The Southern States Jewish Literary Series is a distinguished series of discussions and book signings with leading authors of newly released works on the Jewish Experience, creating a vibrant literary circuit throughout the ISJL’s thirteen-state region.

Ellen Bernstein

Author of The Splendor of Creation: A Biblical Ecology and other significant works on Jewish environmentalism

Ellen Bernstein is an author, teacher, rabbinical student and a founder of the modern Jewish environmental movement. She established Shomrei Adamah: Keepers of the Earth, the first national Jewish environmental organization, in 1988. She is the author of The Splendor of Creation: A Biblical Ecology (2005), Ecology & the Jewish Spirit: Where Nature and the Sacred Meet  (2000), and Let the Earth Teach You Torah (1992).

As Bernstein sees it, nature plays a key role in the Bible. “Reading the Bible afresh with ecologist's eyes,” she writes in The Splendor of Creation, “I was amazed to find the distinguished place that nature holds in the stories, poetry, celebrations, holidays, law, and prayers. I realized that ecology and the Bible were using different languages to describe the same thing. The Bible and ecology both teach humility, modesty, kindness to all beings, a reverence for life, and a concern for future generations. They both teach that the earth is sacred and mysterious. They both describe an interconnected universe, bound together through invisible threads. They both speak of life flowing in spirals and cycles and hold that all actions-no matter how small-yield consequences.”

“Ellen Bernstein is widely recognized as the pioneer thinker and activist who helped define modern ‘Jewish environmentalism,’” says Professor Alon Tal of Israel’s Ben Gurion University of the Negev and founder of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. “An inspired speaker, her ability to merge scholarship with personal passion coupled with her activism and vision makes for particularly compelling presentations.”

Wednesday, January 19

Winston-Salem, North Carolina

7:30 p.m.

following dinner and a Tu B’Shevat Seder

Temple Emanu-El

201 Oakwood Drive

Sponsored by Sponsored by:  UJA, an Anonymous Donor, Social Action Fund, Green Fund, Winston-Salem Hadassah, Rabbi Mark Strauss-Cohn’s Discretionary Fund,  Rabbi Josh Brown’s Discretionary Fund and TEEM  (Temple Emanuel’s Environmental Movement)

For more information contact Cynthia Silber 336-642-4361

Thursday, January 20

Davidson, North Carolina

7:00-8:30pm

Alvarez College Union/Knobloch Campus Center, Room 900

Davidson College

Sponsored by Lake Norman Jewish Congregation/Davidson College Hillel/Davidson College Chaplain's Office

For more information contact Rabbi Michael Shields,

rabbishields@lakenormanjc.org

Signed books will be available at each presentation.

For more information or to order

The Splendor of Creation: A Biblical Ecology,

Ecology & the Jewish Spirit: Where Nature and the Sacred Meet ,

or Let the Earth Teach You Torah

in advance, please contact the

Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life at

601.362.6357

information@isjl.org