Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on
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There are now more than 100 signers -- a minyan of minyanim of Rabbis, Cantors, and other Jewish spiritual leaders -- to the Rabbinic Call to Move Our Money to Protect Our Planet.
The names of the 25 Initiating Signers are below. The growing list of Continuing Signers is in the full story that appears after you click the "jump" marked "Read More."
Now we appeal to all members of the Jewish community to join in this effort. To do so, please click to: https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/petition/sign?sid=11&reset=1
For other essays on Jewish sources on these issues and for a How-to-Do-It Handbook on actually Moving Our Money, please see the Treasury link:
https://theshalomcenter.org/treasury/209
We -- Rabbis, Cantors, and other Jewish spiritual leaders --
call upon Jewish households, congregations, seminaries,
communal and denominational bodies, and other institutions:
Move Our Money to Protect Our Planet.
In the ancient tradition from Sinai, naaseh v’nishma: Let us act, and as we do let us listen and learn.
Let us act:
To Move Our Money and Protect Our Planet, we call on the Jewish community to:
- Move Our Money (household and congregational) away from purchasing oil and coal-based energy and moving instead, wherever possible, to buy energy from wind and solar sources.
- Move Our Money (household and congregational) away from savings and checking accounts in banks that are investing our money in Big Carbon, moving it instead to community banks and credit unions;
- Move Our Money (household, congregational, communal, and denominational) away from actual investments in the stocks and bonds of death-dealing Big Oil, Big Coal, and Big Unnatural Gas, and move it instead to investments in stable, profitable solar and wind-energy companies and in community-based enterprises that help those who suffer from asthma and other diseases caused by Big Carbon;
- Organize our congregants and members to insist that local and state governments similarly Move Our Money – often in large pension funds -- from investments in death to investments in life.
- Insist that Congress Move Our Money -- money we pay in taxes -- away from subsidies to Big Oil, Big Coal, and Big Unnatural Gas, and instead to supporting research, development, and production of life-giving renewable energy.
Let us learn:
We are a world people who still bear the wisdom of indigenous farmers and shepherds, meditators and sages, cooks and city planners:
- Our festivals dance with the rhythms of Earth, Moon, and Sun;
- Our Shabbat points the way toward a sustainable rhythm of work and rest;
- Our kashrut points the way toward sacred limits and practices in consuming not only food but other gifts of Mother Earth;
- Our long long history of resistance to the pharaohs that oppress human beings, lift up idols to worship, and bring plagues upon the Earth gives us a reservoir of commitment and clarity in political action.
And when as a world/indigenous people we join words and foods in the Pesach Seder, we find twin powerful passages of the Haggadah:
In every generation, some new versions of “pharaoh” arise to endanger us.
In every generation, we ourselves must act to win our freedom from destruction.
In our generation, these Pharaohs are global corporations of Big Carbon that are bringing the Plagues of climate crisis upon all life-forms on Planet Earth -- a crisis of a breadth and depth unprecedented in the history of the human species.
And in our generation, we can resist these new pharaohs by moving our money to places where it will serve life and heal our wounded Earth.
Moving from what is deadly to what is life-giving echoes the deepest transformation of our history: In the very process of freeing ourselves from Pharaoh, we learned to shape a new kind of society -- Beyond the Red Sea, we moved to Shabbat and Sinai.
Half a century ago, the American Jewish community joined with other religious communities to challenge racism, and together we were crucial in taking a great step toward healing America. Today the Holy One and the Earth need us again to join with other religious, spiritual, and ethical communities to make ourselves a crucial part of the movement to heal our planetary climate.
As Rabbi Akiba taught, facing the dangerous Caesars of his day: “Which is greater, study or action? Study, if it leads to action.” (Kiddushin 40b)
So we -- Rabbis, Cantors, other Jewish spiritual leaders, and students in these sacred callings -- not only join in this Call but also undertake a campaign to bring this life-giving vision of Torah into the hills and rivers, streets and forests, newspapers and videos, homes and campuses, neighborhoods and synagogues, of our generation.
By April 30, 2014, more than 70 Rabbis and other Jewish spiritual leaders have signed this Call. Now we appeal to all members of the Jewish community to join in this effort. To do so, please click to: https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/petition/sign?sid=11&reset=1Initiating Signers:
Rabbi Katy Allen
Rabbi Phyllis Berman
Spiritual Dir Barbara Breitman
Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin
Rabbi Howard Cohen
Rabbi Elliot Dorff
Rabbi Nancy Flam
Rabbi Everett Gendler
Rabbi Marc Gopin
Rabbi Arthur Green
Rabbi Lori Klein
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Rabbi Mordechai Liebling
Rabbi Jan Salzman
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Kohenet Holly Taya Shere
Rabbi Sidney Schwarz
Rabbi Gerry Serotta
Rabbi David Shneyer
Rabbi Ariana Silverman
Rabbi Ed Stafman
Rabbi Margot Stein
Rabbi Susan Talve
Rabbi Lawrence Troster
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg
Cantor Greg Yaroslow
Rabbi Shawn Zevit
___ Please add my name as a signer of this Call:
Sign online at https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/petition/sign?sid=11&reset=1
OR write: The Shalom Center, 6711 Lincoln Dr., Philadelphia PA 19119 office@theshalomcenter.org
(Title) & Name ________________________________________________________________________________
Address_________________________________________________________________________________________
Email ____________________________________________________________________
Phone ___________________________________________________________________
___ I’m enclosing a (tax-deductible) gift of __ $180; ___ $72 ; __ $36; : __ other $ ___
to The Shalom Center to strengthen this work of healing our wounded Mother Earth.
We’ve got trees and tigers in our hands,
We’ve got our sisters and our brothers in our hands,
We’ve got our children and their children in our hands,
WE’VE GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN OUR HANDS!
LIST FOLLOWS OF CONTINUING SIGNERS AMONG RABBIS & OTHER SPIRITUAL LEADERS:
Continuing Signers Among Rabbis & Other Spiritual Leaders:
Rabbi Douglas Alpert
Elsa Asher, Kohenet in training
Kohenet Ellice Barbarash
Cantor Kathy Barr
Rabbi David Dunn Bauer
Rabbi Birdie Becker
Rabbi James Bennett
Rabbi Marjorie Berman
Rabbi Leila Gal Berner
Rabbi Miriam Biatch
Rabbi Binyamin Biber
Hazzan Freyda Lynn Black
Kohenet Shoshana Bricklin
Rabbi Howard A Cohen
Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb
Rabbi Art Donsky
Rabbinical Student David Eber
Rabbi Judith Edelstein
Rabbi Diane Elliot
Rabbi Fern Feldman
Rabbi Gordon Fuller
Rabbi Jack Gabriel
Rabbi Ruth Gais
Kohenet Rinah Rachel Galper
Rabbi Elihu Gevirtz
Maggid Andrew Gold
Rabbi Dan Goldblatt
Rabbi Maralee Gordon
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb
Rabbi Nadya Gross
Rabbi Victor Gross
Rabbi Moshe Raphael Halfon
Rabbi Johanna Hershenson
Rabbi Yitzhak Husbands- Hankin
Rabbi Linda Holtzman
Rabbi Tmimah Ickovits
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb
Rabbi David Ingber
Rabbi Shaya Isenberg
Rabbi Burt Jacobson
Spiritual Director Shayndel Kahn
Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan
Rabbi Jonathan Keren-Black
Rabbi Stanley Kessler
Rabbi Jonathan Klein
Rabbi Lori Klein
Rabbi Melissa Klein
Kohenet Carly Ketzirah Lesser
Rabbi Eyal Levinson
Rabbi Yaakov Litman
Rabbi Marc Margolius
Kohenet Sheva Melmed
Rabbi David Mivasair
Rabbi Laura Owens
Rabbi Steven Peskin
Rabbi Linda Potemken
Cantor Steven Puzarne
Rabbi Joshua Ratner
Rabbi Yaakov Reef
Rabbi Victor Reinstein
Rabbinical Student Heena Reiter
Rabbi Jan Salzman
Kohenet Mei Mei Sanford
Rabbi Sunny Schnitzer
Rabbi Leslie Schotz
Kohenet Alumah Terri Schuster
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Rabbi Judith Seid
Rabbi David Seidenberg
Rabbi Toba Spitzer
Rabbi Ed Stafman
Rabbi Gershon Steinberg-Caudill
Rabbi Kaya Stern-Kaufman
Rabbi Frank Tamburello
Cantor Yosi Weintraub
Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub
Rabbinical Student Ora Weiss
Chaplain Sandra Wortzel
Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman
Rabbi Leonard Zoll