December 2nd - D'var Torah from Dr. Noam Sienna

Dr. Noam Sienna will give the D’var Torah - "Sitting Under the Tree of Grief: Facing the Climate Crisis as Jews"

Noam Sienna is a scholar, Jewish educator, and artist living in Minneapolis. He received his PhD in Jewish History from the University of Minnesota, and currently teaches Religious Studies at St. Olaf College.

This past May, Beth Jacob received an incredible grant from Scientists in Synagogues to explore connections between Judaism and science in a series of four programs. Join us throughout the coming year for a wonderful year of learning!

December 3rd Program

Includes the following speakers followed by a question & answer session with light refreshments :

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3415618767

Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman -  “Challenging Destruction: A Jewish Call on Climate”

When the climate crisis feels insurmountable, how do we approach it? When despair seems the obvious choice, what can awaken us to action and love? Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman will draw from the stories of Noah and Abraham to strengthen us as Jews as we face the spiritual and existential challenge of climate change.  Using a lens of Jewish values, she will explain how the climate crisis is a crisis of human rights and social justice, and familiarize participants in the work of Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action.

Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman is a writer, mother, activist, and passionate creative. Her essays have been published in various venues, including The New York Times, Tablet Magazine, YES! Magazine, WBUR’s Cognoscenti, and the Reform Movement's new book, The Sacred Earth: Jewish Perspectives on Our Planet.  Her climate anthem, “The Tide Is Rising,” co-written with her husband, Yotam Schachter, has spread throughout the world, and her picture book based on the song is forthcoming from Beaming Books in 2025. Rabbi Friedman directs the Artist Beit Midrash of JArts and Hebrew College. She was ordained by Hebrew College in 2014, and is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship and Oberlin College. She lives in Boston with her husband and son. More at rabbishoshana.com and @rabbishoshana on Instagram.

Dr. Jake Grossman - "The Causes and Consequences of Climate Change".

Dr. Grossman will cover the biophysical basis of climate change as well as its predicted consequences or other elements and will share his own research related to mitigation/adaptation.

He will also be answering the questions: What is climate change? Which human activities contribute the most to climate change? And what are the impacts of climate change?

Dr. Jake Grossman is a plant ecologist and Assistant Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies at St. Olaf College. He and his students study the consequences of climate change and biodiversity loss for temperate trees and forests. Jake is an alumnus of Oberlin College and holds graduate degrees from the University of Washington and the University of Minnesota. After completing his PhD at Minnesota, he conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard University and taught for two years at Swarthmore College. Jake is also a returned Peace Corps volunteer, having served for two years as an agroforestry extensionist in rural eastern Paraguay. There, he had the unique pleasure of conducting two Passover seders in a mixture of Spanish and the Paraguayan Indigenous language, Guaraní. He and his husband Jared are members of Beth Jacob and live in south Minneapolis with their rescue dog, Roxie.