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Jewish institutions have a tool for fighting climate change: their bank accounts
(JTA) — The last eight years have been the hottest in recorded history, causing untold damage across the world — and that destruction is not something that we can reverse with the flick of a switch. We can’t instantly turn back the floods in California nor solve its decade-long drought. We can’t immediately end the wildfires in Colorado, hurricanes in Florida or flash floods in the Northeast and California.
But the American Jewish community has an important role to play in addressing the underlying cause of these devastating events and avoiding an ever-increasing cascade of destruction and harm.
Many of us are members of Jewish organizations or congregations that, often unknowingly, support fossil fuel companies. Even as we work to cut our carbon footprints, our investments are financing Exxon’s and Chevron’s expansion in fossil fuels. A recent report by the organization I lead, Dayenu, found that a sample of major Jewish organizations had over $3 billion invested in fossil fuel companies. According to Fossil Free Funds and the EPA, that’s $3 billion invested in coal, oil and gas companies that extract and burn carbon responsible for the equivalent of running 561,276 cars on the road for a year.
By reallocating that money from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels to investing in clean energy, we can turn our communal assets from a net cost to the earth to a net gain for our future.
The way forward is clear. The world’s leading scientists tell us that to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis, we must halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and end all climate pollution no later than 2050. Fossil fuels — coal, oil, and gas — are the leading contributors to climate change, responsible for 75% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydropower are already cheaper, more reliable, and more lucrative for investors — while creating millions of jobs.
The vast majority of American Jews support bold climate action. A 2014 study found that 8 out of 10 American Jews were concerned or alarmed about the climate crisis. Since then, climate has become a top concern for American Jews, consistently ranking as a priority issue for American Jewish voters, especially young people. Initiatives like the Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition are helping institutions cut their emissions, and there is growing interest in socially responsible and impact investing.
These steps show a commitment to taking action — but much more is needed to reach the scale necessary to confront climate change. Over the past few years, Brandeis, a university “animated by Jewish values, rooted in Jewish history and experience,” decided to turn concern into action.
Joining Harvard, Yale and other universities, Brandeis divested some $997 million from fossil fuel companies in 2018. But University President Ronald Liebowitz said a recent decision to further reduce exposure to fossil fuels and expand investments in clean energy helps move the university to further align with its Jewish values and become “a Brandeis that strives to reflect one of its highest values: using one’s talents to repair the world — in word and deed.”
It’s not just institutions of higher education. Thousands of other organizations have already moved their money from fossil fuels to clean energy investments. Sovereign states like Norway, major retirement plans like New York City’s pension funds, and numerous faith organizations have all moved their resources in ways designed to make them agents of a sustainable future.
Now Jewish organizations, institutions and communities can join them. As part of the report “With All Our Might: Bechol M’odecha: How the Jewish Community Can Invest in a Just, Livable Future,” Dayenu lays out a six-step Roadmap for Change to help the Jewish community better align its investments with its values. Beginning with Jewish learning, or reishit chochma (grounding), the steps guide institutional leaders through cheshbon (research investments), limmud (education), sicha (engagement), kavanah (making a plan) and kadima (moving your money).
Larger institutions will focus on their asset managers, while congregations and smaller organizations will focus on their banks. By advocating publicly and privately with both banks and asset managers — the two primary financiers of fossil fuel extraction — to reinvest their money, Jewish organizations can educate their communities about sustainability and finance. Vocally aligning their finances with their values, the Jewish community can help speed a movement away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy at the pace that we, and future generations, need to survive.
And, make no mistake, it’s a race against time. The International Energy Agency — the world’s most respected energy analysis group — says that to reach zero emissions by 2050, we need to invest $4 in clean energy for every $1 in fossil fuels every year for the next few decades. However, since the Paris Agreement was signed, asset managers and banks have put trillions of dollars into the fossil fuel industry. To win this race, we need to use the lever of private finance. Faced with pressure from whole sections of the public — including the Jewish community — companies like BlackRock, Citigroup, JPMorganChase and Vanguard could be persuaded to hasten the transition to clean energy.
The American Jewish community is well-positioned to take meaningful climate action. Like other faith traditions, we are well-organized, and our institutions have an estimated $100 billion of investment assets. Following Dayenu’s six-point roadmap, we can withhold the Jewish community’s financial support for dirty energy and instead invest in renewables. By raising our voices alongside the many investors who are calling for change, we can accelerate the transition to a clean energy future. As floods, fires, and heat waves come with alarmingly greater frequency and severity, we know we have no time to waste.
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High schoolers’ ‘human swastika’ on football field shakes San Jose Jewish community
(JTA) — The photo spread swiftly after a student posted it on social media: Eight California high schoolers were lying on their school’s football field, their bodies arrayed in the shape of a swastika.
Alongside the picture was a quote from Adolf Hitler, threatening the “annihilation of the Jewish race.”
The incident at Branham High School in San Jose began on Dec. 3 and has roiled the local Jewish community in the days since, as the wrenching saga has ignited suspensions, recriminations and alarm from around the world.
The photograph and the response to it were first reported by J. Jewish News of Northern California.
“We don’t want to see hatred,” Cormac Nolan, a Jewish Branham senior, told the local Jewish newspaper. “We don’t want to see the idolization of one of the most evil men to ever walk the face of the Earth. We don’t want someone who spews out hatred like this on our campus.”
The school’s student newspaper reported that the students involved had been suspended, and that dozens of other students walked out to protest the incident.
The San Jose Police Department told J. that it is investigating the incident, and the school’s principal, Beth Silbergeld, who is Jewish, said the school was working with the Anti-Defamation League and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition, a local antisemitism advocacy group, “to ensure that we receive appropriate support and guidance as we work to repair the harm that’s been done to our community.”
Silbergeld told J. that she felt pressure to learn from the incident.
“I’ve been in education for a long time and have seen, sadly, lots of incidences of oppression and hate toward many groups,” she said. “I think that we always have a responsibility as schools to do what’s right and to take action and learn from the experiences of other other schools and other incidents as a way to hopefully eliminate actions like what we’ve experienced.”
The incident is not the first time Branham High School has faced controversy over antisemitism on its campus. In April, the California Department of Education ruled that the school had discriminated against its Jewish students by presenting “biased” content about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a 12th-grade ethnic literature curriculum.
It is also not the first instance of a “human swastika” roiling a school community. In 2019, nine middle schoolers in Ojai, California, also arranged themselves in a “human swastika” and faced disciplinary measures from the school.
Exactly what possessed the Branham students to do what they did is not clear. But psychologists told the J. that the teen years are a peak moment for transgressive behaviors that may or may not reflect deep-seated biases.
“It’s a developmental time where you’re doing new things, you’re trying new things, you’re making mistakes, you’re trying to fit in, you’re trying to get laughs and likes,” Ellie Pelc, director of clinical services at the Bay Area’s Jewish Family and Children’s Services, told the newspaper. “And you often do so in some hurtful or harmful ways that you don’t always have the capacity to think through in advance.”
The photo was met by condemnation by California State Sens. Scott Wiener, who wrote that antisemitism was “pervasive & growing” in a post on Facebook, and Dave Cortese, who said he was “deeply disturbed” by the incident in a statement.
“What happened at Branham High School was not a joke, not a prank, and not self-expression — it was an act of hatred,” wrote San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan in a post on X. “The fact that this was planned and posted publicly makes it even more disturbing.”
By Tuesday, the uproar had sparked a response from district leaders. In a post on Facebook, Robert Bravo, the superintendent for the Campbell Union High School District, wrote that the district “will respond firmly, thoughtfully, and within the full scope allowed by Board Policy and California law.” (Displaying a Nazi swastika on the property of a school is illegal in California.)
He added that the school district considered the incident an instance of “hate violence” based on California state education code, which allows for suspension or expulsion in such cases.
“Our response cannot be limited to discipline alone,” continued Bravo. “We are committed to using this incident as an opportunity to deepen education around antisemitism, hate symbols and the historical atrocities associated with them.”
The antisemitic post comes two months after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill creating a statewide office assigned to combatting antisemitism in California public schools. The office, which is the first of its kind in the country, was met with praise from local Jewish advocacy groups while some critics warned it could chill academic freedoms.
Marc Levine, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in the Central Pacific region, called the incident “repulsive and unacceptable” in a statement on X. The incident was also condemned by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Bay Area, which wrote in a statement that it had been working with the school about “how to ensure an effective response.”
The Bay Area Jewish Coalition also issued a statement on Tuesday, writing that the antisemitic act had “shaken Jewish families across Northern California and beyond.”
“We hope that what happened at Branham serves as a wake-up call for California and for the rest of the country to take the antisemitism crisis seriously and reverse the trend through real, meaningful action and long-term change,” the statement continued.
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Nashville Jewish community center sues Goyim Defense League over alleged campaign of intimidation
(JTA) —
A Jewish community center in Nashville has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the neo-Nazi group Goyim Defense League and several of its leaders and affiliates, accusing them of orchestrating a campaign of antisemitic intimidation, harassment and trespass aimed at terrorizing the city’s Jewish community.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of the Gordon Jewish Community Center, a 120-year-old nonprofit that serves as a major hub for Jewish life in Nashville. The complaint names the Goyim Defense League, its founder and leader Jon Minadeo II, extremist streamer Paul Miller, who is also known as GypsyCrusader, and several associates.
At the center of the case is a January 2025 incident in which Travis Garland, a Tennessee man affiliated with the Goyim Defense League, allegedly disguised himself as an Orthodox Jewish man and infiltrated the Jewish center’s secured campus. According to the lawsuit, Garland livestreamed the intrusion, mocked Jewish customs and the Holocaust, and refused repeated requests to leave before being forcibly escorted off the property by a security guard.
Garland was later arrested and pleaded guilty in state court to trespassing at the Jewish center, receiving a sentence of nearly a year in jail, according to Nashville television station WTVF.
The complaint alleges Garland acted as part of a coordinated effort, receiving guidance and encouragement from Miller and others who followed the incident in real time via video chat and later promoted it online as a “stunt.”
“Using fear and harassment to threaten and intimidate groups is a despicable act that cannot be tolerated in a multicultural society,” Scott McCoy, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s deputy legal director, said in a statement. “This is the second lawsuit the SPLC has brought against the Goyim Defense League for their actions targeting Nashville’s Black and Jewish communities.”
The lawsuit also ties the January incident to a broader campaign by the Goyim Defense League during a 10-day visit to Nashville in the summer of 2024, when members of the group allegedly harassed Jewish and Black residents, assaulted a Jewish man and a biracial man, and intimidated Black children downtown while waving swastika flags. The SPLC previously filed a separate lawsuit on behalf of a biracial man who was assaulted during that tour.
According to the lawsuit, the Jewish center has spent roughly $75,000 on additional security in the wake of the incidents and says staff and members have altered how they use the campus because of heightened fear.
The lawsuit comes as the Goyim Defense League has faced mounting pressure online and in court. Following a recent investigation by Nashville television station WTVF, websites operated by Minadeo were taken offline by their domain registrar, and several of his accounts were suspended from X. Other Goyim Defense League members have been convicted or indicted in connection with violent incidents during the group’s 2024 visit to Nashville, according to local reporting.
The suit invokes the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and other federal civil rights statutes and seeks court protection as well as financial compensation and punitive damages.
“This lawsuit demonstrates the Nashville Jewish community’s resolve to stand firm in the face of antisemitic intimidation and to hold accountable those who perpetrate it,” said Ben Raybin, an attorney for the Jewish center.
For a time, the Goyim Defense League was among the most prolific distributors of antisemitic propaganda in the United States, with members spreading flyers in Jewish neighborhoods and other public spaces. While the group’s online reach appears to have diminished more recently, Nashville has remained a focal point of its activity.
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Rabbi Eliezer Diamond, beloved Jewish Theological Seminary professor and author, dies at 73
(JTA) — Rabbi Eliezer Diamond, who taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary for over three decades and left an indelible mark on generations of rabbis and Jewish scholars, has died.
Diamond died Thursday at 73, following several years battling multiple forms of cancer.
Born in 1952, Diamond received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and rabbinical ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University from 1968 to 1977.
But it was at JTS, the Conservative flagship in New York City, where Diamond earned his doctorate in Talmud and was the Rabbi Judah Nadich Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, that his talents for mentorship and teaching flourished.
“My beloved teacher, a precious mentor and friend to countless Jewish leaders, Rabbi Eliezer Diamond z”l, has departed this world for the next,” wrote Rabbi Menachem Creditor, a scholar in residence and rabbi for the UJA-Federation of New York, in a post on Facebook. “His wisdom changed the course of my rabbinate many times over, something I know to be true for many others.”
Over his long career as a highly respected Talmud scholar, Diamond published a chapter on the rabbinic period in the “Schocken Guide to Jewish Books,” as well as entries in the “Reader’s Guide to Judaism” and “The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception.” In 2003, he published his only book, “Holy Men and Hunger Artists: Fasting and Asceticism in Rabbinic Culture,” with the Oxford University Press.
Diamond retired from JTS after the fall 2024 semester. In March during the previous semester, his legacy at the school was celebrated in a program titled “Diamonds of Torah: Honoring Rabbi Eliezer Diamond’s Teaching.”
“Generations of students have been profoundly impacted by his teaching, while his writings on prayer, asceticism, and issues of environmental law and ethics have influenced so many in the wider Jewish world as well,” wrote Shuly Rubin Schwartz, the chancellor of JTS, in a statement announcing his retirement.
On Facebook, where Diamond frequently posted photos of his wife, Rabbi Shelley Kniaz, five children and numerous grandchildren, he also documented his health struggles, providing deeply personal and rabbinic testimonies of his experience.
After hearing a grim prognosis in August 2024, Diamond posted, “I am not a statistic; I am a distinct human being, Eliezer Ben-Zion, son of Yehuda Idel and Chaya Golde. No one can know what the Shekhina’s plan is for me. What I do know is that She does not want me to live in the shadow of death but rather to bask in the radiance of life.”
As news of his death spread on Friday, many of Diamond’s former students and friends eulogized him on social media, many of them calling attention to Diamond’s legendary kindness.
Rabbi Ben Goldberg, a former student of Diamond and the rabbi of Congregation KTI in Port Chester, New York, wrote on Facebook that Diamond had “passed on to the supernal yeshiva, where I imagine he will be as beloved as he was in all of the places he taught in this world.” He recalled his time in Diamond’s classes at JTS where, he wrote, it was clear to all that Diamond “cared deeply about his students.”
“More than anything about Talmud, I’ll remember him writing lengthy (and unnecessary) notes of apology for saying something in class that might have been hurtful (which of course, it wasn’t),” Goldberg wrote.
Michael Rosenberg, another former student of Diamond who now serves on the faculty of the Hadar Institute, recalled meeting with Diamond in 2023 where the pair had a conversation that remained with him.
“That conversation was filled with pearl after pearl — about parenting, teaching, being in relationship,” wrote Rosenberg in a post on Facebook. “I am a better parent and teacher because of that conversation, and I am so sad that I will not get to follow up with my teacher and rabbi.”
Beyond his teaching at JTS, Diamond also previously taught at Stern College, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, the 92nd Street Y, several Ramah camps and the now-defunct Solomon Schechter High School.
Diamond was also a longtime resident of Teaneck, New Jersey, and congregant of Congregation Beth Sholom, where he regularly held a Torah study session on Shabbat afternoons.
“Rabbi Diamond’s wisdom (and hazzanus [singing]) were matched only by his wit,” wrote David Spielman, who was had Diamond as a high school teacher, in a post on Facebook. “A devout Brooklyn Dodgers fan, he once chastised someone for wearing a Yankees cap, saying it was inappropriate attire for Minyan. He would also say that Ebbets Field would be rebuilt ‘Bimharah b’yamainu.’ Rabbi Diamond will be remembered for that wit, wisdom, and perseverance now that his suffering is finally over.”
Beyond the numerous eulogies that have been written for him on social media, Diamond’s prolific reflections on life and faith endure.
“What draws me back to Hashem, if not to my life as a whole, is Psalm 23 גם כי אלך בגי צלמות לא אירא רע כי אתה עמדי. ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil for you are with me,’” wrote Diamond in his last post on Facebook. “Wherever I am, God is there too. I hope that I will return home soon.”
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