opinion
Jewish Environmental Thought
Is Not Ready for the Climate
Crisis. But Our Tradition Is
BY DAVID ZVI KALMAN
S moke from California’s fires is regularly bad
enough to tint the sun on the other side of
the country. Pakistan and India just experienced
a devastating heat wave. In the Middle East,
temperatures have risen by 1.5 degrees Celsius,
more than twice the global average.

Climate change, and its punishing effects, are
here, and getting worse, yet Jewish thinking and
advocacy on climate change are still stuck in
prevention mode. The Jewish organizations that
have blossomed to meet the political moment, not
to mention the rabbis, activists and rank-and-file
Jews who are engaged on this issue, are largely
focused on one bottom line: Judaism demands
that we care for the planet before it is too late.

This sentiment remains important, and I support
it, but it cannot be the only Jewish message for
the moment. This is because “we” — the Jewish
people — are likely powerless to affect the envi-
ronment on a scale that would make a difference.

It is also because, whether we like it or not, it is too
late. As a scholar interested in the Jewish future
and as a member of a research team devoted to
Judaism and the natural world, I believe it is time
to expand our understanding of what “Jewish
environmental thought” can be.

The problems with mainstream Jewish
approaches to addressing climate change, which
scientists say is rapidly approaching a breaking
point, are twofold.

First, unlike many other environmental prob-
lems, climate change can’t be meaningfully cur-
tailed through individual behavior; for better or
worse, it is primarily in the hands of national gov-
ernments and the energy sectors that they regu-
late. In the United States, it is largely for the worse:
Legislative deadlock and the current Supreme
Court’s deregulatory impulses make it hard to
imagine tighter regulations on emissions, and
domestic political polarization severely hampers
America’s ability to exert influence over the 85%
of global emissions that are produced outside its
borders. These realities undermine much Jewish think-
ing on climate change. Rabbis can tell their con-
gregants that they should care for the planet until
they’re blue in the face, but if their ideas are to
be greeted with something other than a nod of
agreement, a wistful sigh, and eventual indiffer-
ence, they cannot solely focus on the possibility
of political change.

18 JUNE 9, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
Second, the “it’s too late” piece is harder to
hear. Even if humanity radically changes its ways
in the next decade, as the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change says it must, disasters
aggravated by climate change are already here,
and many people — especially young people —
operate under the assumption that they will get
worse. Despite this, messages from Jewish leaders
largely continue to focus on prevention, fre-
quently insinuating in the process that climate
catastrophe is on us if we fail to act. Such mes-
sages were appropriate in the 1980s, when disas-
ter merely loomed on the horizon. Now, however,
this line of thinking will increasingly be heard as
nothing more than a grand “I told you so.”
than two millennia ago, and the imperative to never
forget continues to be highly motivating.

An expanded Jewish environmentalism also
offers us the chance to reconsider a basic ques-
tion: Is this line of thinking for the benefit of the
world, or just for other Jews? While politically
minded environmental thought is strongly incen-
tivized to spread universal messages, it does so
by focusing on stories that Christians and Muslims
will find relatable — Adam being charged with
stewarding the world, Noah and the flood — and
ignoring a much larger set of stories and ideas
that are particular to Jewish tradition. The pro-
posed new kinds of thinking might ironically be
better capable of speaking specifically to Jewish
interests, developing ideas about how to adapt to
Jewish educators and leaders must understand that
new ideas are crucial because environmental
fatalism has already become the accepted wisdom.

We can address both of these problems by
expanding our conception of what Jewish envi-
ronmental thought is supposed to be. Even as
we continue to push for sensible climate policy,
we must make realistic plans to greet the future,
as well. Rather than doubling down on messages
of prevention and personal responsibility, hoping
to achieve a better result perhaps by being more
emphatic about it, Jewish environmentalism must
help people adapt to the stresses of our warmer
world, offer consolation to those who are mourn-
ing the one that we are losing, and prevent us
from treating the present climate as “normal” by
reminding us of the truly normal climate that will
soon be out of living memory.

The Jewish tradition is already well suited for
these tasks. As examples: rabbinic Judaism’s cen-
tral narrative about moral failure leading to the
loss of a land bears a striking similarity to the con-
temporary climate crisis, and the long process by
which all types of Judaism dealt with that tragedy
speaks to its ability to reinvent itself around a story
of loss and recovery, a story which has served it
well through other periods of persecution. In terms
of memorializing tragedy, Jewish tradition contin-
ues to commemorate events that took place more
a changed planet that draws from the particulars
of Jewish history.

Shifting Jewish environmental thought in this
direction is not without its risks. As with any strat-
egy that takes climate change to be inevitable,
this line of thought could be accused of propa-
gating a dangerous fatalism and sapping environ-
mental activism of its energy.

The risks are serious, but Jewish educators and
leaders must understand that new ideas are cru-
cial because environmental fatalism has already
become the accepted wisdom. Many young peo-
ple already assume that their entire lives will play
out in a world of radical climatic decay, and this
plays a powerful dampening effect in their ambi-
tions to change even non-environmental aspects
of the world. Jewish environmental thought, like
the environment, is out of time.

It is time to embrace this reality and think about
the subject anew. JE
David Zvi Kalman is the scholar in residence and
director of new media at the Shalom Hartman
Institute of North America and the owner of Print-
o-Craft Press. He holds a Ph.D. from the University
of Pennsylvania.




nation / world
Detroit Church Father Coughlin Founded Hosts Jewish-Catholic
Relations Event
The National Shrine of the Little Flower — founded by notorious antisemite
Father Charles Coughlin — hosted on May 31 an event titled “The Jewish-
Catholic Relationship: Past, Present, and Future,” a series of historical lectures
co-sponsored by the Archdiocese of Detroit and the local Jewish Community
Relations Council, JTA reported.

Jews and Catholics alike filed into the pews in Royal Oak, Michigan, to hear
two academics, one Jewish and one Catholic, discuss the history of relations
between the two faiths, most of it revolving around Catholic antisemitism.

The choice of venue was deliberate.

“There’s so much polarization in our society, we need this reconciliation in gen-
eral,” Rabbi Asher Lopatin, executive director of the Detroit JCRC/AJC, told the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “What’s more powerful than for Jews and Catholics
to come together in Father Coughlin’s church?”
The pairing of organizations made for an interesting historical wrinkle: The
Detroit JCRC/AJC was originally founded in 1937, and one of its first orders of
business was to publicly oppose Coughlin’s broadcasts as antisemitic.

Meanwhile, the Archdiocese of Detroit supported and protected Coughlin for
the first decade of his broadcasting career, until 1937, when the death of the area’s
bishop, combined with Coughlin’s escalating bad press, led the Vatican to appoint
a new bishop who worked more aggressively to control the Radio Priest’s rhetoric.

Survey: Americans Not Paying Attention to BDS Movement
A Pew Research Center survey released on May 26 found that American adults
are just not paying attention to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement
against Israel, JTA reported.

A whopping 84% of adults surveyed said they have heard “not much” or “noth-
ing at all” about the movement, which seeks to pressure Israel into changing its
policy toward the Palestinians by promoting boycotts and economic sanctions.

Only 5% of the surveyed adults — who were of diverse religious backgrounds
— knew “some” about it, and only 2% strongly support it.

Pew used an online panel to survey 10,441 U.S. adults from March 7 to 13, with
the stated goal of better understanding Americans’ views of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. The margin of error for the full sample was 1.5 percentage points.

EV Sales Rise Sharply in Israel
In the first five months of 2022, 5.2% of all cars sold in Israel, or 6,900 cars,
were electric vehicles, compared to just 1.2% in the same period in 2021, Globes
reported. Globes said the EV market would have grown faster if there weren’t delivery
delays of Tesla cars because of COVID lockdowns in China.

Car industry sources said there is a backlog of more than 12,000 orders for EV,
which should comprise about 8% of new car sales.

Israel will increase by 10% its purchase tax on electric vehicles starting in
January. Those increases will apply to 2022 orders delayed beyond the end of 2022.

Aliyah from Ethiopia Resumes
After more than a year of delays, aliyah resumed from Ethiopia on June 1 with
181 immigrants arriving at Ben Gurion Airport, The Times of Israel reported.

Some of the immigrants had waited for decades to reunite with their families.

The flight was the first since March 2021.

Another 160 immigrants arrived the next day, with additional flights expected
in the coming months. The Israeli government approved last year bringing 3,000
new immigrants from war-torn Ethiopia. The Jewish Agency said they will all
arrive by November.

Since the covert Operation Solomon ended in 1991 — with the vast majority of
the Beta Israel community being brought to Israel, the government has sporadi-
cally decided to bring over those left behind. They often are referred to as Falash
Mura — converts to Christianity because of coercion or fears of persecution —
and not considered eligible for aliyah under the Law of Return. JE
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
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