days on earth are like a shadow..." (I Chronicles 29:15), we must always consider our use of Creation with a view to the larger good in both time (responsibility to future generations) and space (others on this world). We must also think beyond our own species to that of all Creation.

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Health Ministry: Comparison of processed meats’ dangers to smoking was exaggerated

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH for JPost.com

While processed meats were put by the WHO in the same category as smoking, the ministry said "it is not at all as dangerous at the same level as tobacco."

The Health Ministry has issued a statement disagreeing with the World Health Organization that claimed eating processed meat was “as dangerous as smoking.”

While processed meats were put by the WHO in the same category as smoking, the ministry said “it is not at all as dangerous at the same level as tobacco. As a single factor, smoking contributes significantly to the risk of lung cancer and other types of cancer [and cardiovascular diseases]. Compared to that, processed meat is a much more modest risk factor.”

The ministry re-issued on Tuesday its guidelines stating that smoking was “much more dangerous” than eating such meat -- hot dogs, pastrami, bacon and other meat with chemicals or meat that has undergone smoking. While very undesirable, such a diet  promotes the risk for colorectal, pancreatic, prostate, stomach and breast cancer, the ministry said.

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greenXchange at EXPO Milano

KKL-JNF’s greenXchange program brings young Israeli and German environmental professionals together to explore various ecological projects and to make a global impact.

By KKL-JNF for JPost.com

During September 7-10, greenXchange alumni and new participants visited Expo in Milan, where they got to see the Israel Pavilion and the KKL-JNF compound. 

According to Liri Eitan Drai, the head of the program on behalf of KKL-JNF Israel, “Expo Milan is extremely relevant to the fields that the greenXchangers specialize in. It provided an excellent platform for them to see KKL-JNF in a global perspective, to meet representatives from other countries and to discuss the possibility of future collaborations. We also took advantage of the time between the lectures and meetings to talk about plans for the future and how to intensify cooperation with KKL-JNF.”

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