Shmita Project News Today

(RNS) — The tradition of shmita, a Jewish answer to how to fight climate change, is spreading beyond Israel.

Berkeley filmmaker Abby Ginzberg won an NAACP Image Award for a documentary about the East Bay congressperson Barbara Lee.

An art exhibit offers up ideas and meditations on rituals to bring shmita into our daily lives.

Every seven years, Jews celebrate a shmita year. As we embark on 2022, could this ancient tradition be a cure for our modern malaise?

Hazon, the Jewish Lab for Sustainability non-profit, officially opened submissions for The Shmita Prizes– an international arts competition with five different prizes. The goal is to draw attention to and raise awareness of the forthcoming shmita year (beginning Rosh Hashanah 2021). Categories include: ritual object, fine art, film or video, performance art/music/liturgy, plus a fifth category for the written word – essays and ideas.  Shmita is “a year of letting go”. It takes place e...

But first, I want to put these prizes in context, beginning with a word about shabbat, shmita’s temporal Jewish sibling. The world needs shabbat right now. We need boundaries. We need rest. We need time when we switch off electronics. We need at least one day that we don’t buy stuff. We need at least one day that we spend with family and friends. After a boundary-less year of covid, our need for some kind of structured shabbat has never been greater. And so, then, to shmita. The word means...