Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action, a new national Jewish organization dedicated to confronting the climate crisis, is preparing to launch in early 2020. Founded by Rabbi Jennie Rosenn in partnership with social justice and environmental leaders in the field, and with nearly a million dollars of seed funding secured, Dayenu will be an intergenerational organization mobilizing the Jewish community to take bold political action and wrestle with the deep questions that surface as we face the climate crisis.
“Our collective future depends on having all hands on deck to confront the climate crisis, and this includes the Jewish community in all our strength. Dayenu is dedicated to bringing Jewish depth, people power, and political strength to the most critical issue of our time,” said Rabbi Rosenn.
Reflecting on the organization’s name, Rabbi Rosenn added, “Dayenu! We’ve had enough with the destruction of our world! It also means, we have enough. We have what we need – the resources, science, and innovations – to bring about a livable, sustainable world, so that everyone can have enough.”
Rabbi Jonah Pesner, Director of the Religious Action Center and Senior Vice President of the Union for Reform Judaism said, “This moment requires nothing short of a national engine to build a more powerful, urgently needed, Jewish movement to address the climate crisis. We are grateful that Dayenu is taking the lead!”
A national organization, Dayenu will also connect and support emerging local efforts across the country. “I am excited by the ways that Dayenu can support and help us advance JCAN-NYC’s local efforts in addressing the climate crisis,” said Ace Leveen, Co-Chair of Jewish Climate Action NYC.
In addition, Dayenu will give Jews and Jewish leaders resources and opportunities to wrestle with what it means to live, lead, parent, and come of age during this time. Rabbi Rosenn notes, “The existential threat facing humanity raises deep existential, psychological, and for some, religious questions and as a Jewish community we need to better support people to grapple with the angst so many of us are feeling.”
By supporting Jews to confront what it means to live in this time of perilous climate crisis and through coordinated, bold activism, Dayenu seeks to ensure that the Jewish community is doing all within its power to bring about a world in which all people can live vibrant, sustainable lives, knowing that the same will be true for generations to come.
A long-time Jewish social justice leader, Rabbi Rosenn brings an impressive track record to this endeavor. She served on the founding boards of AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps and Repair the World. At the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Rabbi Rosenn played a leadership role in building the field of Jewish social justice with the creation of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable, the Selah Leadership Training Program, and Just Congregations. She also helped to grow the Israeli environmental movement through the Green Environment Fund. Most recently as a Vice President at HIAS, Rabbi Rosenn was the primary architect of the contemporary Jewish movement for refugees.
In preparation for its launch in early 2020, Dayenu is building out its strategy and partnerships to ensure the organization is poised to achieve optimal impact, complement existing Jewish environmental organizations and efforts, and play a meaningful role in the growing national climate movement.
To get involved in 2020 go to dayenu.org.
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All hands on deck is exactly what we need. We at JewishEarthAlliance.org are looking forward to working with Dayenu. Bruchim t’hiyu!
So many good folks in Jewish communities are already heartsick about the way a damaged climate is hurting our neighbors and are coming together in big and small ways to repair our world. I see this in my own shul and minyanim in the DC area, and I see it through my work with the national Interfaith Power & Light network.
Now, Dayenu is calling all of us together, to coordinate our good work and help us raise our voices for strong climate policy nationally. Let’s prepare for Hanukkah this year by helping to create the miracle our world needs.
Climate change is ultimately a moral question, more than an economic, political, or ecological one — and religion and morality go hand-in-hand. So Dayenu is right, the Jewish community has a deep obligation to address the climate emergency at every level: in our funding, our priority-setting, our advocacy, our education and programming, and our long-range planning. It’s also a needed opportunity for relevance, applying our values in the public square.
COEJL (Coalition for the Environment and Jewish Life, the green wing of JCPA and Jewish pillar of the National Religious Partnership on the Environment) — along with our sister organizations in the Jewish sustainability and justice space — looks forward to working closely with Dayenu. Together, may we help the Jewish community’s response reach the needed scale.
And that scale is steep. See the new UN report, rooted in the global scientific consensus, that we now need 7.6% *annual* emissions reductions, just to make up for lost time. That’s because society has dawdled, governments and corporations have obsfuscated, and potential partners like our Jewish community have hardly stepped up to the plate. Dai! Enough with that! Together with Dayenu, let’s bring l’dor vador consciousness, tzedek (justice), and shmirat beresheet (protecting Creation) to the forefront of the Jewish agenda.
People are desperate for big leadership in the Jewish world on the climate. It’s time.
A rare item of good news on the climate front–Rabbi Jennie Rosenn has the skill, knowledge and leadership chops to activate the Jewish community on climate change before it is too late. We are easily distracted by smaller and less dire challenges–we need leadership to keep us focused on the greatest challenge facing humanity. I’m confident that Rabbi Rosenn will keep us on task. Be strong and of good courage! ???? ?????
Dayenu is so needed right now. This effort can help the Jewish community take great steps in furthering Jewish community effectiveness in environmental awareness and advocacy. Looking forward to the months and years ahead.
Having worked so closely with Rabbi Jennie Rosenn on Visioning Justice , I know the impact of her leadership
on building the field of Jewish social justice. In these challenging times it gives me fresh hope to witness Dayenu emerge and I look forward to seeing how we all collaborate together to turn the tide of catastrophic climate change.
Shifra Bronznick
The Jewish community must use our power to confront the climate crisis and Dayenu will provide a strong and much needed organizing and advocacy platform. Yasher Koach to Jennie Rosenn for her vision and leadership!
Rachel Jacoby Rosenfield
Go Rabbi Rosenn! There’s no one more capable to take this on than her. Our community is long overdue for serious action. Thank you for stepping up!
We at Jews of the Earth, such a new project of Aytzim that we are not yet on the Aytzim website also look forward to working with Dayenu. Agreed that it is past time for the Jewish community to step up and address this crucial issue that impacts so much more heavily on the poor, on people of color, on indigenous people and other marginalized populations. This is one reason why the climate emergency is the key social justice issue of our day. Thank you for taking the lead.
I hope this organization will act with more awareness of and sensitivity to the disabled community than both other climate actions (e.g. those banning plastic straws needed by the disabled) and other Jewish social action (e.g. the Poor People’s Campaign, which advocates damaging policies) We need leadership that will act effectively without trampling the most vulnerable in society
It’s great Dayenu is thinking big. It’s great to appeal to individual or congregational virtue, but insufficient by itself. We need to do a lot, and we need to do it yesterday.
This is a moment when we need powerful and coordinated action. There is nobody exempt from this crisis. I’m grateful that Rabbi Jennie Rosenn and her partners are bringing their extraordinary talents to helping the Jewish community play a more significant role in addressing climate change. I look forward to partnering with Dayenu and to helping the Conservative movement and anyone else who looks to JTS for leadership to support Dayenu’s efforts. We can do this!
Baruch Hashem! I am so grateful Rabbi Jennie Rosenn has heeded the call to start something that will bring more Jewish power and strength to the national and state level fights for a livable climate. I am energized, too, by the thought that Dayenu could support communities in grappling with the spiritual and existential despair and paralysis that keep us from life affirming action. Let’s launch this vision and make the conditions in which a miracle can occur. Because that is what we need.
Rabbi Jennie Rosenn puts substance and gravitas into everything she does. She acts with action when action is needed, she researches when research is needed, she collaborates when collaboration is needed and she leads, always leads, with passion and integrity. This is an opportunity to come together and be wiser and impactful with Dayenu.