Community urged to demand action over climate change at Board forum

Members of the Jewish community have been urged to write to their local MP to ask them to act over climate change at the Board’s first Climate Change Forum

A Jewish response to climate change was discussed at the event, organised by the Board of Deputies Social Action group (BoDSA). Guests who addressed the 70-strong audience included environmental campaigner Jonathan Porrit CBE – co-founder of Forum for the Future, Emeritus Rabbi of Finchley Reform Synagogue Rabbi Jeffrey Newman and The Rt Reverend the Bishop of Salisbury, Nick Holtam.

Rabbi Newman told attendees, who were all given pre-written postcards to send to their MP, that there should be a Jewish response to environmental issues. “We need to work together. When the Jewish community takes things seriously we have enormous agency. We have tremendous capacity,” he said.

Mr Porritt told the audience that the planet faces an “existential threat to humankind”.

The forum, which was chaired by Maureen Kendler, Director of Education at Tzedek, was designed to open a discussion on what Deputies and others can do in the run up to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) to be held in Paris in December.

Photo: (from left) Jonathan Porritt, Board Vice President Sheila Gewolb, Maureen Kendler, Rabbi Jeffrey Newman and the Bishop of Salisbury, Nick Holtam