From the Director
While we at COEJL focus most of our attention on environmental issues in the U.S., in honor of Israel's 50th anniversary, we want to educate our readership about Israel's ecological threats and encourage you to support efforts to meet these challenges. We can all take great pride in Israel's enormous accomplishments in the past 50 years: settling millions of Jewish refugees, achieving regional military superiority, developing a vibrant economy. Yet the environmental conditions in Israel and the Middle East are indeed cause for alarm.

In the following pages you will find articles exploring both the historic and current ecological relationships between the Jewish people and the land of Israel.

Here in North America, COEJL's collaborations with grassroots activists and institutions to develop regional Jewish environmental projects are yielding fruit. We are delighted by the bountiful harvest of reports we present to you about direct action projects, regional retreats, interfaith advocacy efforts, community fairs, and other programs.

If you are not already connected to a regional affiliate, I encourage you to make contact and get involved. And if there is no affiliate in your area and you would like to create one, contact Stefanie Zelkind, C0EJL's new assistant director.

Thanks to all of you who sent back completed questionnaires to us. And congratulations to Nancy Taffel of Atlanta winner of the $250.00 gift certificate for Jewish Lights Publishing. We will publish results from the survey in our next newsletter.

                    Mark X Jacobs

 
What is COEJL?
COEJL serves as a national coordinating office for the Jewish environmental movement. In collaboration with the full spectrum of American Jewish religious and communal institutions, COEJL supports and promotes environmental education, scholarship, advocacy and action in the American Jewish community. Founded in 1993, C0EJL is the Jewish member of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment.

 
COEJL Welcomes New Staff
Stefanie Zelkind, assistant director
212.684.6950, ext. 216
StefCOEJL@aol.com

Stefanie previously served as the director of international affairs at Adam Teva V'Din: The Israel Union for Environmental Defense.

Shira Kandel, communications coordinator
212.684.6950, ext. 210
COEJL@aol.com

Shira recently completed a Master's Degree In Near East and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. Shira replaces Anat Youdkes, who left COEJL in July.

Evonne Smitt, legislative assistant
202.387.2800
COEJLinDC@aol.com

Evonne recently graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in writing. She will represent COEJL in Washington, D.C during a one-year fellowship at the Religious Action Center.

 
COEJL Regional Affiliates

 
From the Field
COEJL regional affiliates across North America are organizing a diverse array of environmental education and action programs in their communities.

The Jewish League for Environmental Awareness (Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, CA) is planning a local Judas and Environment Retreat, continuing its Operation Noah campaign to protect endangered birds and planning Tu B'Shvat seders. JLEA director Jeff Auerbach reports that fifty people of all ages participated in a moving Hoshanah Rabbah ceremony in Santa Barbara, which was covered on local television.

Santa Cruz COEJL is taking action on environmental health and justice issues, including medical waste incineration and pesticide use. The group, according to founder Orah Rein, is working with both local Jewish and environmental communities, and was recently admitted to the Santa Cruz Environmental Council.

COEJL of Southern California leader Saran Kirschbaum reports that the Los Angeles Federation's Women's Conference held a mini-conference on the environment in October. COEJL of SC is working with both Jewish and environmental organizations to build local programs.

The Northwest Jewish Environmental Project's program director Kevin Golden reports that in addition to involving six summer camps in environmental programs this summer and hosting their second "Shabbat in the Woods", NWJEP has launched Ahavat Ha-Adamah, an earth stewardship program for area Youth groups. In October, NWJEP built a Sukkah in downtown Seattle in partnership with Hillel to educate the public about Judaism's ecological traditions.

Shai Spetgang has been working with the Canadian Jewish Congress since August to research the viability of a COEJL of Canada. Thus far he reports that there has been strong interest particularly among youth groups. For more information, contact Shai at 416.663.3221 or shai_spetgang@edu.yorku.ca.

Activist Roberta Bass reports that Milwaukee COEJL has been fighting against pesticide use in, areas such as JCC and synagogue grounds, as well as planting natural gardens on synagogue plots with the participation of synagogue youth. Milwaukee COEJL is also writing an eco-column for the Milwaukee Jewish monthly.

Boston COEJL organized a Sukkot program at an organic farm and will be working to organize workshops through the Boston Bureau of Jewish Education to teach educators about how to integrate environmental issues into religious and day school curricula, reports Boston JCRC staff liaison Elliott Gimble.

The Teva Learning Center welcomed the enrollment of its first orthodox day school for a four-day residential Jewish environmental program in Connecticut. Director Adam Berman reports that the program now reaches over 1,000 students each year. For more information, contact Adam at 212,807.6376 or tevacenter@aol.com.

L'OLAM: The Committee on Judaism and Ecology (New York City) is focusing its attention on organizing opposition to the Trans-Israel Highway as well as encouraging synagogues to have "non-disposable kiddushes", according to founder Jonathan Wolf.

Shomrei Adamah of Greater Washington continues to sponsor a wide array of lectures and events. Activist Naomi Friedman recently returned from Israel, where she met with leading environmental activists. To learn about her visit and ideas about how American Jews can support environmental work in Israel, see her article posted on the C0EJL web site.

On October 8, New Jersey COEJL joined representatives of various faith groups and government officials in the celebration of a United Nations Sabbath on the steps of the NJ State House. The ceremony followed a meeting on the need for open space preservation in New Jersey; according to founder Ted Eisenberg.

Hundreds of people ended the harvest festival of Sukkot by participating in an inspiring Hoshanah Rabbah ceremony on the banks of the Hudson River, organized by The Shalom Center and Elat Chayyim. The ritual celebrated the interconnectedness of nature and human beings and called on General Electric to clean up the PCBs they dumped in the Hudson. Shalom Center-inspired Hoshanah Rabbah celebrations/protests also took place in California, Louisiana, Michigan, Oregon, Vancouver B.C., Victoria B.C., Virginia and Washington D.C.

Headwaters Forest Update: In June, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform) adopted a resolution urging that protection of the ancient habitat in the Headwaters forest "not be compromised for the sake of political expediency" in a deal between Maxxam Corporation CEO Charles Hurwitz and federal and state officials. Dissatisfied with the recent Habitat Conservation Plan released by Pacific Lumber and government officials, activists continue to protest logging on Pacific Lumber lands. Tragically, on September 17, activist David Chain, 23, was crushed to death by a tree felled by a Pacific Lumber. The draft Habitat Conservation Plan has been released for public comment until November 16. For information call Barak Gale at 415.543.9011.

For more information, see listing of regional affiliates.

 
On the Hill: COEJL Taking Action
By Evonne Smitt, COEJL Legislative Assistant
Legislative Wrap-Up
Almost all major environmental initiatives--or more accurately, environmental attacks--this year have taken the form of "riders", amendments attached to other legislation, to be passed without public attention. Almost fifty of these riders were attached to appropriations bills at the end of the 105th Congress. Environmentalists launched an all-out fight against these riders, gaining support from President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Democratic and Republican members of Congress to stall the appropriations process as long as riders were included, and to prevent these riders from being passed. in the end, Mr. Clinton and Congress agreed to strip the most damaging riders from the spending bill (although numerous riders remained)--and Congress appropriated significant new funds for clean water and energy-related research programs.

Climate Change: COEJL is working closely with our interfaith partners to mobilize activists to build support for the climate treaty in Congress. For example, in October we cosponsored a regional training conference in Ohio with the National Council of Churches.

The Administration has until March, 1999, to sign the climate change accord developed in Kyoto in December, 1997. In November, President Clinton will participate in a follow-up conference in Buenos Aires to further develop the accord. Once signed, there are several serious barriers to the ratification of this treaty. Developing countries are waiting for the U.S. to take leadership on climate change, but the Senate is unlikely to ratify the treaty without commitments by these nations.

The Jewish community, along with our interfaith partners, has a vital role to play in organizing support for U.S. ratification of a just international agreement and strong domestic action to address climate change. Please contact the COEJL office to get involved.

Endangered Species: COEJL activists have been working hard to strengthen the Endangered Species Act. We have supported a proactive recovery-focused bill in the House (H.R. 2351) and opposed S. 1180, which would have given economic interests a large role in species recovery teams, sabotaging their effectiveness. Since S. 1180 passed out of committee in October, 1997, COEJL activists have helped to prevent its appearance on the Senate floor and its attachment to the Interior appropriations bill as a rider.

 
The Flip Side of Zionism's Success:
Israel's Environmental Woes
By Alon Tal

• Naomi Shemer's 1967 song Jerusalem of Gold spoke of "mountain air as pure as wine" Today, a thick haze hovers over the Holy City. Scientists predict that Jerusalem's air will soon be as polluted as that of Mexico City.

• Zionist farmers have made the desert bloom, and Israel has become an exporter of world-class produce. Yet pesticides now contaminate groundwater, taking a serious toll on the health of both wildlife and Israeli farmers.

• The State of Israel has enabled the ingathering of millions of Jewish exiles. Yet urban sprawl threatens to pave over much of the promised "land of milk and honey."

• When the bridge over the Yarkon River collapsed during last summer's Maccabiah games, one athlete drowned - and three died of toxic poisoning. Today, many of the nation's rivers are full of sewage and its wells draw upon a legacy of industrial pollution and excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides.

To understand Israel's present environmental reality; one must dig even deeper than its 50 years of political independence. Israelis were the players who acted out the rebirth of a Third Jewish Commonwealth in the land of the patriarchs. One hundred years of unyielding Zionist determination and achievement unwittingly wrote an ecological script that is, unfortunately, in many ways a tragedy.

The story goes back to the days in which the modern Jewish state was envisioned by Theodore Herzl, who brought the inclinations and aesthetics of a lifetime in Vienna to his only visit to Palestine in 1900. After witnessing "the barrenness of the land" first-hand, Herzl called for the planting of 10 million trees in Palestine.

The "green" shades of Herzl's vision were, however, overshadowed by other more pressing tasks of nationhood. He wrote of enormous water development projects that would tap the sources of the Jordan River, mining operations around the Dead Sea, and a "high-tech" industrial economy that would rival Switzerland's watch trade. All of these predictions came to be. But even the prophetic Dr. Herzl did not grasp that the Zionist movement he spawned would also produce a severe environmental crisis.

The original sin of Zionism was its attempt to adopt this land to Zionism, rather than Zionism to the land.
                    - Amos Keinan

Israel's ecological reality reflects a curious hybrid of "third world" geometric population growth with "first world" industrial technologies. The country is small and, for geo-political reasons, will only grow smaller. Yet its citizens already live in one of the most crowded nations on Earth. Resource scarcity, in particular water, has always been a salient issue; massive pollution only makes it more acute. As development spills out of Israel's major cities into the countryside, farmland and scenic vistas are supplanted by suburban neighborhoods and malls. Open space, perhaps the most valuable natural resource, is rapidly being destroyed.

Israel's environmental crisis is particularly ironic because Zionism was born with an unusually strong naturalist inclination. Poets and pioneers waxed romantic about the new relationship between Jews and the natural world. Zionism began as a quest to redeem a land that showed the cumulative impact of two thousand years of foreign domination and neglect. Deforestation, erosion, and unregulated hunting left a landscape that was typically described as desolate.

European Jewish settlers brought with them a commitment to afforestation that made trees an integral part of national aspirations. The Jewish National Fund's afforestation projects took on astonishing dimensions after independence. Today, ecologists are critical about the type of pine, trees selected as well as the dense patterns of planting. But the ten percent of Israel's territory designated as forest reflects a uniquely Zionist commitment to land reclamation and to "greening" the Jewish homeland.

Ironically, another JNF project, the draining of the Hula swamp, set the stage for Israel's powerful conservation movement. Protests by a group of scientists and naturalists could not stop the draining of the remarkable wetlands and preserve its ecosystem. But the efforts led to the creation of a tiny Hula Nature Reserve (Israel's first) and in 1953 galvanized the group to. form the Society for Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI).

Israel's 2,600 plant species (including 130 which are endemic to Israel) and almost 700 vertebrates (including 454 bird species) prompted Herbert Samuel, the first Commissioner of the British Mandate, to praise "the diversity of a continent within the area of a province." The richness in flora and fauna reflects a unique biological juncture where Africa meets Europe and Asia.

By the 1960s, trends suggested that precious little would be left of Israel's biodiversity. When the SPNI successfully lobbied the Knesset to establish a Nature Reserves Authority, its members were uncharacteristically pessimistic about successfully preserving the tiny nation's diverse ecosystems.

Yet through a far reaching effort almost all extinctions have been stalled and some species are recovering. The Nature Reserves Authority's first director, Avraham Yaffe, was a retired general. His "war" to save Israel's wildlife became an extension of his previous battles to defend Israel's borders. The Israeli public was highly supportive. They flocked to the nature reserves and heeded the calls to stop picking the wild flowers that had once blanketed the country's meadows each spring. The flowers made an astonishing comeback as did several animals, such as the fallow deer and the oryx, which were reintroduced into a reserve system that now covers over twenty percent of the country's land.

Alongside this success in creating nature reserves, Israel's rapid population growth and industrialization led to severe ecological degradation. The millions of Jews who heeded the Zionist call to settle in Israel needed jobs, and the industrial infrastructure that met this challenge was given a carte blanche by government decision makers. Indeed, the largest (and often, most polluting) industries were government-owned, such as the electric company. or oil refineries.

Despite obvious environmental problems, it would take until 1989 for Israel to establish a Ministry of Environment. Even then, it suffered from a paltry budget and inadequate statutory authority. While many of the larger polluters eventually began to ratchet down their emissions, the growing range of small sources was much more difficult to regulate. And as the economy became more privatized, it created powerful incentives that continue to drive ecologically destructive development

From the slopes of the Lebanon to the Dead Sea,
We shall cultivate you with our plows,
We shall plant for you and build for you,
We shall beautify you greatly.

We shall clothe you in a robe of cement and concrete
And spread out carpeted gardens for you.
Upon the redeemed soil of your fields
The grain will peel out joyously.
                   - Natan Alterman
                    "A Song to Moledet"

Both grassroots and national organizations began to spring up during the 1990s to fight the scourge of urban pollution. Organizations like Adam Teva V'Din: The Israel Union for Environmental Defense, a public interest law group, sued polluters and lethargic government agencies with some success. But it will take more radical change in regulatory orientation, greater commitment of resources, and creative policies to reverse Israel's unsustainable trends.

Zionism's basic impulse to resettle the land of Israel and open it up to Jews everywhere was successful. It is time, therefore, for Zionism to face its ecological legacy. And just as international Jewry has been a partner in establishing the State, it too needs to play a part in the next stage of Zionist evolution.

Israel holds its valleys, seashores, mountains, and towns in trust, not only for Jews, but also Christians, Moslems, Bahai'i--indeed, for all humanity. The River Jordan, the hills and valleys of the Galilee, the Judean Desert and Jerusalem resonate with spiritual meaning for people around the world. While much of this landscape remains today, it faces increasing and unprecedented threats from rapid population growth, economic interests, and even development spurred by the peace process.

Jews around the world have always had a unique bond with the environment in the "Holy Land" During the first half of this century, it was manifested in the "blue box" of the JNF. Planting trees was as much a vehicle for expressing solidarity with Zionist aspirations of stewardship as it was for the ingathering of exiles. Today, the same impulse endures. It should be expressed as solidarity for Israeli environmental efforts.

Just as Zionism is actively striving for a more mature, symmetrical relationship between Israel and the Diaspora, so too Zionism must also redefine its approach to the environment Jewish individuals and communities throughout the world need to be part of this process for they and their children are among the most important stakeholders in the Zionist dream and experiment to bring security, peace, and health to the Land of Israel and all of the people and creatures that dwell therein.
Dr. Alon Tal is the director of the Arava Institute of Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura and founder of Adam Teva V'Din: The Israel Union for Environmental Defense.

 
The Children of Israel and the Land of Israel
Text Study
Following are a variety of texts from both the Bible and modern writers concerning the relationship of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.

The Torah instructs us to let the land rest and create a just society

When you come to the land that I give you, then shall the land keep a Sabbath to YHWH [the Eternal]. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in its fruit. But the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath for YHWH [the Eternal]: your field you are not to sow, your vineyard you are not to prune... And you shall number seven Sabbaths of years to you, seven times seven years... On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the shofar throughout your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants: it shall be a jubilee for you, and you shall return all people to their possessions, and you shall return all people to their families... The land shall not be sold forever: for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me.
                    --Leviticus 25:2-4, 8-11, 23.

Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may live and inherit the land which YHWH [the Eternal] your God gives you.
                    --Deuteronomy 16:20

What is the connection between social justice and the ability of the Jewish people, or any people, to live on its land, generation after generation? What effect do you think the practice of the sabbatical year and the Jubilee had on the primarily agricultural Israelite society? What would it mean for modern industrial society to pause in order to let the soil rest, the air clear, the waters gather?

Isaiah warns Israel about the consequences of becoming greedy

Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, till there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land! In my ears said the YHWH [the Eternal] of hosts, "Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, great and fair, without inhabitant. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bat, and the seed of a chomer shall yield an ephah..."
                    Isaiah 5:8-10

What will happen ecologically if we fill the land up with our houses and fields, roads and factories? What will happen to other species? And what will be the spiritual effects on us?

Ezekiel prophesies about a return from exile

Prophesy therefore concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains, and to the hills, to the ravines, and to the valleys, --Thus says YHWH [the Eternal] God, "...You, 0 mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel; for they will soon be coming. For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be filled and sown... And the desolate land, after lying waste in the sight of every passerby, shall again be filled. And they shall say, 'This land that was blighted is become like the garden of Eden, and the waste and blighted and ruined cities are fortified, and inhabited.' Then the nations that are left around you shall know that I, YHWH [the Eternal], have rebuilt the ruined places, and have replanted the desolate land; I, YHWH [the Eternal], have spoken it, and I will do it."
                    Ezekiel 36: 6-9, 34-36.

Honey from Desolation

No grower of bees
would put his
beehives here.

But people
sometimes make honey from desolation
sweeter than anything.
                    Poet Yehuda Amichai

According to the Bible, the land flourishes when the people Israel live according to the law, and God makes the land desolate and exiles the people when they violate the law. How might this vision of the relationship between the Jewish people and the land of Israel have informed the early Zionist thinkers and pioneers? (See the two following texts as examples)

A Zionist vision of a new Jewish culture "reinhabiting" the land of Israel

And on that day, your construction will no longer be, son of man, that which destroys the majesty of the world's own construction, and the beauty of your building a blemish in the sphere of cosmic beauty... And you shall learn Torah from the mouth of nature, the Torah of building and creating and you shall learn to do as nature does in everything you build and in everything you create. And so in all your ways and in all your life you will learn to be a partner in creation.
                    Aaron David Gordon, 1910.

This early labor-Zionist vision is similar to contemporary bioregionalism--urging that the Jewish people "reinhabit" the land of Israel and develop a culture in harmony with the land. What might "Torah from the mouth of nature" instruct us to do today?

Israel's first Prime Minister calls for "fructifying the waste places"

The tasks that lie ahead will require pioneering efforts the likes of which we have never known, for we must conquer and fructify the waste places (in the mountains of Galilee, the plains of the Negev, the valley of the Jordan, the sand dunes of the seashore, and the mountains of Judea) and we must prepare the way for new immigrants.
                    David Ben Gurion, 1944,
who became the State of Israel's first prime minister.

Why did Ben Gurion call uninhabited areas "waste places"? Did he distinguish between those areas that human-caused degradation had made into waste-places from the arid or mountain ecosystems that are not conducive to agriculture?

By Mark X. Jacobs. Jeremy Bernstein of the Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership in Israel provided suggestions for Zionist texts.

 
The JNF and Ecology
By Russell F. Robinson,
JNF Executive Vice President
For almost 100 years, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) has played an historic and vital role in the establishment and development of the State of Israel. The JNF helped make the "dream" a reality through the purchase of land, bonding the Jewish people to the Zionist dream of a homeland, and by preparing that land to settle the large waves of immigrants who arrived in Israel after the Holocaust and through today.

While some questioned the JNF afforestation projects as a priority, the JNF forged ahead because the protection and beautification of the land of Israel and the creation of comfort zones for children was of great importance and priority to the Jewish people and the JNF Forests of pines were planted because of their rapid growth (there were few trees in Israel), beauty, and the need for security. Over the past 15 years, through research and development with assistance from ecological organizations and the U.S. Forest Service, the JNF has planted hundreds of varieties of trees and vegetation. We are still working to improve the ecological appropriateness of our forestry practices.

The 50-year young State of Israel is in a period of transition, as is the JNF. Israel is now settled, and is becoming concerned with working on the quality of life for its people and its land.

Sadly, every river and stream in Israel is polluted. The JNF has assumed responsibility for cleaning them up. In Hadera, a 5-kilometer area is now both habitable for fish and safe for swimming. The JNF has also "greened" the banks of the Lachish River, and has now taken over from the government the responsibility for cleaning up the river.

The JNF is leading the battle to institute waste-water management, is conducting ecological research and development and has undertaken ecological lobbying efforts, water recycling, and the building of reservoirs so that Israel can use all of its available precious water, thus reducing the draining of aquifers. The JNF continues to work, together with others, on funding the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura and the development of nature trails and bike paths, thus enhancing the quality of life for all the people of Israel.

The JNF's present and future role is to tackle the challenges of sustainable development to restore the environment damaged by the need to very quickly integrate hundreds of thousands of new immigrants, and to reverse thousands of years of neglect.

 
Programs and Projects
For Congregations, Schools, Other Jewish
Institutions, and Families
Torah--Education
Study the texts above.

Study the second paragraph of the Sh'ma (Deuteronomy 11:13-21). What are the ecological implications of this passage?

Study the portion of the week and explore ecological themes. Read Torah and Flora, Louis Rabinowitz, Sanhedrin Press, 1977. Two suggested portions are Vayigash (the story of Joseph and the famine) and Behar (the sabbatical year).

Study Nature in Our Biblical Heritage, Nogan Hareuveni, Neot Kedumim, 1980.

Avodah--Jewish Observances
Celebrate Tu B'Shvat with a presentation about Israel's ecological challenges.

Organize a joint Yom Ha'atzmaut--Israel Independence Day (April 21, 1999) and Earth Day (April 22, 1999) observance. When the Buffalo, NY Federation did this a few years ago, they named their program "Happy B'earth Day, Israel"!

Gemilut Chasadim--Taking Action
Top 5 actions you can take to help protect Israel's environment: 1. Educate yourself and your community about the challenges facing Israel's environment.

2. Host a fundraiser. Grassroots Israeli environmental organizations need your support.

3. Organize a synagogue or youth group environmental mission to Israel. Visit sites of environmental interest and concern, meet activists and learn about their campaigns. Brainstorm ways that you can join and support local programs.

4. Volunteer your time. Before a visit to Israel, inquire about volunteer opportunities and internships. Or ask environmental groups how you can help from a distance.

5. If you are a student, consider attending a semester or year at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies.

 
Organizations Working to Protect Israel's Environment
There are a growing number of Israeli environmental organizations.See the COEJL web site for a full listing.