Rabbi Lawrence Troster
Rabbinic Fellow of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL)
Rabbi Lawrence Troster is Director of the Fellowship program and Rabbinic Scholar-in-Residence for GreenFaith, an interfaith environmental coalition in New Jersey and the Rabbinic Fellow of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL). He is also the Jewish Chaplain of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson and an Associate of Bard's Institute of Advanced Theology. Rabbi Troster co-chairs the Interfaith Partnership for the Environment of UNEP (United Nations Environment Program).
He also teaches in the Florence Melton Adult Mini School of the UJA Federation of Northern New Jersey. Previously he was Advisor to Students and Adjunct Lecturer in Professional Skills in the Rabbinical School of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Program Officer/Educator at the Jewish Life Network, a Steinhardt Fellow at CLAL, and has served as the rabbi of several congregations in New Jersey and Toronto, Canada. He received his B.A. from the University of Toronto and his M.A. and rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City.
He is also member of the editorial boards of the journals Conservative Judaism, Judaism, and CrossCurrents. He has published numerous articles and has lectured widely on theology, environmentalism, liturgy, bio-ethics and Judaism and modern cosmology. His most recent publications are "The Order of Creation and the Emerging God: Evolution and Divine Action in the Natural World," in: Geoffrey Cantor & Marc Swetlitz, Judaism and the Challenge of Darwinism, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, November, 2006); "The Two Books of God," Sh'ma, December, 2005, "Hearing the Outcry of Mute Things: Towards a Jewish Creation Theology," in: Laurel Kearns & Catherine Keller, eds., Eco-Spirit: Religions and Philosophies for the Earth. Forthcoming: Fordham University Press, 2007; and "Environmental Ethics," a chapter of Living a Jewish Life Vol. II: Ethics (forthcoming, Fall, 2007).
Rabbi Troster has appeared on television and radio and in newspapers and in May 2005 presented a paper at a UNEP conference in Tehran, Iran entitled, "The Mountain and the River Valley: Environmentalism as the Foundation of Dialogue Between Civilizations." (Available at www.resurgence.org) He has also been featured on Air America's environment program "Eco Talk."
Fee (Explanation): $
Availability: Lawrence lives in New Jersey. Contact JNF Speakers Bureau for availability.
Topics:
- Jewish Environmental Ethics
- Creation Spirituality
- Jewish environmental spiritual practice
- A Jewish Response to Climate Change
- Environmental Justice
- Environmentalism from a religious perspective
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