PARTNERSHIPS: COEJL on Campus

Jewish Environmental Group:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Contact JEG: Caleb Rudow calebrudow@yahoo.com or Dori Chandler drchan@email.unc.edu
or UNC Hillel: 919-942-4057; info@nchillel.org

The Jewish Environmental Group (JEG) runs a GREEN HILLEL Campaign by:

• Hosting an Eco-Shabbat at Hillel
• Initiating a used-battery recycling program in addition to UNC Hillel’s recycling of paper, cans, and other items.
• Starting a compost bin- UNC Hillel regularly composts food waste at Shabbat dinner. This is the first compost program at a religious institution in Orange County, North Carolina- and the first compost program at any Hillel in the country!

Figure 1:
The compost pile outside the UNC Hillel, maintained by JEG.

• Starting the Hillel Garden Project- an organic vegetable/herb garden to be harvested for Shabbat meals and Havdalah spices. The garden broke ground on March 9, 2005!
• Creating a Jewish Environmental library collection at UNC Hillel.
• Researching more energy efficient vending machines and more water efficient aerators
• JEG and UNC Hillel also considered purchasing water-free urinals but decided against it because they were not a good fit for their facility.

JEG celebrates Judaism in environmental ways:

• Sukkot Leaf Printing: students painted leaves different colors and printed the leaves onto construction paper. The leaf-printings were sukkah-decorations.
• Offering Jewish environmental education at the Chapel Hill Sunday school.

Figure 2:
JEG members work on Sukkot leaf-printings with children from the Chapel Hill Jewish community

And JEG reaches out to others on campus by:

• Going on a contemplative September 11th Memorial Hike
• Tabling at Environmental Awareness Week at UNC
• Tabling at Israel Day and Earth Day celebrations
• Going stargazing on a night-hike 
• Creating a mobile JEG backboard display that can be taken to various fairs and events.

JEG members regularly attend the Hillel Spitzer Forum on Public Policy and the Mark and Sharon Bloome COEJL Jewish Environmental Leadership Institute. At the joint Hillel-COEJL conference in 2005, JEG president Dan Waxman helped lead a workshop for Hillel students where he offered advice to other Jewish environmental campus activists.

Here is what some JEG members have to say:

"JEG encourages meaningful activism where I am able to connect to my Judaism and surrounding environment together."

  - Lauren Rauch, International studies, senior

"JEG has provided an outlet for the combination of the two most important areas in my life, environmentalism and Judaism. JEG has forced me to more deeply examine how environmental values really are ingrained in Jewish teachings."

- Rachel Rosenberg, Environmental Studies, Senior

 

For more information, contact:

JEG: Caleb Rudow calebrudow@yahoo.com or Dori Chandler drchan@email.unc.edu
or UNC Hillel: 919-942-4057; info@nchillel.org