Jews and Care of the Environment
At a recent Jewish Leaders’ Conference, we signed up to be in discharge groups on areas in which we were (or wanted to be) taking leadership—for example, “mental health” liberation, young adult liberation, LGBTQ1 liberation. We were asked to select our first-, second-, and third-choice groups.
On Saturday morning, Cherie2 shared with us that not one of us hundred and forty Jewish leaders had made care of the environment our first choice. She invited us to consider that as a people who have survived genocide and have always had to be ready to leave any land we live on (at least in our distress recordings), we may not be able to work to save the land because we haven’t decided that we belong there. And she gave us this direction to take to sessions: “I would make care of the environment my primary commitment, except ___________.”
I found it helpful to work there and be really honest about whatever came up. I’m a mixed-race Jew of the global majority, and I discharged a lot about racism. I’d love to hear how that direction has worked for others of you!
Los Angeles, California, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of Jews
(Present Time 182, January 2016)
1 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer
2 Cherie Brown, the International Liberation Reference Person for Jews, and the leader of the workshop