Kibitznik’s Choice: Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life

by Alyssa Goldstein
This has been a summer of record-breaking heat and massive crop failure, so why not check out the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life? COEJL seeks to mobilize Jewish communities to take action to for the environment, using the “rich resources of Jewish tradition and contemporary life” as a base of inspiration. Their website itself is a rich resource for programs and texts that show how caring for the environment not only emerges from Jewish tradition, but can also create and strengthen Jewish communities. COEJL includes American Jews from all parts of the political and religious spectrum, and works with interfaith partners as well. Their 1992 founding statement argues that “the the ecological crisis hovers over all Jewish concerns, for the threat is global, advancing, and ultimately jeopardizes ecological balance and the quality of life. It is imperative, then, that environmental issues also become an immediate, ongoing and pressing concern for our community.”
COEJL’s Jewish Energy Covenant Campaign recently got 50 Jewish leaders to sign a declaration vowing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 14% by 2014. The declaration states that “The need to transform the world’s energy economy while addressing global climate change is not only a religious and moral imperative, it is a strategy for security and survival.”
Check out COEJL on Facebook and Twitter.