The Climate Crisis: A Humanitarian and a Jewish Issue
The climate crisis is global and interconnected. It is bigger than any individual, community, religion, or nation. Yet every individual, organisation, religion, and nation will be affected and must take a role in addressing it.
At World Jewish Relief, it has become ever clearer that our work in low and middle income countries, in which many of the world’s most vulnerable people live, is dramatically affected by the climate crisis. We have started to grapple with how the crisis impacts our communities, and how we can best play a role in helping them mitigate and adapt to these changes.
Whilst the climate crisis can feel immense, daunting, and overwhelming, we are motivated by the Jewish notion that no-one is too small to make a difference. In Pirkei Avot, the Rabbis teach us that “You do not have to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it”. Even if a job is too vast for one person or organisation to tackle alone, we are still obligated to do what we can.
We have researched and written this short piece to share with our community how we are thinking about and responding to the climate crisis in our activities, and why we see climate as an important Jewish, as well as global, issue.