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(JTA) — The passage of a milestone local weather invoice in Congress on Friday means main progress on a coverage difficulty that American Jews rank above all others in current surveys of voter priorities.
Whereas local weather change isn’t typically pegged as a Jewish difficulty — in contrast to, for instance, abortion or Israel — a set of ballot outcomes counsel concern about it’s almost a consensus in the neighborhood.
Already eight years in the past, a survey from the nonpartisan group Public Faith Analysis Institute discovered {that a} far bigger share of American Jews believed that local weather change was a priority than People as an entire do. On the time, an estimated 8 in 10 American Jews mentioned the planet is going through a disaster or a significant downside.
It’s not simply that Jews discover the local weather state of affairs alarming as a result of they are typically liberal, and that liberals are way more probably than conservatives to prioritize the difficulty. In line with current polling, Jews not solely care about local weather — in addition they appear to prioritize over nearly some other difficulty.
For instance, a 2020 election exit survey of 800 Jewish voters by J Avenue, a liberal pro-Israel group, discovered that local weather change ranked second after the COVID-19 pandemic amongst points figuring out who they picked within the presidential contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden — above well being care, the economic system, racial justice and different issues.
Two subsequent polls add to this impression. In 2021 and 2022, the Jewish Voters Institute, a gaggle led by distinguished Jewish Democrats, performed nationwide surveys of Jewish voters and located that the highest difficulty they needed President Biden and Congress to deal with was local weather change. Voting rights and the economic system got here in second and third in each instances.
About two years in the past, a brand new group known as Dayenu: A Jewish Name to Local weather Motion launched searching for to harness the overwhelming stage of fear American Jews appear to have about how greenhouse gasoline emissions are wreaking havoc on our climate and oceans.
In line with Dayenu’s chief technique officer, Phil Aroneanu, there has lengthy been a widespread need amongst Jews to be extra inexperienced as people and to prepare as Jews for systemic change.
“That’s why we’re consuming out of a firehose on the subject of Jews participating with Dayenu and our campaigns,” he mentioned.
Margery Cooper, a member of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, was impressed to assist begin one in all 80 native Dayenu chapters that now exist across the nation and overseas.
“In our congregation, individuals generally ask why we’re concerned on this difficulty,” Cooper mentioned. “For myself, I’ve 30-year-old youngsters and I don’t say this to them, however after they discuss having, , future youngsters, I’m terrified. After which we’ve obtained the rabbi who’s a younger mom, and she or he talks about having to cover along with her daughter in a closet throughout intense storms. After which we’ve obtained different dad and mom whose youngsters see footage of wildfires and might’t sleep at evening.”
Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer, who spearheaded the passage of the Inflation Discount Act, because the $370 billion local weather invoice is thought, attends companies with Cooper as a fellow congregant at Beth Elohim.
When Cooper helped manage a Jewish local weather rally in Park Slope final 12 months, Schumer confirmed, marking a excessive level in Dayenu’s visibility and offering a bit of proof that local weather might be successfully galvanized as a Jewish difficulty.
The actual fact there’s a near-consensus is likely to be the explanation local weather has been underneath the radar as a Jewish difficulty, in line with Leonard Saxe, a social psychologist at Brandeis College who conducts demographic analysis on Jews.
“If there have been two Jews arguing about local weather change, Jewish journalists can be reporting on it — as a result of it’s a battle,” he mentioned. “Maybe it’s not a problem as a result of there’s not a lot debate within the Jewish neighborhood about it.”
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