With shofars, songs and Judaic nature wisdom, we joined 75 Jewish climate activists from all over LA at Senator Feinstein’s Los Angeles office, asking her to #HearTheCall in support of green jobs and transit justice in the Infrastructure Bill now in Congress.
In October 2021, we surveyed congregants regarding their recycling practices and concerns. On February 2, 2022, we presented a webinar by Kay McKeen, the Executive Director of Scarce, on what and what not to recycle. On March 13, 2022, we plan to collect small electronics and take them to appropriate recycling centers in DuPage County.
Members of the congregation were asked to participate in “reverse tashlich” between August 9 and September 19 (from Rosh Hodesh Elul to Erev Sukkot) by collecting litter in our local community at sites such as town parks, our neighborhoods and our shopping areas. A Religious School field trip was planned for September 19 for a Religious School class to participate in “reverse tashlich,” with a culminating event scheduled for the Religious School and GHC community at large the following week. Unfortunately, because of Religious School staffing shortages due to a last-minute teacher resignation, the Religious School field trip was canceled and the culminating event was indefinitely postponed.
Last year our congregation implemented "Seasonal Climate Action" programing for our congregants. It has been challenging keeping momentum going but we are proud of several events we held thus far. I will submit separate projects for each. On August 8th, 2021, Our Climate Action Team hosted a "Native Planting 101: Landscaping for a Changing Climate" program that took place on our synagogue property. Green Team member Heidi McCalla, together with Rabbi Davis, met to explore how to use native prairie plants to create lawns and gardens that are sustainable and adapt to changing climate conditions. The 15-20 participants learned why landscaping with native plants is better for the environment and how planting native prairie flowers and grasses can add beauty and bio-diversity to your yard. There were a variety of prairie plants available to see to implement in their own prairie landscaping and participants got to leave with one of their own! We received great feedback on this event.
A series of Vegan cooking videos made to inspire participation in "Meatless Mondays" for The Aquarian Minyan were produced and aired by Elly Malka. Link to the video archives of this series here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bf548d5zs81hlsi/AAD5Euqc9kBqF4CVI0FAHPEta?dl=0
Monthly Green Action/Dayenu Circle Meeting: In preparation for the #HearTheCall” Action in front of Senator Diane Feinstein's Los Angeles office on Aug 26th, we used Dayenu’s calling tool at https://dayenu.org/call right during our meeting; we all grabbed our phones and called Senator Feinstein and other representatives and said: "Hi, I’m [my name], I’m a constituent from Los Angeles, and I’m part of IKAR and Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action. I urge you to vote for a budget bill that invests in 100% clean electricity, creates millions of good green jobs, and directs 40% of funding to communities most affected by climate change. Thank you!”
Our green team leveraged the synagogue's annual summer BBQ to introduce the CBI Alliance for Sustainability and to implement our initial projects. We brought in composting bins and sorted all waste from the event into compostables, recyclables and regular trash. Overall, we were able to compost nearly 90% of the waste. We also ran a blind taste test of beef vs beyond meat.
Ohr Shalom has been sending out information about composting, recycling, and other green topics in a column in their monthly newsletter. This has been well received by the congregation. Some of the topics covered include: Ba'al tashchit says, "Do not waste/destroy." Magic Trash - Composting and Recycling at Ohr Shalom Sustainable Kiddush The Joy (?) of Composting
The theme of our annual Men's Club Shabbat was environmental sustainability. We were fortunate to have as a guest speaker Nigel Savage who gave the d'var torah on sustainability through a Jewish lens with a focus on Shmita. Nigel also ran a study session after the kiddush.
Two compost bins were constructed next to the temple parking lot, so that food waste can be composted.