Our planet
is imperiled as perhaps never before by global warming
and other environmental threats. It is urgent that steps
be taken immediately to avoid the unprecedented catastrophe
toward which the world is rapidly heading.
Jewish Vegetarians of
North America (JVNA) has produced a major documentary
about how Jewish teachings can help address current
environmental crises.
While this one-hour documentary
-- entitled A SACRED DUTY: Applying Jewish Values
To Help Heal the World -- is especially suitable
for synagogues, temples, JCCs, Jewish schools and other
Jewish institutions, its universal message also makes
it appropriate for showings at Christian, other religions'
and secular institutions, and at film festivals. A SACRED
DUTY speaks to people everywhere about the ethics of
our relationship to our natural world and why it is
imperative that we respond quickly to help shift our
imperiled planet to a sustainable path.
Key climate scientists,
including James Hansen of NASA, warn that we may reach
a tipping point within a decade after which global warming
could spiral out of control, with disastrous consequences.
Recent reports, including the landmark "Livestock's
Long Shadow," by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization,
highlight the disastrous contributions of modern, intensive
animal-based agriculture to this crisis. Israel's special
vulnerabilities to global climate change, in terms of
reduced rainfall, severe storms and flooding from a
rising Mediterranean Sea make this documentary urgent
and timely.
A SACRED DUTY is a Jewish
response to these issues. It reminds us that it is our
sacred duty to become aware of these realities and our
responsibility to apply Jewish teachings to how we obtain
our food, use natural resources, and live among other
creatures whom God created. It offers simple, practical
measures for reducing our impact on the planet.
Produced by Emmy-Award-winning
producer, director, writer, and cinematographer Lionel
Friedberg, A SACRED DUTY will take its place alongside
Al Gore's AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH and Leonardo di Caprio's
THE ELEVENTH HOUR as another powerful expose of the
dangers of global warming. However, it goes beyond the
latter two films, by showing how religious responses
can make a major difference and why a shift toward plant-based
diets is an essential part of efforts to reduce global
climate change and other environmental threats.
The documentary includes
interviews with:
Chief Rabbis
Rabbi Shear
Yashuv Cohen -- Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of
Haifa Rabbi David Rosen -- Former Chief
Rabbi of Ireland; International Director
of Interreligious Affairs of the American Jewish Committee
Other Rabbis
Rabbi Michael
Cohen - Director of the Green Zionist Alliance
(GZA) and a
teacher at the Arava Institute in Israel Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, Adat
Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation; environmental
activist Rabbi Adam Frank - Congregation Moreshet
Yisrael, Jerusalem, the largest Conservative synagogue
in Israel Rabbi Yonassan Gershom - A Breslov
Chassid and author Rabbi Simchah Roth - Torat Hayyim,
Herzilia Rabbi Warren Stone - Temple Emanuel,
greater Washington, D.C.; Chair,
Central Conference of American Rabbis' Environmental
Committee
Israeli Environmentalists
Dr. Yeshayahu
Bar-Or - Chief Scientist: Israel Environmental
Ministry Raanan Boral - Director: Environmental
Protection Division of the for the
Society of Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) Samuel Chayen - Israeli environmental
activist Yael Cohen Paran, Yair Cohen and Eren Ben
Yaminy - Leaders of Green
Course, an Israeli university-based environmental
group Eli Groner - Teacher of environmental
studies at the Arava Institute Alon Tal - Leading Israeli environmentalist;
founder of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense:
author of Pollution in a Promised Land. Yael Ukeles - Director: Derech Hateva,
Jerusalem
Prominant Activists
Dr. Joel Fuhrman,
M.D. - A leading author and physician with
a specialty in natural healing Roberta Kalechofsky - Founder and
director of Jews for Animal Rights (JAR) and Micah
Publications; author, editor and publisher. Richard H. Schwartz - Author of Judaism
and Vegetarianism and president of Jewish Vegetarians
of North America (JVNA) Jonathan Wolf - Founder and first
president of Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA)
Lionel Friedberg,
producer/director/writer/cinematographer: 18
feature film credits as Director of Photography. Awards
include A Primetime Emmy, a National Emmy, the American
Association for the Advancement of Science 'Westinghouse'
Award for Science Programming, three Columbus and three
Golden Eagles for Best Documentaries, and various awards
as a dramatic and episodic TV director. Watch The
Film World of Lionel and Diana Friedberg.
To obtain a free
DVD copy of the movie, please contact
us. As a non-profit organization, JVNA will make
the movie available free of charge to religious groups,
educational institutions, environmental organizations,
cultural clubs, the media, Jewish Film Festivals, and
others who will arrange showings.
