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Jewish institutions awaken to climate crisis, with hundreds pledging action
(JTA) — For a decade starting in 2002, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi devoted herself to pro-Israel advocacy. After that, the Jewish philanthropist and activist from Annapolis, Maryland, went all in to fight for disability rights, working in the field for the next decade. Now, Mizrahi is focused on climate change.
“Let me put it this way: In 2021, we donated to one climate organization, and in 2022, we donated to 17 of them,” Mizrahi said, referring to the small charity fund she runs with her husband, tech entrepreneur Victor Mizrahi. This year, the couple made their largest climate-related donation yet, sending a group of nine climate reporters to Israel to meet tech startups working on ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Mizrahi and her husband have also begun commercially investing in such startups.
“I was hoping other people would solve it,” she said. “But the pace of the change is not nearly meeting the demand at the moment. I felt that even though I don’t know the subject, I’m just going to have to do it because I have kids and I don’t want this world to fall apart.”
Climate change has long ranked at or near the top of a list of issues concerning Jews in the United States, according to multiple surveys, and Jews have been heavily involved in the wider climate movement. But until recently, the issue had a marginal place on the agendas of Jewish communal organizations, which neglected climate even as the subject took on importance in the activism and policies of other religious communities and in the larger philanthropic world.
Mizrahi’s newfound emphasis on climate is an early example of a larger shift that is underway in Jewish philanthropy, a multibillion-dollar world made up of thousands of individual donors, charitable foundations and nonprofit organizations.
“It’s the beginning of what will become a more widespread focus among Jewish groups,” said Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, the founder and CEO of the Jewish climate group Dayenu. “We’re seeing an awakening to this as a profoundly Jewish issue, and awakening to the role that the Jewish community has to play in addressing the climate crisis.”
Scientists say that decisions regarding carbon emissions made in the next few years will affect life on Earth for thousands of years to come. The most recent warning came in March, when leading global experts with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a new report, stating that “there is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”
The large Jewish populations living in the coastal United States are vulnerable to extreme storms, sea-level rise, severe heat and other weather disruptions — a situation dramatized in the recent Apple television series “Extrapolations,” in which a rabbi contends with rising sea waters infiltrating his Florida synagogue. Meanwhile, Israel is experiencing a slew of impacts from drought and floods to security threats tied regional climate-related instability.
A flooded road after heavy rainfall in the central Israeli city of Lod, Jan. 16, 2022. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)
Israeli officials visit the site where a road collapsed into a large sinkhole at Mineral Beach in the Dead Sea on December 7, 2017. Many facilities and beaches have been closed or shut down in recent years following the increase in sinkholes caused by ever-declining sea levels, as climate change strains the country’s water resources. (Mark Neyman/GPO)
The last few months have seen a flurry of new initiatives aimed at both greening Jewish institutions and directing collective action on climate.
In December, for example, Rosenn’s group published a report calculating that endowments of Jewish organizations, from family foundations to local federations, are invested in the fossil fuel industry to the tune of at least $3 billion. The report launched an ongoing campaign called All Our Might that urges Jewish leaders to withdraw these investments and put the money toward clean energy instead.
Meanwhile, many of the most prominent Jewish organizations in the country — representing local federations, Hillel chapters, summer camps, community centers, day schools and nearly every religious denomination — had already joined a new green coalition organized by another Jewish environmental group and were preparing to unveil pledges to do more in the fight against climate change.
The unveiling of the climate pledges happened in March, under the leadership of Adamah, a nonprofit created through the merger of two stalwarts of Jewish environmentalism, Hazon and the Pearlstone Center.
“Climate and sustainability have not been on the list of priorities for the vast majority of Jewish organizations; this coalition and these climate action plans reflect a deep paradigm shift and culture change moving forward,” Adamah CEO Jakir Mandela said at the time.
The commitments made by members of Adamah’s Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition include sending youth leaders to global climate summits, reducing emissions of buildings and vehicles and lobbying the federal government to pass climate policies.
More than 300 congregations and nonprofits have joined. For Earth Day, Adamah announced a million-dollar fund offering interest-free loans and matching grants to Jewish groups for projects to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
If any single event can be said to mark the debut of the climate issue as a top Jewish communal priority, it is probably the recent annual conference of the Jewish Funders Network, which took place in March in Phoenix, bringing together thousands of donors and charity executives.
For the gathering’s first event, before the formal opening of the conference, a group of participants went on a field trip to downtown Phoenix to learn about the local effects of the climate crisis. Far more people signed up than organizers anticipated, and with about 55 passengers, the tour bus chartered for the occasion reached capacity. Mizrahi, who was among the participants, said the trip was helpful as a networking opportunity for like-minded philanthropists.
“We wanted to expose them to how the existential threats posed by climate change are not long term, but are already here,” Yanklowitz said. “People down in the Zone are dying every summer from heat exhaustion and dehydration.”
Based on his debrief with the group afterward, Yanklowitz feels the trip left an impact on participants.
“I didn’t hear anyone say, ‘Oh, I’m changing my commitments.’ But I did get the sense that climate change was kind of abstract for many people, and that now it really hit home,” Yanklowitz said.
The rest of the conference featured multiple talks and gatherings dedicated to climate, including on the main stage, and an announcement that Birthright, which offers free trips to Israel for young Jews, was increasing its own climate activism with the help of a new donation.
In an interview, Ellen Bronfman Hauptman and Stephen Bronfman, children of Birthright founder Charles Bronfman, said their $9 million gift is meant to honor their father on the occasion of his 90th birthday, while also bringing Birthright more in line with the values of a new generation that is environmentally-minded.
Birthright organizers will use the funding to develop programming focused on climate that could, for example, expose participants to Israel’s clean tech scene. The money is also intended to help Birthright lower its own carbon footprint, potentially by switching to electric buses or adding more vegetarian meals.
The Bronfmans hope that Birthright’s significant purchasing power in Israeli tourism will nudge the industry toward more ecologically sustainable practices.
“To me, Birthright is like Walmart — everyone wants to do business with them,” Stephen Bronfman said. “They have the power to dictate terms to their service providers and affect the supply chain.”
The widespread interest in climate mobilization among Jewish groups comes after years in which the issue languished outside the mainstream. Rosenn, the head of Dayenu, who has attended about 15 conferences of the Jewish Funder Network, noticed a change this year.
“There used to be half a dozen people at a breakfast before the program talking about climate. And it wasn’t even climate, necessarily — it was the environment writ large,” she said.
The Jewish world is, in many ways, still lagging behind the larger climate movement. Divesting endowment funds from the fossil fuel industry, for example, is seen as a bold step among Jewish groups even though at least 1,590 institutions representing nearly $41 trillion in assets have already publicly committed to doing so, according to a website tracking such pledges. About a third of the groups on the list are defined as faith-based organizations, but only three are Jewish: Kolot Chayeinu, a congregation in Park Slope, Brooklyn; the Reform movement’s pension system; and the American Jewish World Service, a global justice group.
Rabbi Laura Bellows, now Dayenu’s director of spiritual activism and education, waves matzah as she encourages major financial organizations to divest from fossil fuels at a rally in Washington, D.C., April 20, 2022. (Bora Chung | Survival Media Agency / Courtesy of Dayenu)
Adamah’s own climate plan doesn’t include a pledge to divest but only a promise that it will investigate the option of doing so for its endowment and employee retirement funds. Instead, the plan touts the group’s education and advocacy efforts, and focuses on reducing emissions at its retreat centers.
Adamah’s chief climate officer, Risa Alyson Cooper, acknowledged that Jewish community institutions have been “largely absent” from the divestment movement and said her group regards divestment as one of several required tools for addressing the climate crisis.
She said the Jewish community hit a milestone when 12 of the 20 founding members of Adamah’s climate coalition said in their climate plans that they would consider amending their financial practices. That was significant, she said, in light of the organizations’ complex and deliberate governing structures, which can make executing such changes onerous.
“While the Jewish community may have lagged behind in years past, we are catching up quickly,” Cooper said.
Such a shift would mark not only a milestone for Jewish climate activism but also a departure from how the Jewish community has historically done philanthropy, said Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster, executive vice president of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.
She said wielding financial holdings for social impact has been a hallmark of advocacy by Christian groups. Last year, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) opted to divest from fossil fuels in light of the climate crisis.
The Jewish community, meanwhile, has tended to act primarily through charitable donations. One of the reasons for the difference, she said, is that the Jewish community is much less centralized with communal assets spread across many endowments, making the actions of any single group relatively less impactful.
“Adamah had done some really important work to change individual behavior and grow people’s connections to the environment, but the bigger piece of bold collective action to fight the climate crisis was missing,” Kahn-Troster said. “The overall community is late to respond to the urgency of the problem. But I do think that the work of these organizations is very significant, so I’m excited to see it.”
Kahn-Troster’s historical view is informed by the legacy of her father, Rabbi Lawrence Troster, an environmental activist who had pushed for communal Jewish action on climate, and by the passion for climate justice displayed by her 15-year-old, Liora Pelavin, a member of the Jewish Youth Climate Movement, an arm of Adamah.
“Finding a meaningful Jewish space to do grassroots-level climate advocacy that many young people are demanding has been really important to Liora,” Kahn-Troster said.
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Graham Platner, anti-Israel progressive, locks up Democratic Senate nomination in Maine
(JTA) — Graham Platner, the anti-Israel progressive who took Maine’s political establishment by storm this spring, has officially prevailed in his state’s Democratic Senate primary.
Multiple news outlets called the race within 90 minutes of the polls closing, with only a fraction of the votes counted.
The victory was seen as a foregone conclusion after Platner’s primary opponent, Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her candidacy in late April, saying her campaign could not afford to continue.
Still, the final tally suggested that not all Mainers had embraced the political neophyte whose campaign was dogged by controversies, including the revelation that Platner had a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo on his chest for nearly two decades until he drew criticism for it on the campaign trail. He denied knowing it was a Nazi symbol.
Mills, who remained on the ballot, drew about one in five votes in the first 10% of ballots counted, according to the tally published by The New York Times.
The result sets Platner up to face off in November against incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who has received substantial support from pro-Israel donors. The latest polls suggest a tight race.
“I’m humbled and proud to officially be your Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate to take on Susan Collins and the billionaire class she represents. Together, we will win this seat back for working Mainers,” Platner tweeted on Tuesday night. “Thank you, Maine.”
While Democratic leaders officially threw their support behind Platner after Mills halted her campaign, many of them remained circumspect about him. Their balancing act grew more delicate in the final days of the primary race, as Platner drew allegations of antisemitism over his characterization of donations channeled to Collins by the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC and as he faced new allegations of misconduct toward women. (He said he had been a “far from perfect boyfriend” during some periods of his life but denied engaging in misconduct.)
Now, top Democrats will have to decide how hard to gun for Platner, who has become a standard-bearer in the party’s anti-Israel shift at a time when the chamber is narrowly divided.
They are already facing pressure to disavow him. “Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in America, and every Senate Democrat propping up Platner’s campaign, should be ashamed,” the Republican Jewish Coalition said in a statement after the polls closed. “Their continued support of Graham Platner, who wore the symbol of Hitler’s SS on his chest for 18 years is an outrage. Schumer must withdraw his support immediately.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Graham Platner, anti-Israel progressive, locks up Democratic Senate nomination in Maine appeared first on The Forward.
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A new proposal to radically destabilize Israel
Given the jackhammer pace of outrageous developments, one might almost think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is trying to give the opposition ammunition in the coming election — most recently by promoting a bill rendering full-time Torah study as a national service equivalent to military service.
The proposed “Basic Law: Torah Study,” which will undergo its first of four Knesset votes on Wednesday, seeks to elevate full-time Torah study within Israel’s Basic Laws framework, a de facto constitution. Under its logic, sustained Torah study will not be merely a protected cultural or religious activity, but a state-recognized form of “meaningful service” to the nation. In effect, it would place long-term yeshiva study on a comparable footing to military service, including in terms of tangible financial benefits and how the state defines civic contribution.
This comes in the context of a conscription crisis, which has seen the country come to a boiling point over a long-standing institutional arrangement by which Haredi yeshiva students are exempted from military service.
Yet even as the rage mounts, the governing coalition is trying to find legislative ways to formalize the draft exemptions to appease Netanyahu’s Haredi coalition partners, without whom he would lose his tenuous majority.
The result may be a disastrous dual-track citizenship model: one in which military service obligations are heavily concentrated among secular and national-religious Israelis, while Haredi communities are structurally insulated both from conscription and from the economic consequences that typically accompany non-participation in the labor force or military.
There are plenty of cultural disagreements between Haredi and secular Israelis, but the central criticism of the proposed law is about how the legislation threatens the structure of the country. It incentivizes behavior that will undermine Israel’s ability to defend itself from its very real enemies by diminishing the number of people serving, and demoralizing those who do.
Torah study as national defense
The draft exemption has contributed to a severe manpower shortfall in the Israel Defense Forces, as tens of thousands of reservists are repeatedly mobilized for extended periods of duty: sometimes hundreds of days per year, even after completing compulsory service. Ordinary Israelis are chafing under this burden, while many thousands of conscription-age Haredim enjoy danger-free and often taxpayer-subsidized lives.
With the Haredim set to make up a third of Israel’s citizenry by 2050, many see the long-term implications of this inequality as dire for Israel.
By classifying Torah study as a form of recognized national service, the Basic Law proposal would provide a legal foundation for aligning the rights of yeshiva students with those of IDF veterans and active soldiers. That would influence their eligibility for a range of state-linked benefits and entitlements that are tied — directly or indirectly — to military service, including housing assistance, childcare subsidies, and other welfare mechanisms that privilege or differentiate based on service status.
In parallel, it strengthens the political and legal argument that full-time Torah learners should not be treated as draft evaders but as a distinct category of service-recognized citizens, thereby reinforcing the broader exemption framework. It would function as a bulwark anchoring existing and future exemption arrangements against judicial or legislative rollback.
Words can hardly express the agitation this prospect has caused in mainstream Israel.
A coherent worldview
Haredi politicians have settled on justifying the draft exemption by arguing that their prayers are more important than the actions of pilots or tank commanders in aiding Israel. Supporters of the exemption frame the arrangement as a necessary accommodation to preserve large-scale Torah study as a core national and religious value.
These arguments are, in my view, wrong but not trivial. They reflect a coherent worldview about identity, community and the meaning of national service.
Actual supporters of this approach outside the Haredi parties — and they are few — argue that Torah study is not merely a private religious activity but a foundational element of Jewish national identity. In their view, it represents a continuous spiritual contribution to the survival and cohesion of the Jewish people — one that cannot be measured in military or economic terms. They also warn that broad coercive conscription risks destabilizing Haredi society, undermining its institutions, and producing a deep cultural rupture.
The law “will be a historic confirmation of the supreme value of the Torah and students of the Torah to the people of Israel and their security,” said Aryeh Deri, head of the Haredi Party Shas, adding “the People of Israel need greater virtues for the success of its campaign against enemies.”
That argument is unlikely to convince anyone not already sold on this worldview. Which raises the question: What is Netanyahu thinking in letting this move forward?
It is all but certain this move will harm him in upcoming elections, and the opposition, should it win, will cancel most of the laws that resulted from the current legislative blitzkrieg — most of which involve weakening of the state’s institutions, primarily those with oversight over the government.
Perhaps the Haredim have conditioned future support for Netanyahu on the effort; but this would be an empty threat, because the center-left opposition is not a viable alternative for them, any more than the MAGA movement might join the U.S. Democratic Party.
The whole thing is a mystery. But one thing is clear, and alarming: Israel’s government is now openly advocating against a single shared system of civic duty, and for a tiered structure in which one group bears the full burden of military service, and another is exempt, on the strength of arguments that most Israelis reject.
The post A new proposal to radically destabilize Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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Milei praises ‘Judeo-Christian values’ at Chabad event as Argentina courts European Jews
(JTA) — BUENOS AIRES — Argentine President Javier Milei exalted “Judeo-Christian values” on Monday as he spoke to a crowd of 1,800 people celebrating the 32nd anniversary of the death of the last Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi.
Milei was the keynote speaker at the Hasidic Orthodox movement’s event marking the yahrzeit of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, becoming what appears to be the first sitting non-Jewish head of state to make an official tribute to the Lubavitcher Rebbe at a major Chabad event.
“The conclusion I have reached is simple in its formulation and profound in its consequences: When one embraces Judeo-Christian values, spiritual and material life become aligned and resonate on the same wavelength,” Milei said Monday night at the Palacio Libertad cultural center.
It was the latest in a long list of expressions of admiration for Judaism for Milei, a self-described “anarcho-capitalist” who was elected in 2023 and since has made support for Israel a cornerstone of his agenda. He has previously visited Schneerson’s grave in New York City, made pilgrimages to the Western Wall in Jerusalem and presented a picture of Schneerson to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a gift. He was also honored at a Chabad synagogue in Miami in 2024, where he revealed that he believed he has Jewish heritage.
Milei has long studied Judaism and has said he wants to convert after leaving office but sees Jewish practice, including the observance of Shabbat, as incompatible with the presidency.
His 40-minute speech at the Chabad event focused almost entirely on Jewish religious texts and thought, quoting passages from the Torah as the basis of his economic view.
Milei also revealed that his address was drawn from the epilogue of his upcoming book, “Morality as State Policy,” in which he argues that capitalism is a system invented by “the Creator” — whom he also referred to as “the One” — to bring paradise to earth through work.
Jews in Argentina have a range of perspectives on Milei’s philosemitism.
“I appreciate that the president chose to attend and speak at the Tribute to the Rebbe,” Rabbi Tzvi Grunblatt, the head of Chabad in Argentina, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “He is doing so from a deeply personal place. I also think it is healthy for him to have this spiritual side.”
But Alicia Osipovich, a sign-language interpreter assisting a deaf attendee at the event, told JTA that Milei’s forceful support for Israel and Judaism made her uneasy, even as she personally appreciated it.
“I’m proud and deeply moved to have a president like him,” Osipovich said. “At the same time, I have some concerns. He speaks extensively about Israel, and you know how support for Israel is sometimes portrayed. He says he is a Zionist, but nowadays the word ‘Zionist’ is often used as a negative label. I have mixed emotions. As a Jew, I am proud, but I also feel some concern about the increased public exposure of Judaism these days.”
Under Milei’s leadership, Argentina has invited European Jews worried about rising antisemitism to consider the country as a destination. Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno recently emphasized Argentina’s attractiveness in a message aimed at Jews in Britain and other European countries who are grappling with surging incidents targeting Jewish communities.
“A country on the up with great opportunities. Sunny, with many natural attributes, and home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America. Strong stand against antisemitism. British and European Jews should seriously consider Argentina. You are welcome,” Quirno wrote on X in reply to author Saul Sadka, who had urged British Jews to consider leaving amid growing hostility.
Argentina’s leading Jewish organization, DAIA, has recorded more antisemitic incidents in recent years, mostly taking place online. But the rate of antisemitic incidents reported in the country last year was significantly lower than in many other countries with sizable Jewish populations, according to the 2025 worldwide antisemitism report published in April by Tel Aviv University.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s global director, praised Quirno’s invitation, saying it reflected a significant shift.
“Sign of the times? A country formerly ruled by a Nazi-supporting dictator has morphed over decades into a strong democracy whose president is a philo-Semite,” Cooper wrote in reply to Milei’s foreign minister. “Argentina currently serves as chair of IHRA [the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance]. Foreign minister now beckons embattled British Jews. Incredible.”
Israel’s ambassador to Argentina Eyal Sela told JTA at the Chabad event that he had no difficulty recognizing that Argentina is currently a very good place for Jewish life.
“Yes, I agree with the Argentine foreign minister,” Sela told JTA. “Of course, Israel will always be the best place for Jewish life. But today, Argentina is a much better place for Jews than Europe.”
Monday’s event opened with the testimony of Yosef Chaim Ohana, a survivor of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, who expressed deep gratitude for the support shown by Jews around the world, followed by remarks from his father, Avi Ohana. Milei hosted the Ohanas and Grunblatt on Tuesday morning at Argentina’s presidential palace, the Casa Rosada.
Dozens of Argentine nationals were murdered or taken hostage on Oct. 7. This week, an Israeli who had worked in Buenos Aires at the Israeli embassy in Argentina was killed in an attack on a moshav in central Israel.
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