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