Interfaith Subscribe

A selection of initiatives, blogs, resources and communities on Jewcology which focus on interfaith.

From the Blogs

AS I SEE IT: Ways to green the upcoming holidays

AS I SEE IT: Ways to green the upcoming holidays Originally posted in in the Princeton (NJ) Packet (http://bit.ly/sy6DlG) By Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins Dr. Dov Peretz Elkins is rabbi emeritus of The Jewish Center of Princeton and a member of Sustainable Princeton (www.SustainablePrinceton.org). His most recent book is “Simple Actions for Jews to Help Green the Planet", which can be purchased at http://bit.ly/uoUGDx. Why is a rabbi writing about Christmas? Hanukkah, sure . . . but Christmas! Answer: ...

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Here I Am: Responding to the Call in Creation

Some years ago I was leading an interfaith environmental spirituality retreat near Seattle. My co-leader and meditation teacher, Kurt Hoelting, asked us to do a “walking meditation” where we would mindfully walk. This meant that while we were walking (and we were not to try to direct where we were walking) we tried to be mindful of each step, focusing on the place where we put our foot down and trying to be in the present moment of each step. In practice, this kind of walking is much slower than regular walking but is wonderful to focus the mind on a sense ...

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Halfway Through the Food Stamp Challenge

I am at the halfway point of the one week Fighting Poverty with Faith Food Stamp Challenge. My personal challenge has been to spend the allotted $1.50/meal but with a twist: to eat organically. There is method to my madness. My understanding is that 46 million Americans live on Food Stamps to ‘supplement’ their nutritional needs. I imagine that many of these 15% of Americans live food insecure lives. This means that the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or the ability to acquire acceptable food in socially acceptable ways ...

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“This is our nation’s Yom Kippur moment.” Testimony to State Department against Keystone XL Pipeline

Joelle Novey, Director Greater Washington Interfaith Power & Light Friday October 7 Testimony to State Department Against Keystone XL Pipeline Through Greater Washington Interfaith Power & Light, hundreds of congregations of all religious traditions work together on energy and climate issues. I am submitting into the record today hundreds of comment cards from local churches and synagogues where good folks have concluded that the Keystone XL Pipeline would do great harm, and that their religious traditions call them to speak out. These cards ...

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“Is this the pipeline that is desired of us?” Talk to Rally Against Keystone XL Pipeline

Joelle Novey, Director Greater Washington Interfaith Power & Light Delivered to Sept 2 2011 Rally Against the Keystone XL Pipeline Behind the White House I speak this afternoon on behalf of hundreds of congregations in the DC area that are working to respond to climate change in their sacred communities. These congregations work together through an organization called Interfaith Power & Light. And I speak as one of dozens of religious people – priests and ministers and rabbis, Christians and Jews and Muslims and Unitarian Univer...

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Coming Together

Writing a blog post for Jewcology is usually a fairly fluid process for me. Throughout the month I generally collect different articles and compile thoughts in a document that I then go back to when I am trying to figure out what theme I want to address in my blog. This month was different. It did not occur to me until last week that the blog I was going to post had a deadline of September 11th. Sitting in the passenger seat of my car, with the Hudson River to my right and my wife listening to NPR which is playing personal stories of families who lost ...

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Environmental Stewardship Can Be A Bridge

It is hard to believe that the non-profit organization I helped build has been closed for over a year. When my friend and I decided to form Faiths United for Sustainable Energy, we did so because we were frustrated with the level of engagement by religious communities in the public discourse related to energy, climate, and other environmental issues. While I was brainstorming on what I wanted to discuss this week on Jewcology, I began to think about the power of interfaith work focused on environmental stewardship and eco-spirituality. I decided to use my blog this ...

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Bill McKibben Calls for Civil Disobedience Campaign in Washington DC in August 2011

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow Bill McKibben and several other leaders of the USand world-wide movement to prevent climate disaster have called for a wave of nonviolent civil disobedience at the White House gates between August 20 and Labor Day. The action will focus on convincing President Obama to withhold permits for the so-called ‘Keystone XLPipeline’ from Canada’s tar sands to flow to Texas refineries, thence to add enormously to planet-scorching CO2. Below you will find McKibben’s letter. More than 1100 people have ...

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UN Climate Summit

The Interfaith Declaration on Climate Change (www.interfaithdeclaration.org) is working to convene leading world religious leaders at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa in November, 2011. Invitees include the Pope, the Dalai Lama, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, and Jewish religious leaders. The presence of some of these religious leaders at the conference will encourage both religious adherents and political leaders to act on climate change. We plan to ...

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Emerging Leaders Project

The Emerging Religious Leaders Sustainability Project brings together Muslim, Christian, and Jewish seminary students from Israel and the West Bank for a series of ten interactive seminars on human coexistence and environmental sustainability. The seminars, spread out over six months and centered in Jerusalem, will focus on how we live on the land (environmental sustainability) and how we live together (human sustainability). The seminars will incorporate sources of profound wisdom and teaching concerning harmony and balance with nature that have arisen in several ...

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Interfaith Climate Change Forum in Jerusalem on July 25th

The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development Cordially Invites You To an Interfaith Climate Change Forum on the topic How Can Religions Address the Climate Crisis? with the Honorable Panelists: His Beatitude Fouad Twal, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Haj Salah Zuheika, Deputy Minister of the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Religious Affairs Rabbi David Rosen, AJC International Director of Interreligious Affairs All of Whom are Members of The Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land The American Colony ...

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Sharing God’s Green Earth: Planting a Green World by Engaging the Greater Community

NEW YORK (Dec. 23, 2010) — On the eve of the eve of the most widely celebrated Jewish baby’s birthday ever, a holy day for billions of Christians around the world, it’s important to remember that we Jews only make up about two tenths of one percent of the world’s population. So if we’re going to green the world, we can’t do it alone. We need to engage with our brothers and sisters of all faiths. In Israel, that means that we need to work with Christians and Muslims, both within Israel and in Israel’s neighboring lands as ...

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