Abstract
Sustainability is a complex concept, encompassing both ecological and social systems. Religious groups have long been concerned with the social sustainability of their member base and are more recently addressing the ecological sustainability of the natural environment. The Jewish religion is embracing social and ecological sustainability through the Jewish farming movement. It addresses social sustainability by uniting Jews based on individual interests rather than hierarchical boundaries through the provision of a grassroots, pluralistic forum for Jewish identity and community to accommodate a changing twenty-first century Jewish population. It also addresses ecological sustainability by addressing internal and external boundaries to adopting a sustainable lifestyle through the reinterpretation of environmental concepts and land-use practices from a Jewish lens and the physical application of these concepts in Jewish farms and gardens. We introduce the Jewish farming movement and review the literature on Jewish cultural and pro-environmental transitions leading up to the movement. We then present a case study on the Jewish farming movement in Baltimore County, Maryland, using a grounded theory approach to uncover how a grassroots, religious movement impacts the social and ecological systems surrounding it. The authors conclude that Jewish farming (1) serves as an interest-based, non-hierarchical form of Jewish participation and identification which impacts participants’ Jewish identities, and (2) creates a community field for its participants, which eases several barriers to pro-environmental living and impacts participants’ sustainable lifestyles.
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Notes
- 1.
A kibbutz is an agriculturally based Israeli collective community providing food, shelter, clothing, education and health care to its members, who receive small work stipends (Sosis and Ruffle 2003).
- 2.
- 3.
Weak ties are connections between acquaintances that provide information and resources beyond one’s immediate social circle, but are less readily available and are of less assistance than strong ties. Strong ties are connections between friends and family that are easily accessible and provide deep measures of assistance (Granovetter 1983).
- 4.
Although this chapter focuses on local collaboration for ecological sustainability, effective sustainability efforts require actors at many scales from both strongly tied networks (for trust-building, “place-specific social ecological information” capture, emotional support, effective communication, resource provision and successful deliberation) and weakly tied networks (for information diffusion, adaptation to new situations, prevention of groupthink, diversification of knowledge and actor bridging) (Prell et al. 2009; Barthel et al. 2010 in Ernstson et al. 2010: 32; Granovetter 1983 in Ernstson et al. 2010: 32; Oh, Chung, and Labianca 2004 in Ernstson et al. 2010: 32, Scheffer and Westley 2007 in Ernstson et al. 2010: 32; Wasserman and Faust. 1994 in Hinrichs 2000: 19; Burt. 1992, 2000, 2001 in Hinrichs 2000: 19).
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- 6.
The Talmud is a compilation of “Jewish wisdom, and the oral law, which is as ancient and significant as the written law (the Torah)….legend, and philosophy, a blend of unique logic and shrewd pragmatism, of history and science, anecdotes and humor.” Although the compilation can be used as a source for Jewish law, it “cannot be cited as an authority for purposes of ruling” (Steinsaltz 2006: 4).
- 7.
Meaningful environmental experiences are more likely to result in long-lasting pro-environmental behavior than behavior changes made solely in response to “externally imposed regulations and incentives” (Maiteny 2002: 304).
- 8.
The term “community field” originates from K.P. Wilkinson’s notion of an “emergent structure for collective action that cuts across a range of specific social fields, or interest areas” (1991 in Barraket 2005: 78).
- 9.
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Berndtson, R., Geores, M. (2015). “Let My People Grow.” The Jewish Farming Movement: A Bottom-Up Approach to Ecological and Social Sustainability. In: Brunn, S. (eds) The Changing World Religion Map. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9376-6_15
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