Columbia Jewish Congregation Green Team Builds a More Sustainable Synagogue

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Columbia Jewish Congregation and its congregants believe in tikkun olam — repairing the world. And one example is their commitment to environmentalism and operating sustainably.

At recent OMI Green Team events, attendees maintain its on-campus gardens for the spring and summer seasons. (Courtesy of the Oakland Mills Interfaith Center Green Team)

The synagogue’s Green Team is a group that meets once a month to plan programs that promote greener living and discuss how to reduce their environmental footprint.

The congregation operates out of the Oakland Mills Interfaith Center, and its Green Team initiative is a small part of the larger OMI Green Team. But CJC’s Green Team was founded beforehand, and its members have been some of the most active in advocating for change.

“CJC members have been some of the most engaged in making this happen,” said Wendy Hall, the lead chair of the CJC Green Team.

The synagogue’s current Green Team is actually the second version of the program. There was a similar Green Team at CJC many years ago, but it was dissolved because its members became busy with other obligations and were unable to host regular meetings. A few CJC congregants revived the program around two-and-a-half years ago, motivated by a renewed interest in tikkun olam and congregants feeling that they could be doing more to operate sustainably.

“There was a very large contingent of people who signed up when we brought the CJC Green Team back,” recalled Hans Plugge, one of CJC’s representatives on the OMI Green Team. “We wanted to educate the congregants about green practices and proceed with the greening of OMI practices in general.”

The OMI Green Team was founded after CJC’s Green Team was revived. CJC does not own the OMI building, and creating a version of the program that incorporated all of the congregations in the building gave them the opportunity to make use of their property. In addition to CJC, the OMI Center also houses Bet Aviv, Columbia Baptist Fellowship, St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church and Kol Nefesh.

The Green Team has added new features to the OMI grounds to help them be a more ecologically friendly property. For example, the interfaith center is home to several rain gardens, which are regularly maintained by volunteers. The center has also begun to apply for grants to fund changes to its infrastructure. One of these grants funded the creation of a rooftop cistern for rainwater, which is used to sustain the rain gardens.

Plugge also mentioned that CJC specifically has been introducing composting and attempting to eliminate single-use plastics. The synagogue recently started using compostable dinnerware at events with food so they will be able to cut down on the amount of plastic waste they produce.

Hall is also involved with the effort to reduce single-use plastic usage. “CJC has this lovely practice of having a Saturday Shabbat service where we take our siddurim with us and walk on the paths of Columbia,” she said. “On one of these Prayers on the Path services, the congregation leadership provided water bottles, but they were single-use bottles. I thought we could do better than that. That caused us to apply for grants, including one that would help us get a water bottle-refilling station, as well as Oakland Mills Interfaith water bottles that we sell.”

In addition, the Green Team has been promoting the planting of native flowers and plants to reduce the spread of invasive species. Sheila Robinson, one of the Green Team’s volunteers, has been helping distribute seedlings from native plants at local events.

Robinson said she got involved with the Green Team because of her own love of gardening.

“Planting these native seedlings is what gives me the most joy,” she explained. “I know not everyone wants to get their hands dirty, but it’s a small way to make change in your own backyard.”

The efforts of the CJC Green Team do not stop on the grounds of the interfaith building — they also support policies on the local, state and federal levels that are meant to help the environment.

They have also been incorporating programming from other Jewish environmental organizations, such as Tikkun HaYam’s “reverse tashlich” initiative. The Florida-based nonprofit is focused on cleaning up the world’s waters, an especially important goal for the Chesapeake area.

“Tashlich is the ritual of throwing your sins into the water, represented by breadcrumbs or something similar,” Hall said. “By the same token, reverse tashlich is taking your sins out of the water, and we do that by cleaning up trash and pollution.”

Ultimately, though, CJC’s Green Team is dedicated to showing that anyone can live a greener life, no matter how small the changes they make are.

“The more people are aware of the environment every day, the more they will change their behavior,” Robinson said. “Everything they do becomes part of being aware of the impact they have on God’s creation, whether it’s something as small as eating vegetables instead of meat or as big as buying an electric car.”

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