The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life

The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) was founded in 1993 to promote environmental education, scholarship, advocacy, and action in the American Jewish community. COEJL is sponsored by a broad coalition of national Jewish organizations and has organized regional affiliates in communities across North America .

In the spring of 1992 at the invitation of Al Gore and Carl Sagan, the leadership of the major organizations in American Jewish life, eminent rabbis, denominational presidents, and Jewish U.S. senators gathered in Washington , D.C. to discuss the creation of a Jewish response to the mounting environmental crisis. Those present agreed that the Jewish community had a responsibility to address the crisis.

The following year, COEJL was established by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (then NJCRAC), the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. COEJL became part of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment to enact a distinctively Jewish programmatic and policy response to the environmental crisis.

COEJL's Regional Affiliates serve as a vital source of community based environmental education, action, and advocacy, involving synagogues, schools, Jewish community centers, camps, and other local Jewish organizations in a wide range of environmental activities.