About the Festival
What is The Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest?
It is online festival to connect our Jewish values to action in order to address our current climate crisis, and to make climate change a central moral issue of the Jewish community. We seek to re-energize Tu BiShvat, the Jewish “Earth Day” of sorts, as a relevant and timely holiday to connect Jewish values with the urgency of climate action. Come learn how we can take bold action together to put millions of people back to work building the clean energy economy, how to be part of the exciting, growing Jewish climate movement, and how to overcome fear with bold action and spiritual audacity.
The 2021 festival included gatherings on energy and solar, organizing and movement-building, food and agriculture, Jewish learning, organizational and political leadership and much more. Most events were online, though a few may be offered with “boots on the ground”, COVID-safe opportunities such as beach clean ups and tree plantings.
The 2021 festival included over 165 events produced by our festival organizing team and hundreds of partners.
In addition to learning about the issues, the exciting work gaining momentum, and the very practical ways you can make a difference, we also seek to join together across the entire Jewish community to build momentum as a community with collective power to speak up on these critical issues of our day. The festival kicked off as a new president took office with a climate action mandate, and as we built towards the UN Climate Conference in November 2021.
Ultimately, we hope that being part of a proactive solution to climate change becomes a natural and imperative aspect of every Jewish organization’s and individual’s work and identity. Together, we can make climate change a central moral issue of the Jewish community.
Why Now?
The Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest was born out of this moment and created for this moment. While in person gatherings are restricted, we have a unique opportunity to join as a united community to hold a top-tier international festival with relative ease (no travel! no conference facilities!). The challenges are real and enormous: the coronavirus pandemic is devastating lives and livelihoods; climate impacts like fires, floods, and droughts have become more frequent and intense; and the legacy of racial injustice tears at the fabric of our society.
And yet, we kicked off 2021 swearing in a new president and Congress, we experienced a presidential election where young people motivated by climate change fueled historic voter turnout, before that, Greta Thunberg challenged world leaders at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, and school children all over the world walkeding out of class to demand that those with power take immediate and decisive action. We have an opportunity to bring forth a new, more just and sustainable world by putting millions back to work building a 100% clean-energy economy, holding polluters accountable, and finally addressing environmental injustice -- a just, green recovery, and the future we all deserve.
The holiday of Tu BiShvat, the Jewish New Year for trees, marks the changing of the seasons, a hint at the renewal of life that lies ahead. The mystical association of Tu BiShvat with the Tree of Life and the long-standing practice of planting trees make this holiday a symbolic and concrete opportunity to remember and renew the richness of the natural world, and our role in it. Let’s do this!
Who’s behind this?
The Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest is a collaboration among folks in climate justice and Jewish communities who saw a unique opportunity to join together and seize the moment to do something that might have otherwise not been possible. The core planning team includes creators of the 2019 Urgency of Now: Seattle’s Jewish Climate Festival, and leading Jewish organizations Hazon and Dayenu. Check out the extraordinary team who pulled this together in just a few weeks. Darim Online is the fiscal sponsor for the Festival.
Thank you to our sponsors!
