by LastTrumpet · Friday, August 8th, 2008
The Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, home to such program as Elat Chayyim, Teva and Adamah is undergoing some changes, and the Lakeville Journal published an article yesterday about changes to the senior programming, and the choice to run more “financially lucrative” programming on the environment and spirituality.
FALLS VILLAGE — There are some changes in store for one of Falls Village’s oldest establishments and not everyone is happy about them. The Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, formerly known as Camp Isabella Freedman, has decided to scale back its offerings for senior citizens.
Adam Berman, executive director of Isabella Freedman since 2002, made the announcement at a July 16 meeting to a group of seniors who were attending a two-week session at the camp, according to several people who were present. The camp has provided extensive programs for seniors for more than 50 years.
In a voice mail message to The Lakeville Journal, Berman said, “We’re changing the format of how we serve seniors.” Gone are the two-week programs, to be replaced by programs of about one week in duration. According to Berman, however, the actual number of senior program nights for next year will be comparable to, if not higher than, this summer. But the profile of the elderly campers will also change.
“The demographic that will come in will probably be slightly different — less frail seniors, for example,” Berman added.
Berman did not return a phone call by press time for clarification and additional comment.
In interviews and in letters to Berman, several of the Jewish seniors, many of whom were well into their 80s or 90s and had been coming to Isabella Freedman for 20 years or more, said they were caught off-guard by the changes. Most were convinced their summer camps sessions were being discontinued in favor of an emphasis on the more financially lucrative programs that focus on spirituality or the environment…
Full story.
by Justin Goldstein · Sunday, July 27th, 2008
The New York Times has a pretty good article that focuses less on Rubashkin and more on the immigrants. What is striking about this article is it specifically addresses the issues involving child labor (with sound clips of three teenage workers). It seems that the underage workers could be the “coin that tips the scale,” so to speak, regarding whether or not Aaron Rubashkin (and presumably others) will face criminal charges. According to the report,
In formal declarations, immigrants have described pervasive labor violations at the plant, testimony that could result in criminal charges for Agriprocessors executives, labor law experts said.
There are also some shocking accounts, as shocking as things found in the previous post on the Agriprocessors scandal, like this:
“The floor supervisor then took one of the meat hooks and hit the Guatemalan with it,” the informant said, adding that the blow did not cause “serious injuries.”
And this one, for myself, is particularly hard to read:
Elmer L. said that he was clearing cow innards from the slaughter floor last Aug. 26 when a supervisor he described as a rabbi began yelling at him, then kicked him from behind. The blow caused a freshly-sharpened knife to fly up and cut his elbow.
He was sent to a hospital where doctors closed the laceration with eight stitches. But he said that when he returned, his elbow still stinging, to ask for some time off, his supervisor ordered him back to work.
The next day, as he was lifting a cow’s tongue, the stitches ruptured, Elmer L. said, and the wound bled again. He said he was given a bandage at the plant and sent back to work. The incident is confirmed in a worker’s injury report filed on Aug. 31, 2007, by Agriprocessors with the Iowa labor department.
a few personal thoughts, after the jump More »
by Kung Fu Jew · Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
A Jewschool shout-out to our friends and readers who did the Hazon Bike to the Beach this past Sunday morning — folks from Jersey, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens bicycled down to Coney Island for food, fun and more sustainable world for everyone. Click the pic for the photos.
If you’ve not already heard of it, check out the upcoming NY Jewish Environmental Bike Ride and go as rider or crew, enjoy the weekend Shabbaton and bike two days to downtown Manhattan from Connecticut the Upper Hudson Valley all on your own power, with beginners and veterans alike.
by shamirpower · Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
The World Jewish Digest opens a debate.
Pro: This is our ethical responsibility
…there are precedents in Jewish law for environmental regulation. The most polluting industry in the time of the Talmud, for example, was that of leather tanning, which creates what we now call air pollution and water pollution, both of which were known even in Talmudic times to cause health problems. And, we find, the rabbis set forth all manner of regulations, regulating where tanneries can be sited and how damages are to be apportioned. Many Jews logically extend these ethical norms to other pollution-causing activities, be they individual (wasting energy, generating greenhouse gases) or collective. .. this is not novel; it is how halacha has progressed for centuries.
Con:Yeah, get a Prius, but Israel and Jewish survival trumps all
… the environment is a problem, but it is not a Jewish problem and therefore it does not belong on a Jewish agenda. Eco-Judaism and its ideational and organizational offshoots are irrelevant to the Jewish community. They are irrelevant because Jews in America are totally free to operate within other groups. Since even the Jews, as wealthy as they may be, have finite fiscal and human resources, it is unnecessary and unwise to create another “branch” of Judaism; and to establish, staff and fund - and add still another entity to - what the late Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, used to call “our over-organized Jewish chaos.” Instead, since life is always a matter of priorities, Jews - as Jews - should turn their energies to areas that are existentially crucial to the Jewish people.
Jewschoolers - we ask you! Open thread…
by Josh Frankel · Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
Week Five, Day 5
Hod of Hod
Today is the strange, poorly understood festival we call Lag Ba’Omer (Day 33 of the Omer). Today, all around Israel, people go outdoors, run around have fun and light bonfires. Thousands of these beautiful fires are lit, dotting the entire map with dancing light. (Last year I flew on Lag Ba’Omer, it was one of the most amazing flights I have ever taken.) The only problem is that Israel is known as the land of millk and honey, not firewood. So, scavenging kids, and adults, go looking for anything at all that will burn. Construction pallates disappear, trees are uprooted, furniture destroyed, and all of that destruction goes up into the air. For an entire day, the country is covered in disgusting smog. It is difficult to breath, and there isa massive spike in emergency room asthma visits. The released carbon dioxide and toxic chemicals from burnt plastics spread all over the country, and settle down back all across the entire region. A Knesset committee decided to act, yesterday. So, it’s too late to help out this year, but maybe in the future we can see a more moderate celebration.
Meanwhile, let’s give a little hat tip to some organizations that are working hard to keep outdoor revelry possible.
- Green Prophet This is the English language environmental blog. Started by a couple of people to write up the news, this has become a popular and active blog which keeps you up to date on everything environmental in Israel. Whether you’re looking for a good hike, info on the most recent shonda, or looking to help out, stop by here.
- Adam Teva V’Din Check them out for some hard-core activism in Israel. These people are out for change, and they are going to make it happen.
- Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel The granddaddy of environmentalism in Israel. Around since 1953, these people can pull strings. From large boycotts, to building trails and nature reserves, SPNI is where it is at.
- Green Zionist Alliance One year ago, Noam Dolgin left his job as director of Teva to move back to Vancouver and start this upstart zionist organization. Believing that an important way to support Israel is to support its environment, the GZA is dedicated to mobilizing and educating diaspora Jews to what’s going on in Israel’s land, sea and air.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Sunday, May 18th, 2008
Week Five, Day One
Chesed of Hod
Since the most recent debacle at Rubashkin’s, documented widely, with a focus on the huge immigration raid detaining nearly 400 of the slaughterhouse’s 968 employees and sending many of the remaining into hiding (and not to mention so many other violations of so many varieties of American law and halachah that the mind boggles), the Postville Plant has reopened on essentially a skeleton crew.
SInce, according to the Forward, it is producing less than half its usual output, and Agriprocessors produces more than half of glatt kosher beef in the USA and the greatest share of glatt kosher poultry, and Postville produces 85% of that beef, instead of American Jews wondering how we’ve come to such a pass; that after several years of people reporting violation after violation of Jewish law, human rights, and American law, how is it that the Orthodox Union hasn’t revoked its supervision; how is it that there isn’t an outcry against such practices, against the kosher meat industry from within the Jewish community - and for that matter - why haven’t we been more carefully examining the actual kashrut of let us say, the organization behind the meat (cf. Rabbi David Berger, author of The Rebbe the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference)?
How is it that we are actually even thinking about whether or not we’ll get enough meat?
At the Hazon food conference late last year, Rabbi Yehuda ben Chemhoun, a prominent shochet of 27 years, and Rabbi Seth Mandel, the senior mashgiach at the Orthodox Union, both spoke of how they limited their own intake of meat, and Rabbi Mandel said plainly that he felt that the kosher meat industry in this country was broken, at least in part because people were expecting to eat too much meat. Instead of meat being something to have occasionally, for shabbat and holidays, people -because of its easy availability- are eating meat every day, sometimes at every meal. And this is sick: it is sick beause it leads us to an industry of waste and cruelty, and to health problems from over indulgence and also to health problems from eating the flesh of animals being treated badly throughout their lives - and through their deaths.
Although I rarely eat meat, I am not a veg. But how can we continue to support an industry that causes this much pain not only to animals, but to human beings. Our sages argue about what the purpose of our kashrut restrictions of meat and shechita are: some say it is because animals feel emotionally as we do, and it is wrong to be cruel to them; some say that it is because we are to learn from the example of our care with animals that all the more so we need to take care of other human beings, to teach compassion.
What Rubashkin’s has revealed is that it cares about neither. So, the only question left is: how long will we allow it to continue, and what will we decide to do now?
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
Today, May 14, 60 years since the founding of the State of Israel, Rabbis for Human Rights – North America (RHR-NA), placed an ad on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times in support of the rights of Israelis and Palestinian and launching a year long campaign, In Pursuit of Justice, to support the work of Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel .
The ad begins, “On this day, 60 years ago, the founders of Israel declared the State of Israel …will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel “, a quote from Israel ’s Declaration of Independence . More »
by shamirpower · Thursday, April 17th, 2008
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Rabbi Peter Stein
Over the last few years, I have come to understand that the laws, teachings and exhortations of the Bible can be summed up in one central idea: What the Bible is trying to teach us is how to build a sustainable society. Specifically, it is trying to teach us how to build a society that is economically, ecologically, socially and spiritually sustainable.
These four criteria are the lens through which we must view everything we do. They are the measure by which we must evaluate every choice we make, whether it is a personal decision, such as where to settle or how to eat; a decision at work, such as what kind of product to market; or a political decision such as land use, taxation or trade policy. Everything is subject to the test of sustainability.
When evaluating a decision by these measures, we must ask many hard questions. I would like to suggest just a few in each area.
When considering if a choice is economically sustainable, we must ask basic questions about propriety and scale and responsibility, the most basic of which is ‘Can I afford this?’ or ‘Can our society afford this?’ We must ask: ‘Will this decision create greater equality or greater inequality?’ ‘Does this choice strengthen the essential connections between ownership, profit and responsibility or does it further abstract these notions, severing these essential connections?’ And most importantly we must ask: ‘How much is enough?’
When considering if a choice is ecologically sustainable, we must first remember the intimate and essential connections between all parts of God’s Creation. Then we must ask: ‘Will this decision lead to greater health for human communities and the natural surroundings on which they depend or will it destroy their health?’ ‘Can this decision be repeated on an on-going basis without degrading the soil, plants, animals, air and water?’ ‘Will this decision deplete the abundance God has blessed us with or enhance it?’
Social sustainability addresses some of the most emotionally and politically charged issues we know, most of which our society is not prepared to deal with. We must ask: ‘Will this decision increase segregation by race and class, or will it reduce it?’ ‘Will it create communities in which people of different racial, ethnic and economic backgrounds live together in close proximity and relate as neighbors and equals?’ ‘Will this choice create opportunities for reconciliation and sharing and trust, or will it promote division, fear and distrust?’
Finally, we must inquire if our choices are spiritually sustainable. This is the most difficult of the four to conceptualize, but I think it can be explained in two ways. On the one hand, it is the sum-total of the other three. If our decisions are not economically, ecologically and socially sustainable, they will not be spiritually sustainable. If we make decisions that perpetuate economic injustice, degrade God’s Creation or provoke social tensions, there is no way that we will be on good terms with God or ourselves.
But spiritual sustainability is more than just the sum of the other three. It has its own meaning and its own set of questions. When considering if a choice is spiritually sustainable, we would ask such questions as: ‘Is it beautiful?’ – for the soul needs beauty to survive and flourish. ‘Will this increase my material needs and dependencies or reduce them? – for a spirit reliant on ever more material goods will never be satisfied. ‘Is it meaningful?’ – for if we spend our time doing things that are void and worthless, we will not feel good about ourselves. And finally: ‘Is it humble?’ – for while we were meant to create and aspire and achieve, if we do so without bounds of humility and propriety, we will suffer despair when we one day, unexpectedly, reach our bounds.
These are the questions we must ask.
And we must be very clear about their implications: if we do not choose what is sustainable, then we have chosen what is unsustainable, and what is unsustainable, by definition, will not last. These questions will be hard and they may make us uncomfortable. They may call into question many of the comforts and material standards to which we have grown accustomed. We may not like the answers we find to these questions. But they are the right and necessary questions.
Rabbi Stein can be reached at peterdstein-at-yahoo-dot-com.
Cross Posted on Radical Torah
by Y-Love · Sunday, April 13th, 2008
A few weeks ago on The Jew and the Carrot, I wondered if biofuels were actually the green mitzvah they were touted to be — an ethical alternative to greenhouse gas-belching fossil fuels — or if they were a mitzvah ha’ba b’aveirah, a “mitzvah” coming out of a sin, the sin of unchecked environmental havoc due to biofuels’ “non-toxic” by-products.
The new waves of global food riots, though, have made me much more concerned, and much more wary of entrenching myself in the pro-biofuel camp.
The 2007 “tortilla riots” in Mexico, where some 75,000 Mexicans protested the rising cost of tortillas in Mexico City, followed an astronomical increase in the price of corn — some 400% in a three month span. The cause for the price hike lay north of the border, farmers planting “industrial corn” to be processed into ethanol, replacing the lower-priced food staple relied upon by millions of Mexicans.
Cooking oil is also turning into the world’s “other” oil problem. In Mumbai, India, residents are forced “to ration every drop” of cooking oil, with the price of palm oil having risen 70 percent in the past year. One store in Chongqing, China saw three people killed in a stampede when it offered a “limited promotion” on cooking oil. Half of the increase in worldwide demand for vegetable oils, the New York Times says, is because of biofuel demand.
More »
by chillul Who? · Thursday, February 21st, 2008
In what may be the most effective awareness-raising campaign and the best embodiment of the Jewish value of “kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh”* to ever come across my G-mail ticker, Appalachian Voices and Michael Gross have set up http://www.ilovemountains.org/ , the End Mountaintop Removal Action and Resource Center.
It’s a good site to check out in order to see for yourself the devastating human and environmental impacts of strip mining for coal in Appalachia. You can view Google Earth imagery in the National Memorial for the Mountains and read up on current news from the mountain towns of West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and from the regulatory agencies in Washington, DC.
Its most impressive feature, however, which reminded me of the Hebrew proverb I quoted above, is the “My Connection” page. You enter your zipcode. You pick your energy supplier. They tell you if your power company uses Appalachian coal from mountaintop removal mines. Then, with another click, you can send an email to your power company telling them to stop supporting mountaintop removal.
That’s what we call using our power of interconnectedness for good.
* “All Israelites are responsible for one another” - I think it’s obvious that the reasons this is true, when dealing with Jewish community issues, are equally applicable to all human beings, when dealing with global issues.
by LastTrumpet · Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
Yeshivat Simchat Sholomo, the Carlebach yeshiva in Jerusalem, is live streaming their classes! Even if you’re far away, you can learn “Torah from the heart to the heart.” The schedule is available here, but not 100% up-to-date.
This afternoon (4:30 PM Jerusalem Standard Time) a new four-part series on Torah and Ecology will be beginning, taught by Reb Shaul Judelman of the Eco-Activist Beit Midrash, and a number of special guests. The next few Wednesday afternoons will feature special classes on Purim, and, G!d willing, a session on Carlebach Niggunim with Ben Tzion Solomon, the father of the guys from Soulfarm & The Moshav Band.
For now the classes are just available live, but with G!d’s help, there should be an archiving system in the near future.
If folks would like a more complete up-to-date schedule, ask and I’ll post it in the comments.
by Kung Fu Jew · Friday, February 1st, 2008
Other than the media sensation of Israel’s cars going electric, a few other environmental Jew-news mishegas:
- Hazon awarded almost $84K to green projects in Israel and the States, including Adamah, Isabellah Freedman, Teva, Adventure Rabbi, AJWS, the Green Zionist Alliance, several shuls, and Israeli hunger programs.
- The Jew & The Carrot published a list of kosher organic cheeses (to go along with their existing kosher organic wine list, of course).
- Adamah farm fellowship now accepting applications for 2008!
- Teva featured in a film about America’s religious-environmental movements.
- Rabbi David Kraemer teaches at JTS on “Jewish Eating and Jewish Identity†at the Henry N. Rapaport Memorial Lecture at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, February 4, 2008.
- Palestinian alumnus of Arava Institute speaks in Kansas City on coexistance and the environment.
- The Jewish Vegetarians of North America’s new film, A Sacred Duty, is now online at YouTube. Their latest newsletter here covers a new book God Does Not Eat Meat, a vegetarian spoof of Presidential elections, and CHAI objects to Israeli horse racing.
by Aliza · Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
In a move heard loudly around the environmental world, the Israeli government has reached a deal with Project Better Place and Renault-Nissan for the three partners to create an electric car infrastructure throughout the holy land by 2011. Israel is cited as the perfect site for such a project due to its small size and the fact that electric cars currently can not go long distances without being recharged. The tax incentives and system are expected to make the electric car cheaper than using fuel for most drivers, given the increasing cost of fuel.
Using the pre-paid cellphone system as model, Renault-Nissan will build battery recharging stations around the country, and the government will provide tax incentives to purchasers. One of the impetuses behind the project, Idan Ofer, of Project Better Place, hopes this can be a model that will eventually go international. “If Israel will ever produce a Nokia, it will be this,†he told the NYTimes.
by Kung Fu Jew · Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
(By Leah Koenig, X-posted from The Jew & The Carrot)
Many people complain that it’s difficult to find a synagogue to join in New York City. There are just so many options, that none of them feel exactly right - you might call it The Shul-Goers Dilemma. These days, however, I’m feeling pretty good at Temple Bet Pollan.
Michael Pollan gets his fair share of love on this blog, and his new book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
has already joined its predecessor, The Omnivore’s Dilemma
as a New York Times Best Seller. Pollan is in the middle of his second whirlwind book tour in two years (I guess he sleeps on the plane) – and I hear the same account every where he goes. Huge venue, sold out show, knockout performance.
Like any effective leader - Martin Luther King included - he’s charismatic and big on the big ideas that change the way we think - or in this case how we eat. But as I devoured (pun intented) Pollan’s new book on my subway commute, I wondered what, if anything, does his worldview offer to the Jewish community? And, perhaps more interestingly, what wisdom does the tribe have to offer back to him?
More »
by shamirpower · Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
One of Lilith Magazine’s EcoUshpiztin, Betsy Teustch (yes, ZT’s mommy) celebrates one year of her new blog, Money Changes Things. Here are a few highlights of her anneversary post:
Ten Kid Gifts Least Likely to Become Landfill
Easy ways for getting rid of catalogs and eliminating junk mail credit card offers
who knew you could microwave popcorn on the cheap in your own reusable bag !!!
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Monday, December 10th, 2007
Attention Washingtonians:
Shomrei Adamah is kicking off its reorganization and rededication with a celebration of the holiday of rededications.
Light a CFL chanukiah
Enjoy latkes and applesauce made from local apples and potatoes
Learn about sustainable living at home and in the synagogue, and local campaigns
Create stunning art from recycled materials
Taste fair trade chocolate
Tuesday December 11th from 6:30-8:30 (Warning: This is NOT Jewish time. It really is over at 8:30) at the stunningly lovely Josephine Butler center 2437 15th St. NW, Washington DC
$5 or donate a CFL lightbulb.
RSVP to shomrei_adamah {at} yahoo(.)com or 202-489-5278
by YehuditBrachah · Friday, December 7th, 2007
The snow is falling here in Falls Village, CT over a gorgeous frozen lake. The food, of course, is fabulous, as would befit the Hazon Food Conference. Highlights have included feta stuffed salmon, fresh made goat cheese, and vegetables all grown at the Adamah farm up the road.
In case you were worried you’d miss all the fun, or in case you were one of the dozens on the waitlist for the conference, your live blog team YehuditBrachah, Kol Ra’ash Gadol, and Kung Fu Jew are on the job.
Over the course of this weekend, we will keep you updated on the various goings-on that we think would interest the Jewschool community. Some of these have already included the Rubashkin scandal and kashrut ethics, environmentalism, food sustainability, and new developments in the eco-kashrut movement. We wanted to make sure to get in a dispatch before Shabbat.
First of all, the goats are dead. More on that later.
The sun is beginning to set behind the four foot tall recycled vegetation menorah set up outside. (KRG: This sounds kind of goofy, but it’s actually really beautiful…) We have to run off to get ready for Shabbat — to be in time for candle-lighting with Rabbi Steve Greenberg — but we promise to return motzei shabbat with reflections on the various speakers, organizations, and this growing food justice community.
Also, the goats.
by LastTrumpet · Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
Treehugger reports:
They may still be leagues ahead of their time in Israel, but the Good Energy Initiative established by one of our favorites - the Heschel Center - is acting to offset carbon emissions.
The do-gooders are aiming to reduce greenhouse gas source production, and to support Israeli energy independence via energy efficiency and alternative technologies.
The Good Energy Initiative does this by investing its revenues in non-profit social/enviro projects (see the list below). It appears to be the only active and voluntary carbon offset project in Israel.
The list of projects includes CFLs, biodiesel, garbage seperation and a host of other sustainable ideas.
Joshua Berman, a member of the initiative, tells Treehugger:
“I believe we are offering something very special for Jews in Israel and abroad, that is, rather than buying carbon credits which support initiatives in New Mexico, India or other developing countries, which is fine, we are giving people the opportunity to not only offset their carbon emissions but support Israel and green Israeli initiatives at the same time.â€
Full story.
