COEJL’s parent organization adopted a statement on hydrofracking which guides COEJL on our policy.

For Immediate Release:                                                          

May 14, 2012

Jewish Community Position on Hydrofracking Adopted

During its annual policy conference, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), an umbrella organization of the American Jewish community, adopted a balanced position on hydrofracking taking into account various points of view from the Jewish community. Stating that “the extraction of vast amounts of natural gas from previously inaccessible underground deposits has the potential to yield significant environmental, economic and national-security benefits,” the resolution also expresses “serious concerns about known and as yet unknown impacts.” Quoting Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet, a Talmudic authority, it states, “One is forbidden from gaining a livelihood at the expense of another’s health.” (R, Responsum 196, 14th Century).

“This resolution reaffirms the Jewish community’s commitment to both protect the environment and ensure domestic energy for a growing economy. We look forward to cleaner and more stable alternatives to our dangerous reliance on foreign oil,” said JCPA President Rabbi Steve Gutow. “Ensuring that our own energy needs be met responsibly and safely is an acknowledgement of our broad obligations to the world.”

“I am proud of the consensus based process, unique in the Jewish community, which resulted in this resolution,” said JCPA Chair Larry Gold. “This is a remarkably balanced policy, reflective of the diverse interests and priorities within our community.”

The resolution calls on the Jewish community relations field to:

• Support adequate federal and state regulation to protect groundwater sources, surface water sources, air quality, human and animal health, infrastructure and ecosystems.
• Support federal legislation to eliminate the natural-gas industry’s exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act.
• Support legislation and regulation enabling the EPA to require full disclosure of the type and amount of hydrofracking chemicals used at each well site.
• Educate their communities about the extraction of natural gas and oil by hydrofracking and about relevant Jewish perspectives on the issue.
• Support preservation of unique and/or sensitive areas by putting them off limits to gas drilling to be determined by an appropriate science-based process.

The resolution was adopted by consensus through a policy process that engages a network of 14 national and 125 local independent partner agencies. The full text can be found on the JCPA’s website, here.  http://engage.jewishpublicaffairs.org/c/627/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=10096

JCPA, the public affairs arm of the organized Jewish community, serves as the national coordinating and advisory body for the 14 national and 125 local agencies comprising the field of Jewish community relations.

Episcopalians join religious voices at climate change conference

By Lucy Chumbley

Presenting the Jewish voice, Mirelle Goldsmith of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life sang a prayer traditionally offered on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement…

Click here to read the complete article.

A Just Farm Bill will:

In 2006, I grasped the gravity of the environmental crisis, sitting in the theater of the Riverdale Y.  The credits rolled at the end of  “An Inconvenient Truth” and then we were urged to confront this enormous problem by… buying a hybrid car.  I was dismayed.

I looked around to gauge the reaction of the audience. Surely many of these people, like me, suspected that building the political consensus required to reduce carbon emissions globally might be an elusive dream.  And yet, individual actions like changing light bulbs, insulating my house, becoming a vegetarian, or buying a hybrid car seemed woefully inadequate to address the global scope of climate change.

I considered my sphere of influence. I could do more.  I could mobilize my community.  As the director of program development and Jewish life at the Y, I had the potential to exert multiple layers of impact far beyond individual action. Perhaps we could improve the energy efficiency of our facility. We had the resources of a talented staff and a caring community. And our mission was rooted in the Jewish value of caring for one another, generation to generation.  In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that climate change could speak to every aspect of Jewish communal life.

A few weeks later, clipboard in hand, I was navigating the pipes in the Y’s boiler room and discussing the merits of T-8 light bulbs with an engineer. Not exactly what you would expect from the director for Jewish life!  Soon we installed recycling bins at the Y’s entryway, with signage from Ecclesiastes: “One generation goes and another comes, but the earth remains forever.” I dubbed our bins as “eco-mezuzahs” that displayed our environmental stewardship.

Six years later, the Riverdale Y’s greening initiative includes an annual collection day for electronics and textiles, a garden with compost, and ongoing programs to teach our community about energy audits and incentives.  Last summer the Y launched a farmers’ market and upgraded to a salt-water pool, eliminating toxic chemicals.  The Y’s embrace of environmental responsibility became the model for the Jewish Greening Fellowship, a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, which trains Jewish professionals to lead “green change” within their communal organizations. This fellowship has transformed 38 New York-based Jewish organizations including the JCC of Staten Island, Surprise Lake Camp and Jewish Home Lifecare.  The energy audit at the Central Queens Y inspired a local church to follow suit.  The leadership demonstrated by each of these organizations created a ripple effect within their local communities. And collectively they have substantially reduced their carbon emissions.

Embracing environmental responsibility has multiple positive impacts on communal organizations.  Greening initiatives lower utility bills, improve the health of the maintenance staff, galvanize the next generation for whom environmentalism is a popular cause, and enhance the leadership capacity of mid-level professionals, all while living our Jewish values.  Limiting our energy use curbs our dependence on Middle East oil and secures our grandchildren’s energy futures.  And perhaps most profoundly, working for environmental change stirs our souls and moves us to regard our brick-and-mortar operations as tangible expressions of our ethical commitments. From the food we serve to what we mean when we “throw things away,” embracing “green change” is an immediate opportunity to rethink how we can fulfill our mandate to heal the world.

It is a hard sell to ask our communal organizations to focus on energy efficiency and environmental stewardship, but the pay-off is enormous in both tangible and intangible ways.  Jewish organizations are confronting formidable challenges. High unemployment and the skyrocketing costs of healthcare and other basic living expenses have increased demand for social services.  But communal action is what is needed. 2011 tied 1997 as the warmest year since data was first collected in 1880, and the second wettest year on record.  Just this week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report that links these trends directly to human emissions of greenhouse gases.  At this moment, after this very warm winter, it is imperative that we use our power as community.

Individual action is part of the solution, but only part. How else can you make a difference?  Change the world by changing your own community.  Push your organizations to commit to reducing emissions, advocate for better policies and lead by example. Your organization can make a tangible commitment to reducing greenhouse gases by joining the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life’s (COEJL’s) Campaign to reduce energy use by 14% by 2014.  Advocate for the Solar Jobs Act that would generate green jobs and make it easier for non-profits to adopt renewable energy. Identify and mobilize others who recognize the gravity of the environmental crisis and the Jewish imperative to act.

Together we can and must stand up and take on this sacred task.

Rachel Jacoby Rosenfield serves on the Governance Committee of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life. She was the founding director of the Jewish Greening Fellowship, a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center.

PROVIDENCE – At a meeting of the Alliance Community Relations Council’s Environment Committee on the evening of Thursday, March 22, Sybil Sanchez, director of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL), spoke with a small, but committed group about the Jewish obligation to preserve and protect our environment.

Read the complete article in The Jewish Voice & Herald.

Click here to read the complete article in Jspace.

“We believe that the global sustainability challenge is analogous to the civil-rights campaigns of an earlier time,” said Sybil Sanchez, director of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, the organization charged with administering the group. “Just as the Jewish community joined with others to provide leadership in that time, today we’re mobilizing the Jewish community to rise to the environmental challenge.”

“The Jewish environmental movement has the potential for real impact,” said Rabbi Jennie Rosenn of the Nathan Cummings Foundation. “But to do that, they need to work together much more strategically.”

In recent years, the movement has grown, applying ancient Jewish wisdom to modern environmental challenges. The Green Hevra, Hebrew for “green community”, is fostering growth by sharing strategic knowledge with partner organizations and identifying opportunities for collaboration.

The day after Earth Day, the Green Hevra will gather in person through professionally facilitated meetings to identify strategic opportunities for cooperation and impact. It also will map the field of the Jewish environmental movement and develop a plan for broader engagement.

“As the field grows, we must take the time to foster trust and forge a collective strategic vision with accompanying partnerships in order to take our movement to the next level,” said Evonne Marzouk, director of Canfei Nesharim and a co-founder of Jewcology.com, the Jewish environmental web portal and a focus of the Green Hevra’s outreach efforts.

Inspired by the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable, a similar movement-building initiative founded in 2009, the Green Hevra is a network of national and regional Jewish environmental organizations. While membership is expected to expand in the coming years, the group’s initial 15 members are: Baltimore Jewish Environmental Network; Canfei Nesharim; Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) / Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA); Eden Village Camp; Green Zionist Alliance; Hazon; Jewish Farm School; Jewish Reconstructionist Federation; Kayam Farm at Pearlstone; Neohasid.org; Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; Shalom Center; Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center; Teva Learning Alliance; and Wilderness Torah.

Contact: Sybil Sanchez, Director, Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life/Jewish Council for Public Affairs; Tel. (212) 684-2513; ssanchez@coejl.org.

COEJL: COEJL’s mission is to deepen and broaden the Jewish community’s commitment to stewardship and the protection of the Earth through outreach, activism and Jewish learning. Since 1993, COEJL has been an initiative at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), where it develops consensus positions on environmental issues for the organized American Jewish community. COEJL is also the Jewish member of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE), where it joins the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Evangelical Environmental Network in the sharing of best practices and on program and policy initiatives as appropriate.

Position Description: The Washington Representative will report to COEJL’s director and work two days a week. Tasks include, but are not limited to:

Develop and implement policy:

• Review existing COEJL and JCPA policy
• Assist in planning to strategically and proactively increase COEJL’s policy engagement
• In cooperation with JCPA and the RAC, engage COEJL’s governance and program/policy committees, partners and others in policy initiatives
• Serve as a resource to COEJL’s Jewish Energy Covenant Campaign and Jewish Energy Network members around the country on a shared policy agenda for renewable energy

Legislative advocacy and communications:

• Represent COEJL in coalitions, at events and on Capitol Hill
• Provide communications on key issues by drafting action alerts, newsletters, letters, blogs, public statements and other material
• Shepherd the process of vetting sign-on letters and statements for signature
• Report on policy accomplishments and conduct additional related tasks as needed
• Assist with research and grant-writing to secure additional funding for this position

Opportunities: The COEJL Washington Representative will gain experience in the following ways (and more!):

• Engage with the connection between Jewish values and environmental policy
• Build relationships with advocates in Jewish and interfaith networks, including the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Green Hevra Environmental Network and National Religious Partnership for the Environment
• Increased track-record of writing, outreach and social media/communications skills
• Make a difference in the broader Jewish community

Attributes Sought: Strong background and interest in environmental policy, particularly climate change and energy; applied understanding of Jewish public affairs; experience working on teams and with committees and lay-leaders; effective writing and interpersonal skills; skilled in Microsoft Office and social media programs and platforms; ability to work well under pressure, travel to New York on a regular basis and elsewhere as needed.

To Apply: The position will remain open until filled. Please write “D.C. Representative” in the subject line, and send a cover letter, resume, writing sample and three references to: Sybil Sanchez, Director at search@coejl.org.

Click here to view resources on Passover and Earth Day.

COEJL’s mission is to deepen and broaden the Jewish community’s commitment to stewardship and the protection of the Earth through outreach, activism and Jewish learning. Since 1993, COEJL has been an initiative at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), where it develops consensus positions on environmental issues for the organized American Jewish community. COEJL is also the Jewish member of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE), where it joins the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Evangelical Environmental Network in the sharing of best practices and on program and policy initiatives as appropriate.

Internship:

The intern will work for 10-20 hours per week and will focus on (but not be limited to) a few major projects for COEJL:

• Fundraising database project
• Populating COEJL’s website with new and previous material
• Updating COEJL’s online speakers bureau
• Various tasks:
  handling general inquiries, entering newsletter subscribers into the membership database, and preparing for JCPA green team meetings
• Staff and attend COEJL’s monthly board and committee meetings
• Attend meetings related to COEJL’s issues

Opportunities:

By participating in a COEJL internship, students have access to the following opportunities:

• Exposure to how a small non-profit works
• Entry into the Jewish and environmental sectors
• An opportunity to be published online
• A small team environment in a mid-sized organization working on broader public affairs issues in Jewish life

Skills:

Interns should have some basic knowledge and interest in the following areas: organizational and writing skills, Excel and database management, social media and website management (HTML and WordPress), and Jewish environmental issues.

To apply, please send a cover letter and resume to: Sarah Levinson, Assistant Director, COEJL, search at coejl.org.