judaism essay introduction

Judaism, an introduction

Judaism is a monotheistic religion that emerged with the Israelites in the Eastern Mediterranean (Southern Levant) within the context of the Mesopotamian river valley civilizations . The Israelites were but one nomadic tribe from the area, so named because they considered themselves to be the descendants of Jacob, who changed his name to Israel.

The Levant (underlying map © Google)

Judaism stems from a collection of stories that explain the origins of the “children of Israel” and the laws that their deity commanded of them. The stories explain how the Israelites came to settle, construct a Temple for their one God, and eventually establish a monarchy—as divinely instructed—in the ancient Land of Israel. Over centuries, the Israelites’ literature, history, and laws were compiled and edited into a series of texts, now often referred to as the Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh ). Although the Hebrew Bible was compiled by the end of the first (or possibly second) century C.E., many of the stories it contains may be much older. The Hebrew Bible contains three major sections: the Torah (Five Books of Moses) the Prophets, and the Writings.

Hebrew Bible, Italy, 13th century, decorated opening to the Book of Isaiah, Harley 5711, f.1r. ( The British Library )

An oral tradition emerged alongside the written Bible. Sometimes called the “Oral Torah,” the Mishnah is a minimalistic set of debates attributed to the great religious scholars, or Rabbis, transcribed and published in the second century C.E. The Rabbis’ intellectual descendants recorded and expounded upon the Mishnah in a series of writings called the Gemara and later generations compiled the Mishnah and Gemara into the Talmud.

Relief depicting a triumphal procession into Rome with loot from the temple, including the menorah, panel in the passageway, Arch of Titus , Rome, c. 81 C.E., marble, 6’–7” high (photo: Jebulon , CC0 1.0)

While the Hebrew Bible is Judaism’s most sacred text, many of the laws it delineates concern the practice of Temple sacrifice and priestly behavior. But when the Roman Emperor Titus sacked Jerusalem in response to a revolt of the Israelites in 70 C.E., his armies demolished the Temple of Jerusalem and brought the spoils back to Rome (an event recorded in a relief on the Arch of Titus in Rome, see image above). The loss of the Temple resulted in the end of ritual sacrifice and the priesthood; Judaism became a religion based on the interpretive discussions and practices that were eventually compiled into the Talmud. Sometimes, Judaism is referred to as “rabbinic Judaism,” since centuries of rabbinic interpretation, rather than the Bible, informs Jewish practice.

Judaism and time

Jewish law, called Halakhah , having been interpreted and re-interpreted over millennia, has changed over time. Even so, religious Judaism operates cyclically, and the linear way that modern historians view history does not correspond to this worldview. As historian Yosef Yerushalmi explained, the Rabbis “seem to play with time as though with an accordion, expanding and collapsing it at will.”[1] Major holidays, such as the weekly Sabbath or the annual Jewish New Year, provide a rhythm in order to structure a distinction between the sacred and the mundane. Other festivals rehearse ancient events, connecting modern Jews to the ancient Israelites. For instance, they mark the reception of the Torah at Mt. Sinai, the exodus from Egypt , the fall harvests, and the Maccabee victory over the Hellenistic Persian kingdom.

Isidor Kaufmann, Friday Evening , c. 1920, oil on canvas, 72.7 × 91.1 cm ( The Jewish Museum , New York)

A collection of essays about Jewish cultures around the world opens with the phrase, “culture is the practice of everyday life.”[2] Judaism is a way of life that honors the cycle of days, weeks, months, years, and lives.  Shabbat, the Sabbath, serves as the ultimate reminder of the Jewish cycle of time. Based on the idea that on the seventh day of Creation God rested, Shabbat is a marker of sacred time. Religious Jews refrain from all types of work on the Sabbath, and spend the day with their families and communities, praying, listening as a portion of the Torah is chanted (readings are determined by a fixed schedule), and eating luxurious meals. A great twentieth-century rabbi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, described the Sabbath as “a cathedral in time.”

The debate continues

Despite the authority of the rabbinic voice in the Talmud, Judaism is non-hierarchical. There is not—nor has there ever been—a single authority; the religion is embodied by a collection of learned voices, which often disagree. We tend to conceive of Judaism as an ancient religion—based out of the Levant where God gave the Israelites the Torah. But an essential piece of the religious tradition was the fact that rabbinical scholars continued to debate, discuss, and re-conceive ancient laws.

Torah Case, Iraq, 19th–early 20th century, silver overlaid on wood, with coral set cresting ( The Jewish Museum , London)

Ancient tribal divisions, as well as later sectarian movements, including early Christianity , set a precedent for Jewish cultural diversity. But the religion is unified under the umbrella of the library of sacred texts, beginning with the Hebrew Bible, through the Talmud, and on to various ritual prayer books and mystical tracts. Judaism the religion, however, is distinct from the Jewish people. While it is clear that not all Jews practice Judaism, all those who practice Judaism consider themselves Jews. In other words, there are Jews without Judaism, but there can be no Judaism without Jews.

While the library and calendar unite Jews across the world, there are deep cultural and political divides. Jewish foods, music, literature, language, and interpretive practices vary immensely depending on a community’s ancestry. American Judaism, for example, is divided into movements, or denominations, much like American Christianity. These denominations have committees of rabbis who vote to determine the philosophy and types of observance their communities will uphold. But internal disputes are not only a standard feature of the denominations, they are part of the longstanding tradition of Jewish debate.

[1] Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (New York: Schocken Books, 1989).

[2] David Biale, Cultures of the Jews: A New History (Schocken, 2002).

Bibliography

Anatomy of a Talmudic page (BBC)

David Biale, ed. Cultures of the Jews: A New History ( New York: Schocken, 2006).

Nicholas De Lange, An Introduction to Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

John Efron, et al. The Jews: A History (Upper Saddle River NJ: Prentice Hall, 2008).

Abraham Joshua Heschel,  The Sabbath (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1951).

Barry W. Holtz, ed. Back to the Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Texts (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1984).

Robert Seltzer,  Jewish People, Jewish Thought  (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1980).

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (New York:Schocken Books, 1989).

Opening up the Hebrew Manuscript Collection at The British Museum

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Introduction to Judaism

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Judaism Essay: Summary of Judaism, Its Origin and History

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Introduction

Summary of judaism history, works cited.

Judaism is the religious practices and beliefs and the way of life of the Jews. It began as a religious conviction of the diminutive nation of the Hebrews. The followers of the religion have through the thousands of years since its inception been persecuted, dispersed and faced intense suffering physically and psychologically (Lynch1).

Occasionally, the religion has experienced victory. It continues to have intense influence on culture and religion. In the world today, the religion has a following of more than 14 million people (Judaism1). They identify themselves as Jewish. Contemporary Judaism is a complex occurrence that involves both religion and a nation.

The history is written in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). The first five books of the Bible describe the emergence of Jews. There is the description of the choice of God on Jews to be the living example for other humans to emulate.

The Hebrew Bible explains how the relationship between Jews and God worked. God chose Abraham be the father figure of a populace that would be unique to God. They would be a mark and symbol of holiness and good behavior to the entire world (BBC1). History asserts that the Jewish people were guided by God through many challenges and troubles.

During the time of Moses, God gave the Jewish people life guidelines that they should live with. These included the Ten Commandments. This was the period which the Judaism emerged as a structure religion. Under the guidance of God, the Jews turned into powerful communities with renowned kings such as Solomon, David and Saul (BBC 1).

The construction of the first great temple by Solomon made the Jews to focus the worship of God in the temple. The temple housed the Ark of the Covenant. It was the only place where rituals would be carried out. In 920 BCE, the Jewish kingdom disintegrated and the people tore into small groups. Many Jews were exiled into Babylon.

This was the beginning of the Jewish culture in the Diaspora. Majority of the Jews in exile opted not to return to Israel. The next 300 years that followed were marked by gradual and steady growth in Jewish strength and number. Their land was in the mean time being governed by foreign authorities. The teachers and scribes who emerged during this period helped the population to interpret and explain the Bible.

The Jews from then were able to freely practice their faith. In 175 BCE, there was a Jewish revolt against the Syrian King who implemented a number of rules that sought to completely wipe out Judaism. He dishonored the temple and wanted the population to worship Zeus. The temple was eventually restored after the revolt which is celebrated by Jews in the Hanukah festival.

The Romans took advantage of the weakening of the Jewish kingdom due to internal splitting up and established their rule. This was followed by years of oppression and taxation by Roman rules who despised Judaism. The Sadducees became allies of the Roman rulers subsequently loosing the support and faith of the Jews. The people opted to have Pharisees as their teachers (BBC1).

The Catholic encyclopedia suggests that Judaism was the original of a variety of religions including Islam and Christianity (Judaism 1). The Jewish people established settlements in Arabia before the birth of Mohammed. They commanded considerable influence on the Arabian citizenry. At one point in South Arabia, the Jews had an Arab-Jewish empire which was eventually terminated by a king of Abyssinia in 530.

The Jews lost the royal estate but remained considerably powerful in the northern Yemen. In Mecca, there was a small Jewish population. Mohammed interacted with the Jews and became acquitted with the religion. When he fled to Medina, the acquaintance became and more established as the location was populated by Arabian Jews.

Abraham was the first Jew according to religious Jews. He was the first to preach monotheism and despised idolatry. As a reward, he was promised to have many children by God. This promise fulfillment came in the form of Isaac. Isaac carried on Abraham’s work and inherited Canaan. Isaac’s son, Jacob, was sent to Egypt by God together with his children. They were eventually enslaved by Egyptians. Moses was subsequently sent to Egypt to redeem the Jews from slavery.

This period was tempting to Moses who eventually gave the Torah to the Jews. He managed to take the people to Israel after many years in the jungle. Torah is the Hebrew translation of instruction or teaching particularly law. It refers to the first five books of the Old Testament. On a larger scale, Torah is used by Jews to refer the broad range of commanding Jewish religious wisdom in history (Space and motion 1).

In view of the first five books of the Bible, many ideas and concepts are expressed in form of stories as opposed to being listed as laws. The book of Deuteronomy is reiteration of the previously mentioned laws in the first four books. Most of the laws that govern Judaism are got from textual clues because they are not mentioned straightforwardly in the Torah. The Torah is the fundamental document of the Jewish religion. In a principled framework, it is the basis of all the biblical commandments.

The period covering 1000 CE saw Jews establish themselves in Spain. They co-existed happily with the Islamic rulers. They developed a thriving study of Hebrew literature, science and the Talmud. There was severally the attempt to convert all the Judaism followers to Islam.

When all this failed, the millennium that followed saw the increased operations of military by Christian states to recapture the holy land. In German, the Christian armies attacked Jewish communities. They succeeded in capturing Jerusalem where thousands were slaughtered and many other enslaved. The victims included Muslims and Jews. Jews were banned from entering the city just like Romans had previously done. In the meantime, the Jewish population was increasing in Britain. They enjoyed the protection by Henry I.

The Babylonian exile presented new ideas to Jews. It is during this period that the notions of particular angels arose. Evil was personified as Satan. The idea of resurrection from the dead emerged (Neusner2). Alexander the Great played a significant role in entrenching the idea of immortality of the soul.

The level of Hellenization brought about conflict within the Jewish community. The Maccabees revolted against the Syrian Seleucid rulers. There was extensive martyrdom that increased the momentum to the notion of collective resurrection of the deceased. The soul was perceived to be immortal. They formulated the belief that while the physical body awaited resurrection, the soul existed in another realm (Seltzer6).

Life conditions deteriorated and apocalyptic beliefs increased. Messianic kingdom and national catastrophe were considered imminent. As time passed, Rabbanic Jews completed the process of replacing the Temple with the Synagogue. The Rabbanical Judaism arose from the Pharasiac movement as a response to the destruction of the Second Temple (Smith 1).

This was in a move to codify and redact oral law. The Rabbis wanted to interpret the practices and concepts of Judaism in the absence of the Temple and the people being in exile. It dominated the Jewish religion close to 18 centuries. In the process, it developed the Midrash, the Talmud and the great icons of the medieval philosophies.

In 1492, Jews were expelled from Spain which led to Sephardic influence of South France, North Italy and the Levant. There was the Berber invasion and anti-Jewish incidents became common in Europe (BBC1). Jews had been forced to take up Christianity. However, they continued to secretly practice their religion. Eventually, majority emigrated and returned to the Jewish fold. The 18 th century remained largely turbulent with hardening of the Jews as a reaction to philosophical liberalism and Sabbatianism.

The first five books of the Bible describe the emergence of Jews. Under the guidance of God, the Jews turned into powerful communities with renowned kings such as Solomon, David and Saul. The emergence of Judaism in the Diaspora was as result of being exiled. Alexander the Great played a significant role in entrenching the idea of immortality of the soul.

There was extensive martyrdom that increased the momentum to the notion of collective resurrection of the deceased.Contemporary Judaism was split by the law (halakal) in the 19 th century. Orthodox Jews maintain the traditional practice while Reform Jews only uphold rituals that they believe will God-oriented, Jewish life.

The attempt to define the essence of Judaism is a process that has existed for ages. At anyone point, there is intense emphasis on one aspect of the three major concepts of the Jewish religion (God, Israel, Torah).

BBC. “ Judaism at a glance ”. Web.

Lynch, Damon. “ Judaism. There we sat down ”. 1972. Web.

Smith, Huston. “ Judaism: Religion facts ”. Web.

Seltzer, Robert. Jewish people, Jewish thought: the Jewish experience in history. London, UK: Macmillan, 1980.

Spaceandmotion. “ Theology: Judaism.History and Main Beliefs of Jewish Religion / the Jews ”. Web.

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Introduction to Judaism

Judaism is a monotheistic religion, believing in one god. It is not a racial group. Individuals may also associate or identify with Judaism primarily through ethnic or cultural characteristics. Jewish communities may differ in belief, practice, politics, geography, language, and autonomy.  Learn more about the practices and beliefs of Judaism.

Jews have lived in many different countries around the world through the centuries.

Major events in the history of Judaism include the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Holocaust, and the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.

Judaism in the 21st century is very diverse, ranging from very Orthodox to more modern denominations.  

Jewish Life and Religious Practices

There is a wide variety of acceptance and observance of the following practices by denominations and individual Jews.

Jewish life is guided by its annual and life cycle calendars. The annual calendar is a lunar calendar with approximately 354 days in one year on a 12-month cycle, with an extra month (Adar II) added occasionally to compensate for the difference between the lunar and solar calendars.

A page from the Mishneh Torah, one of many texts reprinted in Shanghai during the war. Yeshiva students spent part of each day listening to teachers lecture on the Talmud, the collection of ancient Rabbinic writings and commentaries composed of the Mishnah and the Gemara that form the basis of religious authority in Judaism. During the rest of the day, students paired up to review selections from the lecture. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]

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The Sabbath has been a cornerstone of Israelite religious practice from earliest times and is frequently mentioned in the Torah. The other holidays mentioned in the Torah include the Jewish New Year ( Rosh ha-Shanah ), the Day of Atonement ( Yom Kippur ), and the three festivals on which pilgrimages were made to the Temple in Jerusalem: Passover or Pesach (marking the Exodus from Egypt), Shavuot (marking the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai) and Sukkot (the feast of tabernacles, a harvest holiday). The minor holidays of Hanukkah , Purim , and Tisha B’Av were added later to commemorate events in post-biblical Jewish history. Yom ha-Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) and Yom ha-Atzma’ut (Israel Independence Day) are 20 th century additions to the Jewish holiday calendar.

An interior view of the Sephardic synagogue on Luetzowstrasse. Berlin, Germany, before November 1938.

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The weekly observance of the Sabbath, commencing on Friday evening at sundown and concluding 25 hours later, is a cornerstone of Jewish religious practice. The Sabbath is a time for slowing down, spending time with friends and family and at synagogue, and disconnecting from the daily demands on our time.

The Torah is read ritually in synagogue three times a week, on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, following a yearly cycle through the entirety (or a third, depending on community) of the Five Books of Moses. Additionally, on holidays, special sections are read in synagogue that tie to the themes or origin story of the holiday being observed.

Jewish prayer services are conducted in the Hebrew language in the more traditional denominations of Judaism, and include varied levels of English (or the native language of the community’s Jews) in denominations such as Reform, Reconstructionist and Renewal. A rabbi can lead services but is not required. On weekdays, daily prayers are recited three times—morning, afternoon, and evening—with a fourth prayer service added on the Sabbath and holidays. While many prayers can be recited individually, certain prayers and activities, such as the reading of the Torah, the mourner’s prayer (the kaddish ), require a minyan or quorum of ten Jewish adults. As with the distinctions regarding English in the prayer service, some traditional denominations only count male adults in a minyan , while others count all adults.

Other central aspects of Jewish ritual observance include the dietary laws (laws of kashrut ) which forbid consumption of certain foods (like pork or shellfish), prohibit the mixing of milk and meat, and prescribe special rules for the slaughter of meat and poultry. Denominations and individual Jews may or may not follow these dietary laws strictly.

Major life-cycle events in Jewish tradition include the brit milah (ritual circumcision on the eighth day of a Jewish boy’s life), Bnai Mitzvah (a ceremony marking the passage from childhood to adulthood, at 12 years for a girl and 13 for a boy), marriage, and death.

Following the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, the synagogue (derived from a Greek word meaning “assembly”), or Jewish prayer and study house, became the focal point of Jewish life. The role of the priesthood, so central to the Temple service, diminished, and the rabbi (literally, “my master”), or scholar versed in Jewish law, rose to a position of prominence in the community.

After the Holocaust

Before the Nazi takeover of power in 1933, Europe had a vibrant and mature Jewish culture.

Jews have lived in Europe for more than two thousand years. The American Jewish Yearbook placed the total Jewish population of Europe at about 9.5 million in 1933. This number represented more than 60 percent of the world's Jewish population, which was estimated at 15.3 million. Most European Jews resided in eastern Europe, with about 5 1/2 million Jews living in Poland and the Soviet Union. Before the Nazi takeover of power in 1933, Europe had a dynamic and highly developed Jewish culture. In little more than a decade, most of Europe would be conquered, occupied, or annexed by Nazi Germany and most European Jews— two out of every three —would be dead.

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By 1945, after the Holocaust , most European Jews—two out of every three—had been killed. Most of the surviving remnant of European Jewry decided to leave Europe. Hundreds of thousands established new lives in Israel , the United States , Canada, Australia, Great Britain, South America, and South Africa.

As of 2016, there were approximately 15 million Jews around the world. About 85% of world Jewry lives in Israel or the United States.

Critical Thinking Questions

• Investigate the wide range of observances and traditions in the Jewish communities before, during, and after the Holocaust.
• Learn about the history of the Jewish community in your country.

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Judaism: A Very Short Introduction (1st edn)

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Judaism: A Very Short Introduction outlines the basics of practical Judaism — its festivals, prayers, customs, and various sects. Modern concerns and debates of the Jewish people include the impact of the Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, the status of women, and medical and commercial ethics. Judaism is best understood as Judaism itself, from within rather than from a Christian perspective or through strictly Western eyes. Who are the Jews? How old is Judaism? What does the term ‘Jewish’ mean? How has Judaism developed? How will Judaism change in the future?

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Home — Essay Samples — Religion — Judaism — Summary of Judaism: Origin, History, and Major Beliefs

Summary of Judaism: Origin, History, and Major Beliefs

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Published: Jan 31, 2024

Words: 685 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, origins of judaism, history of judaism, major beliefs and practices in judaism.

• "Judaism 101." JewFAQ.org, www.jewfaq.org/index.shtml. Accessed 22 Sept. 2021.
• "A Brief History of Judaism." Jewish Virtual Library, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/a-brief-history-of-judaism. Accessed 22 Sept. 2021.
• "Judaism." BBC Religion & Ethics, 27 Jul. 2011, www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/. Accessed 22 Sept. 2021.

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Despite the difference in doctrines, the Jews, Christians, and Muslims have, in one way or another, related in accordance to their faith and beliefs. The three monotheistic religions are known for their high regard for their [...]

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Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are considered as the oldest monotheistic religions of the world being practiced today. Geographically speaking all these religions originated from what is today called, the Arab world. Abraham, [...]

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What is Jewish literacy? What does it mean to be Jewishly literate? Who is an educated Jew?

Paula Hyman, professor of modern Jewish history at Yale University, wrote in an issue of Sh’ma, “There has been no consensus on the issue of ‘Who is an educated Jew?’ for more than 200 years.”

Clearly, our definitions have changed over the centuries. But where are we today? What must we know to function as literate Jews?

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, in his introduction to “Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History,” observes, “At a time when Jewish life in the United States is flourishing, Jewish ignorance is, too.”

He goes on to say that while large numbers of Jews of all ages are seeking Jewish involvement, in many cases, they are secretly “Jewishly illiterate.”

Modern Jews, Telushkin writes, are either vaguely familiar with or completely unaware of the most basic terms and significant facts about Jewish life and Jewish history.

The traditional definition of literacy is the ability to use language – to read, write, listen and speak. In modern contexts, the word means reading and writing on a level adequate for written communication and generally a level that enables one to successfully function at certain levels of a society.

For our purpose, the phrase “successfully function at certain levels of a society” is where we must begin. What do we need to know to function in or create a Jewish home, to function in the synagogue, to function in Jewish communal life and to function in the world as a knowledgeable Jew? What should we know, feel and be able to do to be considered a literate Jew?

Jewish educators wrestle with these questions on a regular basis. Whether working in a congregation, in a day school or in a graduate program in Jewish education, the questions are the same, although the answers may vary greatly from setting to setting.

Let’s begin with some basic categories: God, Torah, Jewish nation, Israel, holidays, life cycle and deeds. These categories, once briefly explored, will form the basis on which most Jewish learning, leading to Jewish literacy, is built.

Judaism places great emphasis on caring for one another and the world around us. Jewish literacy requires that we be able to function successfully as knowledgeable Jews. If we accept that Jewish study is a lifelong pursuit, we will learn what we should know, feel and be able to do at each stage of our lives.

Jo Kay is director of education of the School of Education at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City and vice president of educational resources for the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education.

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Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology

Overview Essay

See also Hava Tirosh-Samuelson's article on Judaism from the Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Arizona State University

Any generalization about Judaism and ecology should take into consideration the ambiguity of the term “Judaism” and the fact that the Jewish experience encompasses both religious and secular forms.  Indeed, the various conceptualizations of “nature” or “environment” illustrate the complexity of the modern Jewish experience.  Thus the contribution of Jews to environmentalism is more extensive and the impact of environmentalism on contemporary Judaism is more profound than is commonly acknowledged.  In Israel and in the diaspora the ecological crisis has generated many Jewish responses as Jewish theologians, scholars, educators and activists have subjected the entire Jewish tradition to rigorous reinterpretation, identified relevant literary sources, distilled the ecological insights of the tradition, articulated new ecological theologies, and spelled out policies and educational programs (Tirosh-Samuelson 2002a; 2005; 2006). 

Judaism and Ecology: Ambiguities and Possibilities

As the oldest of the Western monotheistic religions, Judaism is indispensable to the discourse on religious and ecology (Bauman, Bohannon and O’Brien 2010; Grim and Tucker 2014), but Judaism also occupies an ambiguous position in this discourse.  To begin, Judaism problematizes a generic definition of “religion.”  Although Judaism had articulated the concepts that framed the western religious vocabulary (e.g., creation, revelation, covenant, prophecy, Scripture, redemption, and messiah), Judaism differs from other traditions because it is a religion of one group of people—the Jews.  Thus Jewishness consists not only of beliefs, rituals, norms and practices that cohere into a way of life, but also a collective identity, be it ethnic or national.  In the modern period, however, processes of secularization have problematized Jewish existence, giving rise to secular Jews, namely born Jews who do not live by the strictures of the Jewish religious tradition.  Interestingly, secular (i.e., non-observant) Jews have been at the forefront of the environmental movement, a point that has received little recognition. 

For example, Barry Commoner, the Jewish ecologist and who led the campaign for nuclear disarmament made environmentalism into a political cause (Commoner, 1971). Murray Bookchin, another son of East-European Jewish immigrants in America, articulated Social Ecology, insisting that human responsibility toward nature could be carried out only if humans first eliminate social exploitation, domination and hierarchy by developing communitarianism (Bookchin 1990; Biel 1997; Light 1998). Peter Singer, the son of Jewish refugees from Austria who settled in Australia, theorized the Animal Liberation  movement, arguing that humans have an obligation to serve the interests or at least to protect the lives of all animals who suffer or are killed, whether on the farm or in the wild (Singer 1975[1990]).  Hans Jonas, the German-Jewish philosopher and student of Heidegger, is regarded as the “father” of the European Green movement because he applied the “imperative of responsibility” to the environment criticizing modern technology (Jonas 1984).   Starhawk (aka Miriam Simos), an American Jewish feminist, environmentalist and peace activist, has promoted the Goddess religion, giving rise to Earth-based feminist spirituality (Starhawk 1995; Salomonsen 2002).  Finally, David Abram is an American eco-phenomenologist who coined the term “the more-than-human world” to signify the broad commonwealth of earthy life which both includes and exceeds human culture (Abram 1996; 2010).  These are all born Jews who have profoundly shaped the theory and practice of contemporary environmentalism, but without appealing to Judaism as an authoritative tradition.  In some cases, their ideas reflect the secularization of traditional Jewish ideas and beliefs, and more often their environmentalist vision either substitutes for a commitment to Judaism or directly critiqued Judaism for its presumed limitations or failures.

In the context of the discourse on religion and ecology Judaism is ambiguous for yet another reason: the Bible, the foundation document of Judaism, was accused of being the very cause of ecological crisis (White 1967).  Lynn White Jr., the medieval historian, was the first to charge that the Bible commanded humanity to rule the Earth (Gen. 1:28), giving human beings the license to exploit the Earth’s resources for their own benefit.  A lay Presbyterian, White intended the charge as prophetic self-criticism that will generate self-examination (Santmire 1984), and indeed he was exceedingly successful: his short essay compelled Jews and Christians to examine the Bible anew in light of the ecological crisis.  Is the Bible and “inconvenient text” (Habel 2009) or is the Bible a text whose ecological wisdom has been ignored or misinterpreted? Does the Bible authorize human domination and exploitation of the Earth or rather does the Bible set clear limits on human interaction with the non-human world and commands humans to care responsibly for the Earth and all its non-human inhabitants? Since 1970 Jewish religious environmentalists have examined the Bible in light of the ecological crisis whether to defend the Bible against various (Christian) misreadings (e.g., Cohen 1989), identify a distinctive ecological sensibility (Kay 1988 [2001]; Artson 1991-92 [2001]; Bernstein and Fink 1992; Bernstein 2000; 2005; Benstein 2006; Troster 2008), or articulate Jewish environmental ethics of responsibility (E. Schwartz 1997 [2001]); Waskow 2000; Troster 1991-92 [2001]).  For the past four decades the close study of the Bible has made clear that the Jewish sacred text espouses deep concern for the well-being of the Earth and all its inhabitants, because it asserts that “the Earth belongs to God” (Ps. 24:1) and humans are but temporary care takers, or stewards, of God’s Earth; their task is “to till and protect” the Earth (Gen. 2:15) not as controlling managers but as loving gardeners (Tirosh-Samuelson 2017). 

A third source of ambiguity is the fact that in Judaism ecological wisdom is found not in the natural order itself but in divinely revealed commands that instruct humans how to treat the Earth and its inhabitants.  Scripture declares that the world God had created is “very good” (Gen. 1: 31) but it is neither perfect nor intrinsically holy.  Only human beings, who are created “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:28), are able to perfect the world by acting in accordance with divine command.  At Sinai God revealed His Will to the Chosen People, Israel, by giving them the Torah (literally, “instruction) which specifies how Israel is to conduct itself in all aspects of life, including conduct toward the physical environment.  In the Judaic sacred myth, divine revelation establishes the eternal covenant between God and Israel, an unconditional contract whose collateral is the Land of Israel.  As long as Israel observes the Will of God, the Land of Israel is fertile and fecund and Israel flourishes, but when Israel sins, the Land loses its fertility and the people suffer (Deut. 6:10-15).  When the sins become egregious, God punishes Israel by exiling the people from the Land.  In this manner the Bible set up the causal connection between religious morality and the wellbeing of the environment. 

Biblical law spells how Israel is to treat the Earth, vegetation and animals.  Viewing Israel as God’s tenant-farmers, Scripture commands that a portion of the land’s yield be returned to its rightful owner, God (Leviticus 19:23). Since creation was an act of separation, Scripture prohibits mixing of plants, fruit trees, fish, birds, and land animals thereby protecting biodiversity (Deut. 22: 9-11).  The human being is indeed given responsible authority over other animals and is allowed to consume animals, but human consumption of animals is presented as divine concession to human craving, suggesting that vegetarianism is the ideal (R. Schwartz  2001) and radically limiting what humans are allowed to consume.  Scriptural legislation is also attentive to the perpetuation of species by prohibiting the killing of the mother hen with her off-springs (Deut. 22:6) or the cutting of fruit-bearing trees in time of siege (Deut. 20:19).  Compassion to domestic animals is evident in the prohibition on the yoking together of animals of uneven strength and is praised as a desired virtue.  Since Scripture allows for human sacrifice of animals, the relationship between humans and animals exhibits inequality, but “this inequality is relative not absolute … because it is based on an analogy: as God is to Israel, so is Israel to its flocks and herds” (Klawans 2006, 74).  Most importantly, the Bible commands rest on the Sabbath for humans and domestic animals putting “moral limits to economic exchange and commercial exploitation” (Sacks 2012, 169).  Extending the Sabbath to the land, the laws of the Sabbatical year ( shemitah ) protects the socially marginal (i.e., the poor, the hungry, the widow, and the orphan) by making sure that crops that grow untended are to be left ownerless for all to share including poor people and animals.  In the Bible the allocation of nature’s resources is a religious issue of the highest order and social justice is eco-justice. Divinely revealed environmental legislation enables Israel to sanctify itself and the Land of Israel.

In the Second Temple period (516 BCE-70 CE) the Bible became the canonic Scripture of the Jews, shaping the life of the People of Israel in the Land of Israel and in the diaspora.  With the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, Jewish political sovereignty in the Land of Israel came to an end, but Jewish religious and legal autonomy remained intact under the leadership of small scholarly elite, the rabbis.  Seeking to fathom the meaning of the divinely revealed Torah, the rabbis expanded biblical legislation through creative exegesis, giving their interpretations the status of Oral Torah which became normative Judaism. For example, from Deuteronomy 22:19 the rabbis derived the principle “Do not Destroy” ( bal tashchit ) which prohibits wanton destruction, a precept that defines the unique Jewish contribution to environmentalism: Judaism focuses on the duties of humans toward nature as opposed to the intrinsic or inherent rights of nature (Schwartz 1997 [2001])).  Similarly, on the basis of Deut. 22:6 the rabbis articulated the general principle of tza`ar ba`aley hayyim prohibits the affliction of needless suffering of animals.  Although rabbinic ethics is undoubtedly hierarchical and human centered, for example, cruelty to animals is forbidden because it leads to cruelty toward humans (Kalechowsky 1992; 2006; R. Schwartz 2012; ), the rabbis often presented animals as moral exemplars and recognized special animals as “animals of the righteous,” who live in perfect harmony with their Creator (Rosenberg, 2002). 

While the rabbis praised virtues that can be conducive to creation care, rabbinic Judaism also generated a certain distance between Jews and the natural world, which is the fourth source of ambiguity.  Because the rabbis regarded Torah study to be the ultimate commandment, equal in value to all the other commandments combined, the Torah itself (both Written and Oral) became the prism through which Jews experienced the natural world.  From the second century onward rabbinic Judaism has evolved as a textual, scholastic culture that privileges the study of sacred texts at the expense of interest in the natural world for its own sake.  The urbanization of Roman Palestine in the 3 rd and 4 th centuries, the Jewish transition from agriculture to commerce and trade in the early centuries of Islam and the limits on Jewish ownership of land in the Christian West exacerbated the departure of Jews from agriculture and the emergence of Jewish culture as a text-based community.  This is not to say that Jews were oblivious to their physical surroundings, but that pre-modern Jews interacted with the natural world through textual exegesis.  Thus rationalist Jewish philosophers in Spain and Italy sought to fathom how the laws of nature (as understood by Aristotle) reflect the inner esoteric structure of Torah; Pietists in Germany regarded nature as a secret code that could be decoded by the use of secret magical, verbal, and numerical formulas; and kabbalists in Spain saw nature as a symbolic text that mirrors the structure of the Godhead (Shyovitz 2017).  All three intellectual strands of pre-modern Judaism treated nature as a linguistic text that has to be interpreted rather than a physical reality that can be sensually experienced by embodied humans (Tirosh-Samuelson 2002; 2011a).     

The centrality of sacred texts in Jewish life was critiqued in the modern period first by the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) and later by Zionism.  For the proponents of the Jewish Enlightenment ( maskilim ), knowledge of physical nature was necessary for the modernization of the Jews and their entry into European society and culture.  In their journals, novels, and satires, the maskilim presented knowledge about the natural world as conditional to the healing of Jews from excessive bookishness and called for the return of Jews to productive labor, especially agriculture. Going further, Zionism, the Jewish nationalist movement which was an offshoot of the Haskalah, preached the return of Jews to the Land of Israel as the solution to the ills of exilic life.  The Zionist movement generated a fifth source of ambiguity in the Jewish relationship to nature.  Zionism sought to create a new type of Jews as well as a new, Hebraic, modern culture that will be rooted in the remote agricultural past of ancient Israel, by passing rabbinic Judaism.  Zionism endowed the physical environment of the Land of Israel, its topography, flora and fauna, with spiritual (albeit secular) significance, inculcating intimate knowledge of the Land through nature hikes, field trips, and camping.

Paradoxically, the resulting outdoor culture has enabled secular Israelis to understand the natural imagery and metaphors of the Bible (Feliks 1990; Hareuveni 1980), the document that legitimized the Zionist national project (Schweid 1985).  More problematically, the successes of the Zionist project exacted a toll on the fragile environment of the Land of Israel (Tal 2002): steep rise in population, rapid urbanization, the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, and initial mistakes about natural resource management have generated a long list of environmental problems (e.g., air and water pollution; soil erosion, over use of water, etc.) requiring legislative solutions (Tal, Orenstein and Miller 2013).  Today the state of Israel addresses these environmental challenges through a mixture of policies, legislation, and alternative technologies and environmentalism thrives in Israel through green political parties, numerous environmental NGOs, and creative educational and training programs (Tirosh-Samuelson 2012).  Many of these environmental initiatives and organizations (e.g., Adam, Teva ve-Din; Sevivah Israel, or Hayyim u-Sevivah) deal with concrete environmental problems without reference to Judaism, but some organizations (e.g., Teva Ivri, Shatil, and the Heschel Center for Sustainability) draw direct inspiration from Jewish religious sources in their theoretical justification and educational programs.  The degree to which Israeli environmentalism should be grounded in traditional Jewish sources is hotly debated in Israel and the movement is quite different from its American counterpart (Mann 2012, 148-15).    

Eco-Judaism: Practice and Theology

In Israel, where Jews are the majority, environmentalism encompasses advocacy, education, public policy, legislation, sustainable architecture and agriculture, science and technology with limited appeal to the religious sources of Judaism.  By contrast, in the diaspora, where Jews are small religio-ethnic minority, Jewish environmental public discourse has to be carried explicitly in religious categories.  Since its emergence in the mid-1980s, Jewish environmental activism has brought about the “greening” of Jewish institutions (e.g., synagogues, schools, communal organizations, Jewish community centers, and youth movements).  Today, a variety of organizations, programs, and initiatives promote sustainable practices (e.g., energy efficiency, elimination of plastics, recycling and waste reduction programs), reduce consumption and promote new eating habits, plant community gardens, link sustainable agriculture to urban Jewish life and education, include environmental issues in the education of youngsters and adults, organize nature walks and outdoor activities, celebrate Jewish holidays (especially Sukkot, Shavuot and Tu Bishvat) with attention to environmental agricultural themes; promote justice in food production with attention to sustainable agriculture and compassionate treatment of farm animals, and encourage Jews to live sustainably. These programs transcend congregational and denominational boundaries and are often carried out in inter-faith settings in collaboration with non-Jewish organizations.  Eco-Judaism consists of environmental activism and eco-theology.

As a grass root movement, Jewish environmental activism educates Jews about environmental matters, inspires Jews to lead an environmentally correct life, implements “green” communal practices, and rallies Jews to support environmental legislation and interfaith activities. The main activities of Jewish environmental organizations and initiatives consist of nature education, environmental awareness, advocacy on environmental legislation, and community building. The programs of Teva Learning Alliance (previously called Teva Learning Center) exemplify how activities are structured to sensitize the participants to nature’s rhythms, inspiring them to develop a meaningful relationship with nature and their own Jewish practices.  Through traditional Jewish rituals (e.g., blessings, prayers, and reflections) participants become aware of nature as divine creation or learn about the vital connection between Judaism and environmental stewardship.  Elat Chayyim Center for Jewish Spirituality is another example where various programs promote environmentally concerned Judaism as a spiritual practice.   One of its programs, ADAMAH: The Jewish Environmental Fellowship, offers leadership training program that teaches the Fellows to live communally and engage in a hands-on curriculum that integrates organized agricultural and sustainable living skills, Jewish learning and living, leadership development and community building.  The newly reconstituted Aytzim: Ecological Judaism is an example how environmental education, advocacy, and activism link the Jewish religion with Zionism and how the Internet is used to advance environmentalism: the website Jewcology is now managed by Aytzim.  These programs and the Coalition of Jewish and Environmental Life (COEJL), which focuses on educational, legislative, and interfaith programming, illustrate eco-Judaism in practice. 

An important aspect of contemporary eco-Judaism is attention to food, since food is the intersection point of humans and animals as well as the intersection between diverse social groups of producers and consumers.  Hazon: Jewish Lab of Sustainability is a case in point because it has given rise to the Jewish Food Movement that stresses the redemptive aspect of land cultivation and just production, distribution, and consumption of food. The Jewish Food Movement, which supports organic farming attempts to change the relationship between farm workers, processing/packing house workers, truckers, hospitality and hotel workers and other people involved in the food production industry.  As an educational effort the Jewish Food Movement is connected with other environmental initiatives, including the Jewish Farm School in Philadelphia (which focuses on urban permaculture), the Eden Village Camp in Putnam Valley NY (an eco-summer camp that teaches sustainability and outdoor activities), Shomrei Adamah (a Hazon program for Jewish day schools that emphasizes energy flow, natural cycles, biodiversity and interdependence), Kayam Farm at the Pearlstone Center in Maryland (which harvests food for the retreat center and teaches stewardship and sustainability), Ekar Farm in Denver (a communal project that combines food security, environmentalism and urban farming) and Farm Forward in Oregon (a non-profit organization that promotes humane and sustainable animal agriculture) are all designed to bring Jews to integrate knowledge about food and farming with the Jewish tradition.

The concept that gives coherence to eco-Judaism is Eco-Kosher Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi coined the term in 1968 during the labor protests in California led by Cezar Chávez.  Schachter-Shalomi defines Eco-Kosher as “a new kind of kashrut that would combine the ancient ways of thought, consumption, and avoidance of cruelty and violence with the new awareness of the wider repercussions of some of our actions” (Schachter-Shalomi and Segel 2013, 157).   Eco-Kosher connects concerns about industrial agriculture, global warming, and fair treatment of workers with the Jewish dietary laws about food production, preparation and eating. Eco-Kosher means that Jews should only consume products that meet both Jewish dietary laws as well as Jewish ethical standards, and eco-kosher consumers should encourage food producers to care for the environment, animals and their workers.  Since the 1970s Arthur Waskow translated the concept into a full-fledged program of environmental justice in regard to economic and racial inequity, the unjust labor practices, and the causal connection between the exploitation of the Earth resources and unjust political policies, especially in Israel (Waskow 1996).  Other rabbis have fused Eco-Kosher with kabbalistic principles as well as with non-Jewish traditions such as the ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui, an ecologically based art of spatial arrangement that incorporates human-made objects with natural surroundings.  The concept of Eco-Kosher has also inspired Jewish entrepreneurs to market eco-kosher meat products and the Conservative Movement to issue the Magen Tzedek Initiative, a certification program that assures consumers and retailers that “kosher food products have been produced in keeping with exemplary Jewish ethics in regard to labor, animal welfare, environmental impact, consumer issue and corporate integrity” ( http://www.magentzedek.org )

Combining sustainable agriculture, fair labor practices, and ethical treatment of animals, “eco-Kosher” generates a comprehensive life style whose goal is to bring about Tikkun Olam (literally, “repair of the world”).  In rabbinic texts (e.g., Mishna, Gittin 4:2) “ letaken olam ” means to act in accordance to Jewish law so as to usher the Kingdom of God.  This utopian notion was given an abstract, cosmic, metaphysical meaning in medieval Kabbalah, especially the 16 th century version of Lurianic Kabbalah.  According to Lurianic Kabbalah, rituals performed with kabbalistic intention can bring about not only the amelioration of the human world or even the physical cosmos, but also the divine world (the world of the ten Sefirot) which experiences brokenness and disharmony (symbolized by the separation of the masculine and feminine aspects of the Godhead), due to human sinfulness.  In the second half of the 20 th century Tikkun Olam has become the slogan of Jewish social activism, including environmentalism, although few Jews who invoke the term understand its original kabbalistic meaning.  In Jewish environmental organizations, the goal of Tikkun Olam is usually linked to two other ethical values: responsibility and interconnectedness . The former highlights human responsibility toward the Earth and its inhabitants and the latter insists on the relationality of all living beings.  Both of these values are derived from biblical and rabbinic sources and are invoked in a wide variety of educational programs (Tirosh-Samuelson 2012).      

If Jewish environmental activists use “Tikkun Olam” as slogan to mobilize Jews to social actions, with little understanding of its kabbalistic underpinning, several Jewish eco-theologians deliberately build on Kabbalah and Hasidism to articulate Jewish ecological spirituality that could address the ecological crisis.  Schachter-Shalomi, the founder of Jewish Renewal Movement, was the first to call for a “paradigm shift” within Judaism, signifying a shift from transcendence to immanence, from monotheism to pantheism, from dualistic to non-dualistic thinking, from patriarchy to egalitarianism (Schachter-Shalomi, 1993).  He called this shift “Gaian Consciousness” and argued that Judaism has a distinctive (albeit not exclusive) role to play in the healing of the cosmos: the key ecological precept of Judaism—“Do Not Destroy”—enables Jews to act in ways that prevent what he called, the crime of “planetcide.”  Recasting Judaism as pantheistic monism that reframes all the major themes of traditional Judaism and gives rise to new rituals, this New-Age thinker saw his project as “trying to help the Earth rebuild her organicity and establish a healthy governing principles” (Magid 2006, 65; Magid 2013). 

Schachter-Shalomi’s friend and colleague, Rabbi Arthur Green has gone further to articulate a systematic ecological Jewish spirituality promoted as “Neo-Hasidism” (Green and Mayse 2019; 2019a)  In Green’s “mystical panentheism” Kabbalah and Hasidism are fused with the theory of evolution into a worldview that depicts the “bio-history of the universe” as “sacred drama” (Green 2003, 111).  Green presents a holistic view of reality in which all existents are in some way an expression of God and are to some extent intrinsically related to one another (Ibid, 118-119; Green 2010).   Although Green’s lyrical depiction of evolution is closer to medieval Neoplatonism than to Darwinism, Green offers contemporary Jews “a Kabbalah for the environmental age” (Green 2002).  The systematic fusion of Kabbalah, Hasidism, and environmentalism is presented in the work of Rabbi David Seidenberg who argues that by “applying the principles of Kabbalah to constructive theology, we can train ourselves to see the image of God in all of these dimensions, in a species, in an ecosystem, in the water cycles, in the entirety of this planet, and so on” (Seidenberg 2015, 312).  Seidenberg is one example of Jewish spiritual teachers, artists, story tellers, and healers who find in Kabbalah, as well as other spiritual traditions (either Native American or Asian) resources for a syncretistic Jewish ecological spirituality.  This ecological spirituality is given a feminist twist in the work of Rabbi Jill Hammer (Hammer 2016; Hammer and Shere 2015), the founder of Tel Shemesh, a web-based spiritual resource center that merges kabbalah and Earth-based feminist spirituality ( http://www.telshemesh.org ).  The syncretism of Jewish ecological spirituality brought some critics to question the Jewishness of Jewish environmentalism and to view it as an unacceptable revival of paganism (e.g., Gerstenfeld 1999).

Jewish Environmentalism and Environmental Humanities

The humanities are the disciplines that inquire about the values, norms, meanings, languages and cultures.  Beginning in the 1970s, but increasingly in the 1980s and 1990s, a growing number of humanities scholars have begun to argue that ecological matters are not marginal but foundational to their disciplines. The discourse of religion and ecology is considered today part of the environmental humanities, a multi-disciplinary and multi-perspectival inquiry that comprises also of environmental history, environmental philosophy and ethics, ecocriticism, animal studies, queer ecologies, ecofeminism, environmental sociology, political ecology, eco-materialism and posthumanism) (Glotfelty and Fromm 1996; Buell, 2005; Clark 2011; Opermann and Iovino  2017). 

The ecological reinterpretation of Judaism has developed with relatively little attention to the environmental humanities.  Why?  First, the discourse of the environmental humanities is decidedly secular, whereas Jewish environmentalism (at least in the diaspora) is a religious endeavor that uses religious categories.  Second, the environmental humanities are theoretical discourses carried out within the bounds of the academy, whereas Jewish environmentalism is a grass-root movement of non-academic activists who care about praxis rather than theory.  Third, the academic discourse of environmental humanities is inherently critical, displaying skepticism, distance, and irony, whereas Jewish environmentalism calls for conviction, action, and social transformation.  Finally, while some environmental humanities, especially eco-criticism, have attempted to bring the material sciences to the foreground of the humanities in order to understand the relationship between human and non-human organisms, Jewish environmentalism (and one could say Jewish public discourse in general) has been insufficiently attentive to the natural sciences.  This is not to say that Jewish environmentalism cannot or should not become informed of the environmental humanities.  To the contrary: familiarity with the environmental humanities (i.e., the various strands of environmental philosophy and ethics and eco-criticism) can enrich Jewish environmentalism immensely, but such dialogue could take place only if the academic interlocutors become more informed about and interested in Judaism not as the culprit of the ecological crisis, but as a tradition that could creatively address the crisis.

The dialogue between Jewish environmentalism and environmental humanities could begin in the context of postmodern environmental thought (Oeschlaeger 1995; Zimmerman 1994) and the field of eco-phenomenology (Brown and Toadvine 2003), since Jewish philosophers have greatly contributed to them.   Eco-phenomenology is the merger of phenomenology and contemporary environmental thought, according to which the human cognition that “nature has value, that it deserves or demands a certain proper treatment from us, must have its roots in an experience of nature” (ibid, xi).  Eco-phenomenology consists of two claims: “first, that an adequate account of our ecological situation requires the methods and insight of phenomenology; and, second, that phenomenology, led by its own momentum, becomes a philosophical ecology, that is, a study of the interrelationship between organism and world in its metaphysical and axiological dimensions” (ibid., xii-xiii).  Jewish philosophers trained in the phenomenological tradition—Martin Buber (d. 1965), Hans Jonas (d. 1993), and Emmanuel Levinas (d. 1995) and Derrida (d. 2004)— contributed to eco-phenomenology by framing the relationship between humanity to the natural world in dialogical terms, emphasizing nature as a subject to whom humans are deeply responsible , and by erasing rigid boundaries between humans and animals.

Martin Buber was the first to speak about nature as a subject and to call for a non-instrumental (I-Thou) relationship with nature.  Although Buber was not an environmentalist, his relational, dialogical philosophy has exerted deep influence on Christian environmental ethics (McFague 1997; Santmire 2008).  If Buber made nature into a moral subject with whom humans can have personal relationship, Hans Jonas endowed life itself with intrinsic moral value as he exposed the ontological basis of the ethics of responsibility, and conversely made ontology informed by ethics (Jonas 1984).  Jonas’s philosophy of nature highlighted the purposiveness of all life, arguing that nature commands ultimate respond, allegiance, and final moral commitment (Donnelley 2008).  It is the objective goodness of things that determines not only what ought to be but also what humans ought to feel, think, and do, since humans are an integral part of organic life.  For Jonas, the “imperative of responsibility” encompasses human responsibility for the continued existence of life in a planet where life is seriously endangered by modern technology.  Awareness of the looming disaster generates a “heuristic of fear” that guides us to act so as to protect nature from the possibility of destruction.  Humanity is responsible for its own future and must act with concern toward future generations, ensuring that they will have the conditions for life.  Jonas’s philosophy of nature was developed in response to the devastation of WWII in which Auschwitz and Hiroshima came about because of modern technology.  

Like Jonas, Emmanuel Levinas (yet another student of Heidegger) saw responsibility as the core of the ethical, but went further than Jonas by arguing that responsibility comes first: each person is responsible for the other who faces him.  If Jonas argued for collective responsibility of humanity, Levinas argues for infinite individual responsibility : every person has an obligation to his/her neighbor, expanding gradually to cover all living humanity.  Levinas’ ethics is decidedly human-centered since he insisted that ethics is “against-nature, against the naturality of nature (Levinas 1998, 171).  However, several postmodernist environmentalists have applied Levinas’ ethics to nature which is identified with the absolute Other (Llewelyn 1991; Atternon 2004, and Edelgrass, Hatley and Diehm 2012).  How should Levinas’s ethics be applied to nature is still a matter of debate but no one can correctly understand Levinas without acknowledging his Jewishness.  

Even more influential than Buber, Jonas, and Levinas, another Jewish philosopher trained in phenomenological tradition—Jacque Derrida—has stimulated postmodernist environmental thought and the field of eco-phenomenology.  Derrida’s deconstruction of traditional binary dichotomies characteristic of Western philosophy (e.g., nature/culture; human/animal; transcendence/immanence) exposed the connection between phallologocentrism and “carnivorous virility” (Gross 2015, 142).  Derrida criticized the “sacrificial structure of subjectivity” and exposed the links between the hatred of the Other, the hatred of animals, and the hatred of Jews that run throughout Western history and culture (Benjamin 2011).  The deconstruction of human/animal boundaries (Derrida 2008) has stimulated the newly emerging field of Animal Studies (e.g., De Mello 2012; Gross and Vallely 2012; Waldau 2013) although the Jewishness of Derrida is often glossed over.  Recently scholars of Judaism have begun to interpret the canonic sources of Judaism in light of the insights and methodologies of Animal Studies and environmental humanities (e.g., Belser 2015; Wasserman 2017; Berkowtiz 2018; and Geller 2018), highlighting the connection between constructions of Jews, animals, and difference. Jewish Animal Studies consists of reflections on textual representation of otherness rather than on addressing environmental problems that result from the ecological crisis. 

Jewish environmentalism is still a small but growing strand in contemporary Judaism that is attractive to previously unaffiliated Jews, to Jews who have limited or no Jewish education, to seekers who have walked other spiritual and religious paths, and to Jews who are traditionally observant.  Commitment to Jewish environmentalism can mean different things: for some, Jewish environmentalism means extending the ethics of responsibility to include the environment, for others environmentalism means a new, holistic, ecological consciousness that overcomes the disruptive dualism of scripture and nature, and for still others, environmentalism signifies the return to earth-based spirituality that links Judaism to other traditions.  However interpreted, a plethora of Jewish environmental organizations promote communitarianism, environmental and social justice, and a range of educational programs based on outdoors activities that inculcate respect for nature.  Benefiting from the creation of the Internet, Jewish environmental activism disseminates ideas and information about activities through social media and the websites of these organizations make available relevant literary sources, commentaries, organized activities, fellowship programs, and leadership training.  While the work of Jewish environmentalism rarely engages the environmental humanities, the dialogue between these discourses could enrich both:  Jewish environmentalism could become more theoretically informed and the environmental humanities could openly acknowledge its debt to Jewish ethics of responsibility.   

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Header photo: ©Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Sea of Galilee