Eco Judaism
Title
Eco Judaism
Creator
Innovations in Jewish Life Collections
Date
2023
Contributor
Gregg Drinkwater, Hilary Kalisman, Samira Mehta, Maggie Rosenau
Rights
This item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. In addition, no permission is required from the rights-holder(s) for educational uses. For other uses, you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Format
Portable Document Format
Language
English
Text
Eco-Judaism
The Eco-Kosher movement encourages mindful eating and making food choices in service of sustainability and social justice. Eco-kosher, though, is one piece of a much broader Jewish environmental movement, reflecting an interest in thinking and acting in service of the environment through a Jewish lens.
Beginning in the 1970s, Jewish leaders began promoting environmental consciousness grounded in Jewish thought and practice. Renewal figures such as Reb Zalman and Rabbi Arthur Waskow increasingly centered their Jewish activism around “eco-Judaism.” They sought to ground a politics of environmental awareness and sustainability within the Jewish religious tradition.
Waskow and others explored such questions as “Does the ecological crisis give us any reason to reassess our images of the relationships among God, Torah, and Israel?”[6]
For Waskow, global climate change, increasing reliance on polluting fossil fuels, the destruction of ecologically sensitive landscapes, and other environmental harms are evidence of significant spiritual failings and demand a spiritual and religious response, as much as an economic and political one. For example, writing about the massive 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, (the largest oil spill in history), Waskow charged that this disaster was “an issue of power and the Spirit, not technology. It is rooted in a spiritual disease” connected, for Waskow, to greed, over-reliance on fossil fuels, and a rejection of biblical texts focused on caring for the planet. [7]
[6] “The Emergence of Eco-Judaism,” by Arthur Waskow, CCAR Journal, Winter 2001, p. 27.
[7] “OYL! Corruption, the Spirit, the Earth, and Us,” by Arthur Waskow, Tikkun Magazine, July/August 2010, p. 21.
The Eco-Kosher movement encourages mindful eating and making food choices in service of sustainability and social justice. Eco-kosher, though, is one piece of a much broader Jewish environmental movement, reflecting an interest in thinking and acting in service of the environment through a Jewish lens.
Beginning in the 1970s, Jewish leaders began promoting environmental consciousness grounded in Jewish thought and practice. Renewal figures such as Reb Zalman and Rabbi Arthur Waskow increasingly centered their Jewish activism around “eco-Judaism.” They sought to ground a politics of environmental awareness and sustainability within the Jewish religious tradition.
Waskow and others explored such questions as “Does the ecological crisis give us any reason to reassess our images of the relationships among God, Torah, and Israel?”[6]
For Waskow, global climate change, increasing reliance on polluting fossil fuels, the destruction of ecologically sensitive landscapes, and other environmental harms are evidence of significant spiritual failings and demand a spiritual and religious response, as much as an economic and political one. For example, writing about the massive 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, (the largest oil spill in history), Waskow charged that this disaster was “an issue of power and the Spirit, not technology. It is rooted in a spiritual disease” connected, for Waskow, to greed, over-reliance on fossil fuels, and a rejection of biblical texts focused on caring for the planet. [7]
[6] “The Emergence of Eco-Judaism,” by Arthur Waskow, CCAR Journal, Winter 2001, p. 27.
[7] “OYL! Corruption, the Spirit, the Earth, and Us,” by Arthur Waskow, Tikkun Magazine, July/August 2010, p. 21.
Files
Citation
Innovations in Jewish Life Collections, “Eco Judaism,” IJL Digital Exhibits, accessed April 30, 2024, https://embodiedjudaism.omeka.net/items/show/138.