An impressive aerial shot of Israel’s garbage mountain – site of new ecological activity – for Passover.You’ve already begun your preparations for Passover – you’ve starting finishing up all the yeast (or hametz) in the house, you’ve thought of ways to avoid food waste during the holiday, you’ve bought local, handmade and green gifts for […]
(Photo Credit: Jim Davidson) Jewish leaders were among 50 religious leaders who prayed and visited Capitol Hill together during the week of February 22 to tell US legislators that action on climate change is urgently needed. Religious faith and concern for the environment should really go hand in hand. If you believe in God and […]
Purim, one of the most colorful and popular holidays in Judaism (probably because it is a mitzva to get, ahem, inebriated), is coming up this Saturday evening. Colorful because it involves getting dressed up in costume, and popular because it’s fun to see everyone else’s creative costume ideas, eat delicious pastries, hear the story from […]
Tu B’Shvat (the Jewish new year holiday for the trees) happens in late winter. This means that many people are gathering dried fruits and nuts (in a squirrel-like fashion), but it also means that others are planning a Tu B’Shvat seder or meal. What is a Tu B’Shvat seder? The tradition of the Tu B’Shvat […]
New Year’s for the Trees, is about to be celebrated in Israel and by Jews everywhere. Some people like to plant trees, like this family. Over in the Holy Land, and the Jewish Diaspora, Jewish people are stock-piling dried fruit and nuts to welcome in one of four different new years celebrated each year. Starting […]
Every week, it is the custom of religious Jews to read their holy book, the Torah, and relate it to the world around them. This week our resident Eco Rabbi, Jack, talks about sticking up for our planet. At the end of last week’s segment, Joseph still had not revealed his true identity to his […]
Latkehs! What is it with latkehs? They're brown, they're fried, they're potatoey and oniony and when you fry them, you have to open all the windows.
Noam Dolgin is a Jewish environmental educator and the executive director of the Green Zionist Alliance (GZA). Based in Vancouver, Canada, he travels regularly around North America teaching about Jewish environmental values and Israel’s environment. Green Prophet sits down with Noam to learn a little more about the Green Zionist Alliance and what it does. […]
A North American Jewish environmental awareness center is expanding its programs in environmental education to make Jewish students more aware of the need to combine the values of Judaism with those of preserving the environment. The Teva Learning Center, headed by Director Nili Simhai, has become North America’s foremost Jewish environmental education institute, with the […]
Nearly one month before the climate talks in Copenhagen begin, a crucial event to reach out to the eighty-five per cent of humanity who follow a religion kicked off in London’s Windsor Castle. From 2-4 November, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon co-hosted the global gathering of inter-faith leaders: Faith Commitments for a Living Planet. The meeting […]
With an eye to the Middle East, hundreds of Jewish professionals will meet November 8 in San Francisco to share ideas and experiences dealing with clean energy projects in both the US and in Israel. The conference Jewish Response to the Energy Challenge (JREC) will feature some of the top Jewish “players” in the clean tech and […]
If you are in the California area this winter and you care about food issues, consider heading to Hazon‘s annual food conference, from December 24-27. This is the same group running the sustainable food tour coming up in Israel. This Jewish food seminar looks at the ethics of animal slaughter, sustainable Israeli and Palestinian farming […]
For Jews in Israel, there is probably no better time to reflect on one’s place in nature and the health of the environment than during Sukkot, the Festival of Booths or the Jewish harvest festival. When I lived in Jerusalem, I could see the small make-shift sukkahs (huts) erected everywhere outside my window – each […]
After a green Rosh Hashanah and a low carbon emission Yom Kippur, the next on the Jewish holiday marathon is Sukkot. Which can also be celebrated in an environmentally conscious way. We’ve already written about the annual Green Sukkah conference being held again this year at Kibbutz Ein Shemer, but if an all day conference […]
Yom Kippur, which starts tomorrow evening, is a time of reflection, atonement, and looking forward to the year ahead. It is also the only day of the year in Israel when everyone universally powers down – no cars are driven, no TV is broadcast, the radio waves are silent and no businesses are open. It […]