Jewish Ecologies

This paper examines the concept of bal tashḥit [do not destroy] in Talmudic literature through an ecocritical lens, exploring its potential as a “usable past” for contemporary environmental discourse. By analyzing a short narrative from the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 129a) and other relevant Talmudic passages, the study traces the evolution of this prohibition from its biblical origins as a protection for fruit trees during warfare to its later Talmudic interpretations that prioritize human needs over environmental concerns. The paper demonstrates how the original (semi-)ecological principle undergoes a significant transformation, shifting from protecting nature to preserving human property and ultimately permitting resource destruction to accommodate bodily comfort. However, while the Talmudic text ultimately prioritizes human needs, it nevertheless preserves a dialectical tension that leaves space for ecological considerations. This literary-historical analysis reveals the complex relationship between religious texts and environmental ethics, challenging simplistic assumptions that pre-modern literature inherently offers less anthropocentric alternatives to modern discourse. It...

This paper examines several medieval kabbalistic texts unified by their foundational engagement with the doctrine of cosmic cycles — a doctrine that views creation as a series of seven worlds formed and destroyed in succession, culminating in the eschaton. In the late ­thirteenth-century expression of this doctrine, situated between Spain and Byzantium, kabbalists depict the natural characteristics of each world or cosmic cycle. A particular focus on the animals within these cycles reveals an ontology of being that disrupts traditional definitions of animals and humans, redefines and blurs animal-human relations, and ultimately envisions a reality in which animals assume the role of kabbalistic masters. By analyzing this kabbalistic portrayal of animals, the study proposes the possibility of remapping the key trends in medieval kabbalah and highlights the relevance of these ideas to contemporary discussions in posthumanism, animal-human studies, and the environmental humanities.

This essay explores the conception of animals as teachers and revealers of divine wisdom, an often-overlooked theme in the study of Jewish thought. I highlight Jewish traditions that draw a porous and permeable boundary between human and nonhuman creatures — one not defined by hierarchy and incommensurate power. Rather than depicting animals purely as sources of danger or passive objects of extraction and compassion, these traditions treat animals as creative subjects, possessing their own wisdom and discernment, revealing divinity, and serving as a source of learning and education for those around them. Reconceiving animals as agents of revelation offers a striking way to rethink the nature of creaturely being and the possibilities of interspecies communication. But this perspective also places significant moral and behavioral demands upon us. Becoming sensitive to the ongoing process of sacred revelation requires us to actively reattune and reclaim our capacity for careful and empathetic listening, rethinking communication and kinship across species lines as bonds that entail an obligation of care and reciprocity.

Rabbi Ellen Sue Bernstein was an environmental visionary, activist, and educator who has often been referred to as the “birth mother” or “matriarch” of Jewish environmentalism in the United States. Sadly, she passed away unexpectedly after a short illness on February 27, 2024. This essay commemorates her life and work by exploring her legacy from historical, cultural, intellectual, and religious perspectives. It argues that, although Bernstein was not a systematic theologian, she articulated a consistent theological message rooted in her well-developed ecological hermeneutics. Bernstein contended that the Hebrew Bible is an ecological text that teaches readers to love God’s creation, assume responsibility for its well-being, and care for it through actions attuned to the rhythms, interconnectedness, and beauty of nature. Terming her approach as “hermeneutics of nature,” this essay illustrates her perspective through her interpretation of the creation narrative in Genesis 1, her innovative Passover Haggadah, and her most recent commentary on “the Song of Songs.” Above all, Rabbi Bernstein was a teacher — an educator who demonstrated to Jews that Judaism is inherently compatible with...

The capacity to speak has been long regarded as a defining feature of humanity, as well as agency. Animals’ inability to speak has significantly contributed to the denial of their subjectivity and to their exclusion from moral consideration, facilitating their continued victimization, against which they cannot protest, due to their inability to speak. This vicious cycle is broken through the freedom of fiction, in which literary animals can speak out about their victimization. Animals protesting their mistreatment abound in Jewish literature, harking back to the biblical story of Balaam’s ass, which is considered the source of the Jewish commandment to prevent animal suffering ( tsa’ar ba’ale ḥayim). Alongside the trope of the ragged female beast of burden, in many modern Jewish literary works, chickens epitomize victimization, due to their sacrificial role in the atonement ritual of Kapparot on the evening of Yom Kippur. The analysis of Sholem Aleichem’s short stories “Kapores” (translated into English as “No More Kapores, or the Sacrificial Chicken Revolt,” 1903) and “Dos ­porfolk” (“The Pair,” 1909), in which fowls protest their victimization, examines how and to what extent...

Primo Levi’s short story “Disphylaxis” (1981) depicts a dystopian world shaped by humanity’s negligent treatment of nature. The narrative envisions global ecosystems profoundly altered, presenting increasingly complex and fraught relationships between humankind and the natural world. This article explores the story’s hybrid plot, viewing it not merely an allegory but as a self-contained universe that imagines radically different subjectivities. It explores humanity’s relationship with nature in the Anthropocene, highlighting the story’s engagement with eco-feminist ideas and its negotiation of the boundary between dystopia and utopia. The analysis offers new perspectives on the artificial dichotomy between nature and humanity, the theorization of desire, and the humanities’ role in addressing the climate crisis. Levi challenges us to reconsider our approach to nature — not through a detached sense of rational duty but by reconnecting with an innate desire for it. This reorientation, the story suggests, holds transformative potential for environmental preservation. Literature plays a vital role in this shift, as the longing to unite with nature — vividly expressed in classic and...

This essay explores the poetic figurations of German, and particularly German-Jewish, mountaineers and mountain settings to examine literary representations of nature. I argue that, in contrast to the dialectical view, which seeks to resolve contradictions into an absolute, unified synthesis as conveyed by Ludwig Tieck’s protagonists, the German-Jewish imaginary, as revealed in works by Franz Kafka, Martin Buber, and Paul Celan, aims to preserve differences, exploring both the limits and the possibilities of dialogue. Challenging modes of communication that reduce meaning to semantics and the passive reception of information, these writers suggest ways of engaging with a world that transcend the human-nature duality — one that is based either on analytical practices of observation, objectification, and control or on ecstatic, total submersion. This essay seeks to demonstrate how imbuing these views with a voice — by emphasizing the material aspects of poetic language — reflects these writers’ ethical attempts to conceive new modes of participation and engagement, of agency and responsibility. In doing so, they search for alternative forms of belonging in the early ­twentieth...

The relationship between the Israeli collective and its natural environment is explored through two children’s photobooks set in kibbutzim: Lilakh from Kibbutz Ilanot (1963) and Journey to the Land of the Rain (1968). These books highlight the image of a romanticized child of nature. The kibbutz version of this image embodies a dialectic between nature and culture, as well as between individual and collective, which becomes apparent when considering the historical context and the interplay of text and visuals. Using Eran Feitelson’s distinction between levels of attachment — local, national, and global — the analysis of these photobooks uncovers the tension between the kibbutz ideal of living in harmony with nature and the demands of the Zionist enterprise for development and security.

This paper rereads Hebrew American literature written in the first half of the twentieth century, focusing on the Hebraists’ longing for nature and the central role the American environmental imagination played in their literary works. Rather than examining Hebrew American literature solely through the lens and backdrop of the Zionist national project or within the broader framework of Jewish literature, I argue that its setting within the American habitat — primarily the New England region — must be considered. In this context, I propose a critical reading of three significant and exemplary Hebrew American texts: Abraham Regelson’s essay “Elohei ha-teva ba-shirah ha-ameriqa’it” [God of Nature in American Poetry] (1941), Simon Halkin’s “Al hof Santa Barbara” [On the Shore of Santa Barbara] (1946) and Gabriel Preil’s “Mitsiyyurei Maine” [Sketches of Maine] (1946). Through this analysis, I demonstrate that Hebrew American literature should be understood not solely through its connections to the Hebrew language and tradition but also through its American environmental imagination and its deep affinity for the American landscape.

This article defines the “ecological turn” in modern Hebrew literature and examines the ecofiction of one of its leading voices, Tamar Weiss Gabbay. Drawing on ecocritical and feminist animal ethics frameworks, it explores how Weiss Gabbay’s work reconfigures human-nature relations by foregrounding nonhuman perspectives and proposing innovative ecological ethics. The novella The Weather Woman interrogates tensions between anthropocentric domestication of nature and ecocentrism, ultimately advancing a “kinship of the vulnerable” as a new ecological ethic that frames interspecies care as a mode of survival in an era of climate crisis. Similarly, the short story “The Place” reimagines the contested Temple Mount by stripping it of human-imposed symbolic meanings and portraying it as a material, natural landscape. Through nonhuman voices — most notably a vixen — and an invocation of deep geological time, Weiss Gabbay challenges common narratives of this Israeli-Palestinian space, offering an ecocentric perspective on place and history. Overall, the article argues that Weiss Gabbay’s ecofiction expands the boundaries of contemporary Hebrew literature, rejecting anthropocentrism in favor...

This article presents a close reading of Psalm 104, a prominent piece of nature poetry in the Bible (alongside the concluding chapters of the Book of Job). The analysis explores the similarities in perception and emotion between this psalm, written circa 500 BCE, and the tradition of classical Chinese landscape painting, particularly the monumental works that culminated during the Northern Song dynasty (circa 1000 CE). While no historical influence exists between the two, there is a striking closeness of spirit that reflects fundamental ideas about humanity’s place on Earth and within the cosmos. Among the parallels between Psalm 104 and Chinese paintings are their use of specific raw materials and their shared way of perceiving and depicting these elements. In Chinese painting, the quintessential include human figures set within landscapes of mountains and flowing water. Similarly, mountains and water are central to the imagery of Psalms 104. In both traditions, humans are depicted as small and often awestruck rather than as conquerors dominating the landscape. This perspective reflects not only the physical placement of human figures in the compositions but also the poetic and...