Jewish Youth Delegation Headed to Israel, Egypt to Represent at COP27

Bella Weksler, Boulder local, and Jewish Youth Climate Movement (JYCM) College Fellow is one of 10 Jewish college students going to COP27, the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Egypt November 6-18. The group, accompanied by Hazon CEO Jakir Manela and JYCM director Liana Rothman, will travel to Israel and then Egypt for a week-long trip with Israeli peer climate activists.

Founded in 2019, the Jewish Youth Climate Movement (JYCM) is Hazon’s youth movement and fastest growing program, a Gen Z-led movement dedicated to combating climate change and environmental injustice through a Jewish lens. JYCM’s goal is to make collective action towards climate justice a central, defining feature of what it means to be Jewish by empowering Jewish youth to lead the fight for a sustainable and equitable world for all.

Leading up to and during COP27, Hazon aims to catalyze its work moving forward by elevating youth voices and creating connections between North American and global Jewish youth climate activists. As a movement of young Jews, focused on liberation and equity and wellness for the planet and people, JYCM will spend two days preceding COP27 at the Arava Institute, where they will express solidarity with Palestinian, Jordanian, and Israeli climate activists in our movement for climate justice for all communities. Then, they will arrive at COP and join the confluence of ideas and activists that occurs at these renowned international proceedings.

In coordinating this opportunity, Hazon will provide a space for our youth to participate, learn, and grow as Jewish leaders and activists. Their involvement will exponentially multiply the visibility and potential partnerships and growth of this movement in the months and years to come.

“Amplifying voices of the youth – the generation who will have to live with the consequences of today’s decisions – is absolutely critical. They should be holding us accountable; we have to start thinking of ourselves as the ancestors of future generations. What would make our descendants proud of us? Taking this kind of long-path view is what these students should be mandating of all of us in leadership positions. All of us at Hazon and Pearlstone are proud to work in partnership with youth leaders to build a more sustainable future.” – Jakir Manela, CEO of Hazon and Pearlstone

“This trip will catalyze connections and relationships between JYCM and other Jewish climate leaders, expose them to the global climate movement and United Nations process, and give them greater understanding of the international context and global potential of our movement.” –  Madeline Canfield, JYCM Organizing Coordinator, (Third Year, Brown University)

JYCM will apply its learnings from COP27 to long-term strategies of holding Jewish communities accountable for developing climate action plans and maintaining new relationships with international youth activists in order to express global solidarity with communal climate narratives and concerns. Hazon is calling for leaders to take meaningful action and Jewish youth to join them in this empowered movement for justice.

Jewish Youth Climate Movement College Fellows COP 27 Delegation:

• Anna Dubey, JYCM College Fellow (Second Year, Brown University)

• Bella Weksler, JYCM College Fellow (Second Year, University of Berkeley)

• Eli Anderson, JYCM College Fellow (Second Year, Fort Lewis College)

• Elijah Harris, JYCM College Fellow (First Year, Brown University)

• Em Renetzky, JYCM College Fellow (First Year, Colorado College)

• Isaac Ostrow, JYCM College Fellow (First Year, Wesleyan University)

• Michael Pincus, JYCM College Fellow (Second Year, University of Southern California)

• Naomi Parr, JYCM College Fellow (First Year, University of Michigan)

• Sophie, JYCM College Fellow (Second Year, University of Vermont)

• Madeline Canfield, JYCM Organizing Coordinator (Third Year, Brown University)

• Liana Rothman, JYCM Director (MPA Candidate at New York University)

• Benjamin Klein (third year at UNC Chapel Hill, intern at the office of MK Alon Tal)

Hazon is the national organization leading the Jewish environmental movement, weaving sustainability into the fabric of Jewish life in order to create a healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable world for all. Now in the process of merging with the Pearlstone Center in Baltimore, Hazon and Pearlstone collectively impact over 50,000 annual participants through immersive retreats, Jewish Outdoor Food Farming & Environmental Education (JOFEE), and climate action initiatives.