Here we list a sample of special programs we've done over the years. They span from our focus on decarbonizing, spiritual resilience, and advocacy. Those with stars were recorded and are available for viewing.
2025
DECARBONIZING PROGRAMS
DECARBONIZING PROGRAMS
DECARBONIZING PROGRAMS
2022
DECARBONIZING PROGRAMS
2021
2019
2018
2017
2015
DECARBONIZING PROGRAMS
- Discussion with MA Climate Chief Melissa Hoffer. Congregation Or Atid is hosting (JCAN co-sponsor) (Feb)
- Tu B’Shvat seder at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley (Feb)
- Tu B'Shvat Virtual Lobby Day for Climate Solutions. Jewish Earth Alliance event (co-sponsored by JCAN-MA) (Feb)
DECARBONIZING PROGRAMS
- Activism Ahead After A Decade of Jewish Climate Action. Change is constant, as climate itself continues to demonstrate, so can we humans still make transitions quickly enough? (Nov)***
- Green Jobs Are Good Jobs. Hessann Farooqi, MCAN "Leaders Speak Out: Paths to Climate Justice" Speaker Series on Equity and Climate. Cosponsored by JCAN-MA. (Sept)
- Let's Talk Electricity Rates. Harvey Michaels discusses why rates are so high and what can be done (July)***
- The Climate Crisis - An Israeli Perspective. Dr. Tamara Lev, Israel Institute Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Boston University describes why Israel is an ecological and climate change "hotspot", and government policies to address these issues (May)***
- Hope is Heatpump: How One House of Worship & School Reduced Carbon by 85% JCAN is excited to showcase Temple Shir Tikva’'s ground-breaking, up-to-the-moment story of transitioning to heatpumps. Hear from the team who kept school and sanctuary in full operation while leaping towards climate neutrality. (March)***
- Networking Meeting. What's going on and what we all can do and are doing. Green team members from synagogues and churches. anyone decarbonizing or thinking of decarbonizing. (February)
- Running A Decarbonizers Program For Your Congregants Learn how to run a "Decarbonizers" program. Easy program designed to motivate members of your local synagogue/community to substantially reduce carbon in their households. (January)***
- Walking the Land Gathering. Share your experience in the JCAN-MA Walking the Land, a way to walk land around you with mindfulness for 11 minutes a day (Dec)
- Etudes for Elul. The month of Elul is a time for reflection, a time for t'shuvah. Some of this year's Etude writers share their etudes (September)***
- The Poetry of Climate Change. Rabbi Katy Allen and Dr. Thea Iberall share their poetry with others in a response and call event (February)
- Clean Up Your Snail Mailbox - A Tu BiShvat Celebration. Join together for a music-filled Tu BiShvat celebration and take the first steps to rid yourself of junk mail. (January)***
- Jewish Climate Meet and Greet. Gather to discuss advocacy opportunities (September)
- Get Out the Vote. Under the direction of the Environmental Voter Project, participants got trained on encouraging registered environmental voters to vote (April and ongoing from August to November)
DECARBONIZING PROGRAMS
- Running A Decarbonizers Program For Your Congregants Learn how to run a "Decarbonizers" program. Easy program designed to motivate members of your local synagogue/community to substantially reduce carbon in their households. (September, May)***
- Networking for a 5784 of Climate Organizing for all including Synagogue Liaisons and Green-Team Organizers. Temple Beth David, Westwood, MA (August)
- Climate Action Planning for Your House of Worship or Small Nonprofit: A Roadmap To Successful Organizing. Jennifer Haugh from GreenerU offers insights on the elements of successful volunteer efforts and specifically the steps to a stakeholder-engaged climate action planning process. (July)***
- Bentshmarking: Calculate your Synagogue Carbon Footprint provides a baseline for ongoing reduction efforts. (June)***
- Radical Residential Retrofitting - Rachel White (Byggmeister) and Audrey Schulman (HEET) discuss brand-new approaches to retrofitting our aging homes. (June)***
- Rate Hikes - Yikes! - tips and ideas from Massachusetts Interfaith Power and Light, and others (Jan)***
- Grappling with Climate Change: New Jewish Responses - 4 Jewish authors share insights from their books for exploring Jewish approaches to the spiritual and existential challenges of climate change (December)***
- How is the Israel/Gaza War Impacting You as a Jewish Climate Activist? Rabbi Katy Allen and climate change chaplain Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner led an exploration and reflection on what is happening in Israel/Gaza. (November)
- Yom Kippur and the Climate Crisis: Ritual and Reflection - Rabbi Malkah Binah Klein teaches us how Yom Kippur can support our work on the climate crisis, (September)***
- An Evening of Earth Etudes for Elul. Rabbi Katy Allen gathers 'etude' writers every Elul to share their thoughts and reflections. (August)***
- Tisha B'Av gathering to read the Book of Lamentations - to mourn the past and future together at the ocean. (July)
- A Tree of Life afternoon workshop - spend time exploring and reflecting on ancient and modern texts, poetry, and art (June)
- Exposure - film screening and discussion - ordinary women from many countries doing extraordinary things against all odds (June)
- Interfaith Summit. STORIES OF THE SPIRIT THE ROLE OF COMMUNITIES RESPONDING TO EXTREME WEATHER (June)
- Contemplative Walk (May)
- Dig Deep Writing Workshop (May/June, July/Aug, Nov/Dec)
- Dear CJP Call to Action Campaign. Mobilize organization, institution or congregation to reach out to CJP. (Oct)
- Three key climate bills currently in the Massachusetts Legislature. Andrew Steinberg of JALSA and Mark Dyen. (August)***
- Divestment Webinar. One of the easiest climate actions you can take is to simply stop supporting the fossil fuel industry (April, January)***
- JCAN and Jewish Earth Alliance on Tu Bishvat for a Lobby Day (February)
- Fix the Grid Campaign Launch - orient to what the Fix the Grid campaign is, and to collectively launch our governance reform campaign for our regional energy system. (January)
- What Jews can do to press the 118th Congress to on climate change (January)
2022
DECARBONIZING PROGRAMS
- Bentshmarking: Calculate your Synagogue Carbon Footprint provides a baseline for ongoing reduction efforts. (Dec)***
- Running A Decarbonizers Program For Your Congregants Learn how to run a "Decarbonizers" program. Easy program designed to motivate members of your local synagogue/community to substantially reduce carbon in their households. (Dec)***
- Cool Tool for Decarbonizing - JCAN-MA customized portal for congregants (May)***
- Centering Decarbonization in Climate Action: Massachusetts Model and Emergent Mishagas - Fred Davis (JCAN-MA) and Sabrina Shankman (Boston Globe) inform your climate action (March)***
- Tree of Life Leadership Training - spend time exploring and reflecting on ancient and modern texts, poetry, and art
- Tree of Life Workshop for Clergy - spend time exploring and reflecting on ancient and modern texts, poetry, and art
- Hometown Habitat Stories of Bringing Nature Home - Film Screening - native plants don't need pesticides or extra watering
- Dig Deep Writing Workshop
- Defeating Fossil Pharaohs - discussion of freedom from the plagues of climate disaster: flood, fire, sea rise, toxic earth, exploitation of people, extraction of resources, forced immigration (April)***
- Environmental Voters Project (and Dayenu) phonebanking
- How Decarbonization for Synagogues and Congregants will be Accelerated by New Legislation - panel discussion about what the new Federal and State bills will mean to you. (Oct)***
2021
- Third Jewish Climate Action Conference - bringing together over 550 activists to network, learn, and teach. (April)
- Setting Climate Goals for your Synagogue Our imperative to tikkun, repair, demands a climate commitment. (Dec)***
- Bentshmarking: Calculate your Synagogue Carbon Footprint provides a baseline for ongoing reduction efforts. (Dec, Sept, Aug, July)***
- Running A Decarbonizers Program For Your Congregants Learn how to run a "Decarbonizers" program. Easy program designed to motivate members of your local synagogue/community to substantially reduce carbon in their households. (Dec, Oct)***
- Rosh Chodesh workshop (July, June)
- Support for Clergy in Time of Climate Crisis.
- Sacred Grounds - Naomi Edelson (National Wildlife Federation), Manja Holland (NWF), Neela de Zoysa (Native Plant Trust), Jean Devine (Meadowmaking for Diverstiy), Rev Vernon Walker (CREW), Rev Betsy Sowers (Old Cambridge Baptist Church) - replacing all or part of our lawns with native plants (Feb)***
- The Condor and the Eagle - film screening - inspiring work of land defenders and activists (Jan)
- Wondrous Connecting: Weaving Ourselves into the More-than-human-world. Rabbis Katy Allen and Josh Breindel on sacred relationship (March)
- Divestment Webinar. One of the easiest climate actions you can take is to simply stop supporting the fossil fuel industry (Nov, Oct, June, May, Feb)***
- Climate and Environmental Justice Lobby Day of Mass Power Forward (Jan)
- Second Jewish Climate Action Conference
- Accelerating Heat Pumps. Leading experts share their insights and knowledge regarding this new technology. (June)***
- A Jewish Call to Climate Action: JCAN & MassEnergize Collaboration. Hear how Dayenu, MassEnergize, and JCAN are enabling individual and collective actions on climate change in our communities. (Nov)***
- Bentshmarking: Calculate your Synagogue Carbon Footprint provides a baseline for ongoing reduction efforts.***
- Footprint - Foodprint: Climate, Energy, Food. What percentage of the average American's carbon footprint is from food? It's surprisingly not a quickly-google-able question. (May)***
- Setting Climate Goals for your Synagogue. This webinar walks through the straightforward steps to draw a target for reducing the synagogue's carbon impact. (Jan)***
- Gardening for Health: Yours and the Planets. Climate activist and veteran restorative gardener Louise Quigley in an interactive discussion about home-grown food, how it can help put carbon back where it belongs, and how you can get started right now. (April)***
- Compost and Soil Carbon Miranda Lachman of Bootstrap Compost on how compost not only prevents the creation of methane but also helps put atmospheric carbon back where it belongs - in the soil - and what you can do to start composting right now. (April)***
- Gardening at Your Synagogue. Rabbi Michael Birnholz explores a collection of Jewish garden concepts that show how much we can do with as little as one pot, and how to bring the garden into our rituals, practices, and learning. (May)***
- Loss and Transformation: Maintaining Hope when Optimism is Elusive. Awaken new and deeper awareness of tools for coping emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically with climate disruption (June)
- Environmental Justice and Anti-Racism 21-Day Challenge
2019
- Bentshmarking: Calculate your Synagogue Carbon Footprint provides a baseline for ongoing reduction efforts.
- Divestment Webinar. One of the easiest climate actions you can take is to simply stop supporting the fossil fuel industry
- Setting Climate Goals for your Synagogue. This webinar walks through the straightforward steps to draw a target for reducing the synagogue's carbon impact.
- Refuah Shleimah: Grounding Our Activism in Joy, Grief, and Vision. Emotional and spiritual support for anyone working on and thinking about climate change and environmental justice
- Climate Justice/Climate Equity and Judaism. Issues of climate justice and climate equity in the context of Jewish tradition
- One Cello, One Planet
2018
- One Cello, One Planet. Performed by cellist Judith Glixon, this one-hour concert focuses on the urgency of climate change, encourages audience members to act, and raises funds for organizations that are addressing this critical issue.
- Solar for Synagogues Program: Learning from Experience. Panel discussion shares the experiences of synagogues that have successfully installed solar. (May)***
- Honoring the Sacred Temple of the Earth: A Tisha B'Av Offering in Poetry, Music, and Dance
2017
- Organic Torah: Jewish Wisdom for Climate, Environment, and Food Justice
- Creating Sustainable Synagogues Program
2015
- First Jewish Climate Action Conference