Environmental Groups Push for Green Jewish Living on Tu B’Shvat
Image by getty images
Two Jewish groups launched a joint initiative promoting environmentally friendly living on Tu Bishvat, Jewish arbor day.
The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) and Canfei Nesharim, a group emphasizing sustainable living in the Orthodox community, said Friday they would collaborate on a range of initiatives raising environmental awareness within the Jewish community.
The two groups said they hoped to achieve a 14 percent reduction in the Jewish community’s greenhouse gas emissions by September 2014 through the distribution of a Jewish Energy Guide, a pamphlet with information about energy conservation. In addition, the groups said they would work toward signifcantly cutting down on the inefficiant use of energy and wasteful food-consmuption practices.
“Marrying action resources with implementation tools, this collaboration will reach across multiple denominational and organizational spectra of Jewish life,” they said in a statement.
The groups made the announcement on Tu Bishvat, a holiday often referred to as the Jewish new year for trees or Jewish earth day. Jewish communities in Israel and around the world mark the occasion by planting trees and eating seasonal produce.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
