Redwood Rabbis, Northern California
Jewish, Non-denominational

While many Jewish congregations may celebrate Tu B’shevat, the Jewish New Year of the Trees, with simple rituals of tree-planting or the eating of new fruits, nuts or wine, in 1997, the Redwoods Rabbis of Northern California took their observance of the holiday to a new level. As part of their ongoing advocacy to protect Headwaters Forest -- the last unprotected old growth redwood forest on the Pacific coast, then endangered by the aggressive practices of Pacific Lumber, a logging company owned by the Houston-based Maxxam Corporation -- the Redwoods Rabbis marked the holiday with more than just the traditional seder meal and worship service. Instead they staged an all-day event featuring religious and scientific presentations to the ancient trees and the ecosystem they presided over; the signing of a letter to Vice President Al Gore and senior Washington leaders by the Redwoods Rabbis and all of the Jewish leaders of rural Northern California and Southern Oregon; the ritual recitation of the Kaddish, or the prayer for the dead, in memory of the life destroyed by logging; and a final, poignant act of civil disobedience and moral witness: the planting of Redwood seedlings on an eroding stream bank owned by Maxxam Corporation as a gesture of hope to restore clear-cut, destabilized land. 

An informal group of Jewish leaders and environmental activists, since 1995 the Redwoods Rabbis have advocated Redwood protections with appeals to Jewish tradition and religious principles through letter-writing campaigns, peaceful acts of civil disobedience, public education, and grassroots initiatives aimed at changing the minds of the companies endangering the forests. In their mission statement, the group cites the Judaic imperative for guarding the earth contained in the Book of Genesis and the Jewish tradition of defending threatened ecosystems as support for their efforts to create an active Jewish environmental constituency that connects to diverse religious and secular efforts at environmental protection.

In their protest of Pacific Lumber in particular, the Redwoods Rabbis and the groups with which they partnered emphasized the religious foundations of their fight with their criticism of Charles Hurwitz, CEO of Maxxam Corporation and a leading member of Houston’s Jewish community. At interfaith press conferences, in direct letters to Hurwitz, and open letters published in the local Jewish press of Houston, the Redwoods Rabbis and associates have challenged the CEO to reconcile his actions with his religion, invoking the moral imperative to repent at Yom Kippur; to make a teshuvah shelaymah, (a genuine change of direction); to heed the biblical mandate to serve as shomrim adamah (guardians of the earth); and perform the great mitzvah, or good deed, of protecting the Headwaters Forest from liquidation and loss of endangered species, and with that, the long-term livelihood of the area’s timber workers.

The accelerated logging practices threatened not only the ecological integrity of the old growth forest, but the region’s economic stability. The sustainable logging practices advocated by the Redwood Rabbis aim at appropriate and steady employment that is not subject to boom and bust cycles.

Though Hurwitz and other Jewish officers and board members of Maxxam initially greeted the Rabbis’ biblically-based criticism with indignation and scorn, the disapproval from within Houston’s own Jewish community was mounting, and grew more the following year, when the national Coalition of the Environment and Jewish Life issued a call for the protection of Headwaters Forest. In 1999, the quiet campaign of community pressure -- brought about through public education and the contextualizing of modern issues within Judaism’s long-standing traditions -- paid off, and Maxxam made repentance, of a sort: agreeing to sell off enough forest acreage to create a 7,470-acre Redwoods reserve and conceding to new restrictions on logging and forest management requirements for the remainder of its property.

In the years since their victory at Headwaters, the Redwoods Rabbis have been active in pressuring former California Governor Gray Davis to support greater Redwoods protections in the Sierra Nevada region, where the clear-cutting of forests results in pollution of the state’s water resources, mudslides and destruction of the wildlife habitat. They have successfully aided an effort to oppose the appointment of forestry officials with pro-logging records, and continue to work in coalition with other Jewish, interfaith and secular groups to build a broad coalition of activists resisting commercial clear-cutting throughout the state.