Aytzim

Aytzim

Formation	2001
Tax ID no.	20-3460771
Legal status	501(c)(3) nonprofit NGO
Purpose	Jewish environmentalism, Green Zionism
Headquarters	New York City
Methods	Education, Advocacy and Public-Policy Formation
Fields	Sustainability, Nature, Conservation, Water, Energy, Biodiversity, Ecology, Climate Change, Judaism and Israel
Slogan	Ecological Judaism
Website	aytzim.org

Aytzim (meaning "trees" in Hebrew), formerly Green Zionist Alliance, is a New York-based secular, progressive and pluralistic Jewish environmental organization that is a U.S.-registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity. A grassroots all-volunteer organization, Aytzim is active in the United States, Canada and Israel. The organization is a member of the American Zionist Movement, and has worked in partnership with Ameinu, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL), Hazon, Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, Interfaith Oceans, the Jewish National Fund, GreenFaith, Mercaz/Masorti (Conservative Judaism), and the National Religious Coalition on Creation Care.

Projects

Aytzim has three projects:

• Green Zionist Alliance: The Grassroots Campaign for a Sustainable Israel (The organization's former name is now used as a project name.)

The Green Zionist Alliance works to protect and educate about the environment of Israel and the Middle East.

• Jewcology: Home of the Jewish Environmental Movement

With more than 1000 blog posts, pedagogical materials, a job board, and an interactive map of Jewish-environmental initiatives, Jewcology.org is a large online resource for information on Jewish environmentalism.

• Shomrei Breishit: Rabbis and Cantors for the Earth

An environmental-advocacy group that Aytzim runs in partnership with GreenFaith, Shomrei Breishit includes more than 100 Jewish clergy, including chief rabbis.

Aytzim also runs an internship program; hosts an English-language compilation of educational materials, research papers, academic papers, news articles, videos and books about Israel's environment; and has student chapters, including "Yovel: Aytzim at NYU."

History

The Green Zionist Alliance (GZA) was founded in 2001 by Alon Tal, Eilon Schwartz and Rabbi Michael Cohen, with a large team of other volunteers, including Adam Werbach, Devra Davis and current Aytzim leadership. In 2002 it became the first environmental party at the World Zionist Congress, where it has had elected representation since. Through this process, the organization succeeded in the appointment of environmental leaders, including Tal and Schwartz, to the board of the Keren Kayemet L'Yisrael (KKL / Jewish National Fund in Israel). Today, Aytzim representation includes Tal and Orr Karassin.

In 2006 the GZA incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit.

In late Sept. 2014, the GZA acquired Jewcology.org from fellow Jewish-environmental group Canfei Nesharim and, in partnership with GreenFaith, launched a Jewish-clergical environmental advocacy group called Shomrei Breishit: Rabbis and Cantors for the Earth. To better reflect the scope of the organization's work, the GZA rebranded itself as Aytzim, keeping the Green Zionist Alliance name both legally and for its Israel-focused work.

Aytzim has had many prominent Jewish leaders serve on its Green Zionist Alliance slates for the World Zionist Congress, including Rabbi Ellen Bernstein, Mirele Goldsmith, Susannah Heschel, Nigel Savage, Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, Richard H. Schwartz, Rabbi Marc Soloway, Rabbi Lawrence Troster, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, and Laurie Zoloth.

The Aytzim advisory board includes former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Naomi Tsur and Daniel Orenstein, a faculty member at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies.

Accomplishments

Since its founding as the Green Zionist Alliance, Aytzim has been a key factor in the greening of Israeli policy, both internally and in its interactions with other countries. Aytzim's accomplishments include:

• Quadrupling funding for afforestation;
• Building new bicycle lanes in Israel;
• Developing an environmental program for villagers in Rwanda;
• Saving the unique ecosystem of the Samar sand dunes in the Arava Valley from destruction;
• A successful effort to stop hydrofracking of oil shale in Israel's Elah Valley, and to ban all fossil-fuel extraction on land owned by Jewish National Fund in Israel;
• A successful effort to increase the public share of profits from Israel's offshore natural-gas fields;
• The installation of rooftop energy-generating solar panels and indoor energy-efficient lighting;
• The planned transition of vehicles in the fleets of quasi-governmental organizations, such as Jewish National Fund, to high fuel-efficiency and alternative-fuel models;
• The development of seven-year environmental plans, inspired by the shmita sabbatical cycle, to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in Israel;
• The inclusion of environmental education for new immigrants to Israel;
• The development of community gardens at immigrant-housing centers;
• Increased support for in-country carbon-mitigating projects;
• Increased support for local organic agriculture.

Activist and Educational Campaigns

Aytzim has been engaged in many campaigns to both protect and educate about the environment, including:

• Publication of the Jewish Energy Guide, a 50-article resource on energy issues from a Jewish perspective produced in partnership with the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life;
• Development of an Ethic of the Seas in partnership with the National Religious Coalition on Creation Care;
• Filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in the “Our Children’s Trust” case.
• Support for a cross-country Jewish environmental-education campaign;
• An effort to support Israel's forests in the wake of the worst forest fire in the country's history;
• An effort to develop an interconnected network of individuals, organizations and communities working to create a healthier and more sustainable world rooted in the values of the shmita cycle;
• An effort to prevent further demolition of the Bedouin village of Al Arakib in Israel's Negev region;
• Partnering with 160 other groups, including primary organizers the Sierra Club, 350.org and the Hip Hop Caucus, on the "Forward on Climate" initiative;
• Partnering with musician Natalie Merchant, actor Mark Ruffalo and more than 200 other groups — including MoveOn, Friends of the Earth and the Indigenous Environmental Network — in the Food & Water Watch-organized New Yorkers Against Fracking coalition;
• Partnering with hundreds of other groups on the People's Climate March;
• Partnering with hundreds of other groups on the March for a Clean Energy Revolution;
• Partnering with a dozen other faith-based environmental organizations — including Franciscan Action Network and GreenFaith — on the Sacred Earth project;
• Partnering with 14 other Jewish organizations — including Hazon, COEJL and the Religious Action Center — in founding the Green Hevra, a network of Jewish-environmental organizations;
• Endorsing a Jewish community-wide transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy;
• And an effort to green the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America.

Criticism

The organization has been criticized for its stance against hydrofracking, with the New York Post labeling the GZA as "running against the tide of technology." The organization also has been criticized merely for associating with Israel and Zionism, and for its participation in a process that largely favors Israel's political status quo. Politically centrist individuals have criticized the GZA for its promotion of community gardens, charging that making community gardens more widely available is patronizing to the public. Others see Zionism's mission as finished with the establishment of the modern state of Israel and they question the relevance of the entire system of legacy Zionist organizations formed by the World Zionist Organization and its constituent agencies.

External links

• Aytzim: Ecological Judaism

News

• Jerusalem Post: The Value of Voting for Aytzim
• Jerusalem Post: How many Zionists does it take to change a light bulb?
• Jerusalem Post: WZO to boost environmental practices
• The Jewish Daily Forward: Enter the Green Zionists
• J. Weekly: Eco-Israel retreat reaches out to 'green' Jews
• Tikkun Magazine: The Green Zionist Alliance: The Acorn That Acted Like a Tree
• Jewish Telegraphic Agency: Green suffuses Zionist congress
• The Jewish Daily Forward: Keeping the Land of Milk and Honey Pollution-free
• Jewish Telegraphic Agency: Environmental slate tries to prove it's easy to be both green and Zionist
• The Jewish Daily Forward: A Green Cure for Zionism's Blues
• Jerusalem Post: Greens represented at Zionist Congress
• Jerusalem Post: The greening of Zionism