8 | JULY 14 • 2022 

Climate Change and 
the Jewish Response 
First, I express thanks to your 
editors for introducing the subject 
via an editorial by David Kalman 
(“Jewish Environmental Thought 
is Not Ready,
” June 16, page 10). 
Kalman does not make light of 
the crisis, yet I feel his analysis 
lacks the needed sense of urgency. 
He puts all his eggs in the “adapta-
tion” basket.
Should we, as he suggests, “let 
go” of efforts to prevent future 
carbon-driven destruction? Better 
not. David’s Plan B (adaptation) is 
short term at best, even in the life-
times of our children. Adaptation 
will not prevent the disasters our 
indifference is sowing.
Perhaps, you have heard the 
term “tipping points?” These are 
not liberal ghost stories but are 
unpredictable and irreversible 
breaks with current “linearity” of 
impact increases, as we increase 
global temperatures. As if dou-

bling and tripling impacts weren’t 
bad enough! But, they represent 
the potential for a “game over” 
future, where adaptation com-
pletely fails.
What are our best moves? It 
all boils down to national and 
international policy. For example, 
in our Congress, HR2307 would 
put a price per ton on carbon 
(from all primary sources) and 
rebate these fees to citizens, 
protecting us from higher fuel 
prices that result. In this way, we 
are charging fossil fuel compa-
nies an “atmospheric dumping 
fee,
” which is only fair after they 
have dumped the social cost of 
their product on us for decades. 
Studies (REMI, Columbia, 
Resources for the Future) project 
cutting emissions in line with 
IPCC goals.
What of China and India? 
The bill includes a Border Tax 
Adjustment to leverage “good 
behavior” on exports to the U.S.: 

the National “go low” on carbon 
or pay a price.
Will this work to lower emis-
sions? We are, after all, relying on 
market forces, rather than man-
dates. Yes, say dozens of Nobel 
Laureates in economics, the 
National Academy of Sciences, 
studies at MIT and Columbia, the 
IMF and so on.
So, hats off to the Detroit Jewish 
News, and let’s continue to hon-
estly face the future, for our kids’ 
sake, at least!

— Jan Freed, via the web

Disturbing Academic 
Support of BDS
The following excerpts are from 
the renowned Tammi Rossman-
Benjamin, director of AMCHA 
Initiative. “Middle East Professors 
Boycott Israel — Where’s the 
Moral Outrage?” 
 (Note that the following is edit-
ed for word count and the entire 
article shows that everyone of us 

is not immune to the ravages of 
Jew hatred confronting us daily 
in academia, the media, the U.N. 
and many governments. We must 
challenge this scourge at all times, 
everywhere. — Ed Kohl)
 Hours after the American 
Studies Association (ASA) 
announced its membership 
had voted to endorse an aca-
demic boycott of Israel in 2013, 
the American Association of 
University Professors (AAUP) 
issued a statement expressing its 
disappointment with the ASA 
vote, claiming it represented 
“a setback for academic freedom.
” 
 Fast forward eight years. 
In March 2022, the Middle 
East Studies Association (MESA) 
voted to endorse an academic 
boycott of Israel. 
MESA has received absolute-
ly no public condemnation of 
its boycott from the AAUP
, AAU 
or ACE — except for Brandeis 
University and NYU. 

letters

PURELY COMMENTARY

guest column
The Re-Christening of America
W

hen I was in third 
grade in Troy Public 
Schools, my teacher 
invited us to join her in a weekly, 
afterschool Bible study she was 
to lead. I came home and shared 
with my parents 
my desire to join 
all my friends in 
this club. The next 
day we heard from 
our teacher that 
afterschool Bible 
study was canceled. 
 
 
 
 I later came to 
learn that, angered 
upon hearing my announcement, 
my mother paid a successful 
visit to the school principal. In 
America, she explained, there is 
a separation between church and 

state.
There is a good chance that if 
my third-grade incident occurred 
in today’s America, the princi-
pal would reject my mother’s 
concerns about her Jewish son 
feeling excluded from the overt-
ly Christian Bible study group. 
After all, according to recent 
decisions by the U.S. Supreme 
Court, what we as Jews perceive 
as an American value of separa-
tion between church and state 
amounts for our more conser-
vative neighbors to an attack on 
their freedom of religion. 
We are witnessing the rise 
of an emboldened and angry 
Christian right wing backed by a 
Supreme Court majority. We are 
living through the re-christening 

of America and the return of 
religion to public spaces. Will it 
be good for Judaism, too? Will 
our children establish separate 
prayer sessions and Torah-study 
groups so as to not succumb to 
the peer pressure they will inev-
itably experience to join their 
Christian friends? Will we as 
adults likewise pursue the further 
expression of Jewish particular-
ism in the public square in order 
to “compete” with increased 
Christian expressions?
 During this re-christening 
of America, we continue to live 
through an era of a radicalized 
left wing that seeks to elevate the 
oppressed by punishing anyone 
accused of benefiting from our 
country’s systems. Antisemitism, 

masked as anti-Zionism, is cele-
brated on college campuses, and 
Jews are seemingly permitted tar-
gets for physical violence among 
those who judge us negatively. 
While many Jews appropriately 
desire equal rights among all 
peoples in America, we rightly 
fear that the downfall of the 
American meritocracy and the 
labeling of Jews as oppressors 
by those with whom we seek to 
march in defense of others will 
create a climate of pariahdom 
for our people. If we Jews are 
excluded by the right and hated 
by the left, can this new period 
in America be as “good for the 
Jews” as it has been in America 
over the last 75 years?
We learn, “Find for yourself 

Rabbi 
Aaron Starr
 

