Online Zoom Forum: Rabbi Arthur Waskow: The Spiritual, Ecological and Social Vision in His Life and Work.
Date: Wednesday 9 September 2026.
Time: 7pm-9pm (UK time).
Event Description:
Format: There will be five talks, each of 15 minutes, followed by discussion among the speakers and the chair, followed by Q & A.
Chair:
Rabbi Phyllis Ocean Berman:
Bio: Rabbi Phyllis Ocean Berman was ordained in 2004 by ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, and now serves as a Spiritual Director. She has served as Torah teacher and meditation guide in many retreats led by Rabbi David Cooper z'l and Shoshana Cooper, as assistant to Rabbi Shefa Gold in many Kol Zimra retreats, and as a teacher in retreats of Awakened Heart led by Rabbi Jeff Roth.
From 1993 to 2003, Berman was the director of the Summer Program of Elat Chayyim, a Jewish retreat center for healing and renewal near Woodstock, New York.
She is the co-author of three books of Jewish teaching: A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven: The Jewish Life-Spiral as a Spiritual Path (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2002)' Tales of Tikkun: New Jewish Stories to Heal the Wounded World (Jason Aronson, 1996; Rowman & Littlefield, 2004; Ben Yehuda Press, 2021); and Freedom Journeys: Tales of Exodus and Wilderness across Millennia (Jewish Lights, 2001), and co-editor / co-author of Liberating Your Passover Seder (Ben Yehuda Press, 2021.
She has written on new liturgy (especially for or about women) and the relationship of liturgy to personal growth and transformation — for the journals Good Housekeeping, Tikkun, Moment, and Menorah, for the volume WorldsofJewishPrayer (Jason Aronson, 1993) and for several anthologies.
Berman chaired the board of P'nai Or Religious Fellowship for many years, and then was secretary of the board of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal. In 1991, she was ordained an Eshet Hazon (Woman of Vision) by the Jewish-renewal women's community.
She was a member of the editorial committee that created OrChadash (NewLight), an innovative guide to Shabbat-morning prayer and celebration. She often leads services, teaches Torah, and tells stories for synagogues, havurot, institutes, and retreat centers in North America, Europe, and Israel.
Berman also led a concurrent career: In 1979, she founded and in 2016 she retired as Co-Director of the Riverside Language Program, a renowned intensive English-language school for adult immigrants and refugees from all around the world. It was housed in Riverside Church in New York City. Out of that work she co-authored a book of stories of the lives of immigrants, Getting into It.
Speakers:
Prof Hava Tirosh-Samuelson:
Title: Arthur Waskow: Jewish Earthly Spirituality in Action.
Description: Rabbi Arthur Waskow (1933-2025) was a central figure in the emergence of Jewish environmentalism in the U.S. since the 1970s. The lecture traces his intellectual evolution from a secular, Left-leaning peace activist to a religious environmentalist who showed Jews how to address the contemporary eco-crisis, along with other social, political, and economic problems, by reinterpreting the narratives, rituals, and values of the Jewish religious tradition.
Bio: Hava Tirosh-Samuelson (PhD 1978, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) is Regents Professor of History and Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Modern Judaism at Arizona State University in Tempe. She writes on Jewish intellectual history; religion, science and technology; and religion and ecology. Among her books relevant to this talk are: Judaism and Ecology: Created World and Revealed Word (2022); The Legacy of Hans Jonas: Judaism and the Phenomenon of Life (2008); Religion and Environment: The Case of Judaism (2020); and Jewish Environmentalism in the Post-Secular Age: Earthly Spirituality (2026).
Prof Adrienne Krone:
Title: Arthur Waskow's Influence on the Field of Jewish Community Farming.
Description: As the field of Jewish Community Farming (JCF) developed in Canada and the United States over the last two decades, Arthur Waskow’s ecological work has been central to the movement’s ideological framing and educational programming. As Jewish farmers navigate food injustices and the climate crisis, Waskow’s work remains a key aspect of their ecological worldviews.
Bio: Adrienne Krone is Associate Professor of Environmental Science & Sustainability and Religious Studies at Allegheny College. Her current research focuses on Jewish Community Farming and she is the author of Free-Range Religion: Alternative Food Movements and Religious Life in the United States (UNC Press 2025).
Prof Rebecca T. Alpert:
Title: Making Lemonade Out of Lemons: Working and Playing with Arthur Waskow.
Description: In the 1980s I had the pleasure of working with Arthur when we were both faculty at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and I was a Board Member of the Shalom Center. During that time, Arthur and I talked of many things, but frequently our conversations turned to finding ways to make Jewish customs and traditions more socially just.
In my presentation, I will talk about at two articles we wrote together and published in the Reconstructionist, that came out of those conversations: “The Children of Noah: A Proposal for a Wedding Ceremony” Reconstructionist (November 1983) with Linda Holtzman and "Toward an Ethical Kashrut" Reconstructionist (March 1987), and what they meant for thinking about Jewish life through the lens of social justice.
Bio: Rebecca Trachtenberg. Alpert is Professor of Religion Emeritus at Temple University. She attended Barnard College before receiving her Ph.D. in religion at Temple University and her rabbinical training at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. After spending the early part of her career in academic administration at RRC, Alpert joined the faculty at Temple University in the Department of Religion and as Co-director of the Women’s Studies Program. Alpert received a Distinguished Teaching Award from the College of Liberal Arts (2001), the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Teaching Award (2013), and Temple University’s Great Teacher Award (2016). She taught graduate and undergraduate courses on Religion in Philadelphia, Religion and Sexuality, Religion in Public Life, Sport and Society, Intellectual Heritage, and Baseball and American History.
She has published 10 books, over 40 academic articles, and more than 60 articles and essays for general audiences on twentieth-century American Jewish history and culture, gender and sexuality, Israel/Palestine, and Jewish ethics. Her best-known works are Exploring Judaism: A Reconstructionist Approach, with Jacob Staub, and Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition. Later in her career she developed an expertise in religion and sport. Her major work in the field, Out of Left Field: Jews and Black Baseball, was published by Oxford University Press in June 2011. She is the book review editor for the International Journal of Sport and Religion and co-editor of a soon to be published Routledge Handbook on Religion and Sport. She is currently working on an autoethnographic collection, Queering the Rabbinate: The Rebecca Alpert Reader, to be published by Wayne State University Press in 2027.
She serves on the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations and is active in Jewish Voice for Peace Action and Academic and Rabbinical Councils and is part of the leadership team of Rabbis for Ceasefire.
Rabbi Nate DeGroot:
Title: Prophetic Diasporism: Judaism after the Destruction of Temple Earth.
Description: Reb Arthur's often referenced the rabbinic teachings that just as our bodies are temples, and just as our temples are temples, so too Earth is a temple. If this is so, and if the destruction of the Second Temple helped catalyze the burgeoning era of Rabbinic Judaism, what new era of Judaism might the destruction and reorganization of Temple Earth, through climate catastrophe and globalized technology, help catalyze? This lecture will explore Reb Arthur's response to this question through his final book, Handbook for Heretics and Prophets: New Torah for a New World, which serves as a testimony to his vision of a prophetic diasporism.
Bio: Rabbi Nate DeGroot (he/him) directs The Shalom Center, carrying forth the prophetic legacy of the organization’s founder, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, by helping to steward and seed an emergent Jewish sacred justice. Before becoming Director, Nate served as The Shalom Center’s Associate Director and National Organizer. Ordained at Hebrew College in 2016, Nate previously worked at Hazon (now Adamah) in Detroit, IKAR in Los Angeles, and he founded Mikdash in Portland, OR. Over the years he has held part-time roles with Encounter, T’ruah, AJWS, the Amir Project, and more. He has been published in various articles and book chapters, and was an invited speaker at The Chautauqua Institution. Living in Detroit, Michigan with his wife and two kiddos, Nate also serves locally as a part-time congregational rabbi, educator, and service-leader.
Prof. Dr. Jonathan Schorsch:
Title: Some Personal Reflections on Arthur Waskow's Innovativeness, Persistence, Admirably Radical Stance, and Importance.
Description: Prof. Dr. Jonathan Schorsch will share some personal reflections about Arthur Waskow and contextualize his work within the landscape of Jewish environmentalism and ecoJudaism, ending with a brief piece of Waskow's from The Jewish Catalog (1973) as an example.
Bio: Jonathan Schorsch, Director and Founder of the Green Sabbath Project and Professor of Jewish Religious and Intellectual History, Universität Potsdam.
An archive recording will be made for the EICSP archive.
NB: There will be no refund if you cancel your booking.
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