 DECEMBER 31 • 2020 | 17

C

oncerns about climate change and 
its impact on our world “loom like 
big clouds” over everything for 
Josh Bender of Ann Arbor. The Michigan 
State University graduate, now in his sec-
ond year of rabbinical school at the Jewish 
Theological Seminary in New York, says 
he’s made environmentally focused changes 
in his daily life like eating less meat and 
avoiding single-use plastics.
But he wanted to do some-
thing to tackle the global prob-
lem on a larger scale.
“With big societal changes 
you can sometimes feel pow-
erless to do anything about 
them,
” Bender says. “I remember during the 
election, I wanted whoever the nominees 
were to be people who got what a serious 
generational issue this is.
”
Josh became an intern with the group 
Dayenu, a new movement of American 
Jews confronting the climate crisis “with 
spiritual audacity and bold political action.
” 
The group was formed in April and in 
the months and weeks leading up to the 
presidential election, Josh helped facilitate 
volunteer events. Participants made phone 
calls and sent text messages to more than 
270,000 Jewish climate-concerned voters in 
Michigan urging them to go to the polls.
“When I think how small the margins 
were, especially in places like Michigan, I 

know we had an impact,
” he says. 
The group’s nonpartisan campaign called 
“Chutzpah 2020” targeted Jewish voters in 
Michigan and five other key states: Arizona, 
Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina and 
Pennsylvania. The idea was to pilot an 
innovative get-out-the-vote effort centered 
on faith.
“Studies show 80% of American Jews are 
concerned about climate change, but most 
don’t really know what to do about it,
” says 
Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, Founder and CEO of 
Dayenu. “Religious voices play an import-
ant role in shaping our national narratives 
and solutions, ensuring the centrality of 
human dignity, social justice and the public 
good.
”
Rosenn, whose mother, 
Sally Teitelbaum, grew up in 
Detroit, attended Mumford 
High School and was a long-
time member of Congregation 
Shaarey Zedek, has spent more 
than two decades leading 
Jewish nonprofit organizations advocating 
for social change. 
“Climate change affects everyone but 
not everyone equally. It disproportionally 
impacts communities that have been his-
torically marginalized,
” she said. “I started 
Dayenu because with the climate crisis 
bearing down, we need all hands on deck, 
and the Jewish community is not yet show-

ing up with all its people and power. What 
is at stake is the very concept of living l’dor 
v’dor [from generation to generation].
”
Moving forward, Rosenn and Dayenu’s 
supporters would like to see our leaders pri-
oritize environmental justice and move the 
country toward 100% clean energy by 2030 
and net zero emissions well before 2050. 
“President-elect Joe Biden will be inau-
gurated on Jan. 20, in the midst of a global 
pandemic, a deepening economic recession, 
accelerating climate change, and with a 
mandate to address racial injustice,
” Dayenu 
said in an emailed statement. “These con-
verging crises demand urgent action on 
Day One of his term, and a team with the 
chutzpah to do what science and justice 
demand.
”
The statement applauded the climate 
team Biden has assembled so far.
For Bender, who has now completed his 
internship, working with Dayenu was espe-
cially fulfilling here in his home state, sur-
rounded by the largest supply of freshwater 
on Earth. 
“There are a lot of big and small ways 
climate change affects Michigan,
” he says. 
“I’ve never worked in any political capacity 
before, and it was meaningful to feel like I 
had more of a stake and the chance to make 
an impact.
” 

For more information, visit: dayenu.org.

New Jewish climate 
justice group 
“Dayenu” mobilizes 
Michigan voters.

ROBIN SCHWARTZ 
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Rabbi Jennie 

Rosenn

DAYENU FACEBOOK

Josh Bender

Turning
Heat

Up the

Dayenu volunteers across the 

country hold up signs that 

together spell out a message.

