My name is Rachel Jacoby Rosenfield. I’m the Director of Isabella Freedman’s Jewish Greening Fellowship, and I’m writing to invite you to join us in a strong Jewish response to global climate change.
Last month, we joined Hazon in launching the Jewish Climate Change Campaign to mobilize Jewish communities around the world to take meaningful action on global climate change.
What you can do
Thousands of us are signing a pledge as an indication of our willingness to learn, to speak-up, and to change at least one of our actions for good. It could be to compost, or to use a bike or public transportation more, to advocate
on behalf of clean energy legislation, to work to green up and clean up a
park or neighborhood effected by environmental degradation—whatever ways you choose, we hope you’ll make your own changes now and in 2010. Click here to join the pledge and invite your friends to do the same.
What we’re doing around the world
Last week, Nigel Savage, Executive Director of Hazon, presented the Jewish
Climate Change Campaign to the Secretary General of the United Nations at a
gathering of religious leaders hosted by the Queen at Windsor Castle. This
presentation was part of an effort by religious communities around the world
to organize multi-year climate change campaigns, linked to next month's
Copenhagen Conference, when the world's heads of governments will agree to a
climate change regime for the next decade.
What we’re doing locally
Isabella Freedman is committed to meaningful education, action and advocacy on the issue of global climate change. Earlier this year we launched the Jewish Greening Fellowship to support twenty network Jewish community centers and camps in greening their facilities, operations and programs. The eighteen-month fellowship offers on-going training, consultation and direct financial support to each of these twenty agencies. Staff members at each of these agencies are committing time, energy and creativity to greening work including spearheading energy audits, forming greening task forces, and creating Jewish environmental programs for their members and communities.
The first cohort of twenty Greening Fellows are meeting with experts in the field, and learning hands-on about green innovation and environmental justice. Together they are creating models in best practices for greening our institutions and communities. In the words of one Greening Fellow, “The Jewish Greening Fellowship provides the means to learn, the time to share and the energy to make changes one agency at a time.”
What your organization can do
We need serious change in our Jewish institutions. We’re calling on every Jewish institution—school, synagogue, JCC, camp—to set up a Green Team, and start working on a multi-year plan to green itself. If you’re the head of a Jewish institution, we invite you to become an organizational partner and if you know someone who heads a Jewish institution, please send this message to them. Invite them to sign the pledge as an individual, and have their institution become a partner.
Resources
There are many green resources on the web. Here are just a few to get you
started on taking some practical steps to addressing global climate change:
Thank you for getting involved
I invite you to learn as much as you can, and find the right way for you to get involved.
Please start by signing the pledge.
To support Isabella Freedman’s leading work in Jewish environmental education, visit us
online or email info@isabellafreedman.org.
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