Rabbinic Call: Move Our Money to Protect Our Planet

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=1

Initiating 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

Universal: 

Jewish and Interfaith Topics: