Brighton Changemakers
The new column where Benita Matofska shares inspiring stories of people who are making a positive impact on our world. This month Mara Pireñack-Marrs, an Eco Judaism activist. Eco Judaism? Read on...
Who are you? I’ m a queer, Latin American Jew, who has a deep yearning for connection to the land and its inhabitants. I studied Natural History then volunteered for ecological organisations, such as Sadeh, a Jewish eco farm in Kent. I’ m a member of the Green Team at Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue( BHPS), and active in the Eco Judaism movement. Eco Judaism is a unique charity, leading the UK Jewish Community’ s response to the climate and nature crisis. It’ s the only truly cross-denominational Jewish movement, bringing together people right across the religious spectrum, from Orthodox to Liberal to unaffiliated Jews.
What do you do and how do you do it? BHPS is the first synagogue outside London to be awarded a Gold Eco Synagogue Award. I’ m part of the Green Team that made that happen. I work to promote environmental awareness through a Jewish lens by highlighting the ecological messages in our Holy Torah. Concepts such as the Kabbalistic“ Tikkun Olam” which translates as“ Repair of the World”, or“ Bal Tashchit” meaning“ Do not waste or destroy.” In 2022, at COP 27, our synagogue was awarded a Silver Eco Synagogue Award, achieved by completing an eco-audit which looked at everything from our carbon footprint, resource use, energy consumption, to our environmental education and behaviour change campaigns. In 2024, we decided to work towards a Gold Award and achieved it. We promoted vegetarianism becoming the first vegetarian synagogue in the UK. For Tu B’ Shvat, the Jewish New Year of Trees, we planted 12 fruit trees in the newly created Martlets Hospice Garden to bring nature to its residents and vital habitat to local wildlife. We also organised a community trip to Rampion Windfarm to understand and appreciate the green technology on our coastline.
Why do you do it? I grew up in the reefs and rainforests of Central America and the seas and summits of the Mediterranean. Nature has from my very beginning been my cradle and has given me so much, making me who I am today. Nature does not judge or hate me for being queer and trans, in fact it reflects those states of being back to me in the fauna and flora it gives birth to. I love Creation deeply and I owe to the environments that nurtured me to return the favour. We are all interconnected, and manifestions of the Divine, both the human and the more than human. It’ s because of my love for the Universe that I work to help restore ecosystems, for injustice somewhere is injustice everywhere.
What’ s your mission? My mission is to promote the safe-guarding and restoration of our mother earth using the tools and traditions of our Jewish Ancestors. Judaism is full of deep, earth based wisdom that we can use to navigate the demands of modern life.
What difference do you hope to make? I hope to leave the world a better place than I came into it, even if only by a little, by working with and for my communities to bring about social and environmental justice which are so intertwined, exemplified by the commandment to leave the“ peah”- the edges of our fields- unharvested for the needy and animals to take their fill.
What is a changemaker and do you identify as one? We must all be changemakers with a lowercase c, for it takes a village. There is no change too small, no action too insignificant. We must start with making changes first to ourselves, then to our families, to our communities, to our neighbourhood, to our town, to our region, to our country, and finally to our world.
Describe the world you want to create through your work. The vision I dream of is a world where fossil fuel giants and big industry lay forgotten. A world where we use clean renewable energies, in which those providing the raw materials and technologies are equitably compensated with their share of the riches produced. A world where wealth is not amassed in the Global North, but shared worldwide for it is the entire world that
has provided the resources. A world where Humanity invests in the natural world with no expectation of anything in return, after so many decades of indiscriminate extraction. A world in which the industrialisation and mass production of food has given way to smaller scale local producers; where workers and animals live in safety and dignity before the food reaches our tables. A world that is biodiverse, that prioritises native species to each respective area. A world that honours the rights and dignity of all people. If enough of us put the work in, I truly believe it will happen. To paraphrase our Sages, you are not obligated to finish the work, but neither are you free from desisting from it.“ Ken y’ hi razon” may it be God’ s will, speedily in our days!
If you could achieve anything in the next five years what would it be? On a personal level, I’ d like to return to more frontline activism such the work I was doing before the pandemic, safeguarding sea turtle eggs from poachers or working in aquatic bird rehabilitiation, preferrably in a Jewish context. To find out more about Eco Judaism check out ecojudaism. org. uk To find out more about the BHPS Green Team you can contact: info @ bhps-online. org
Benita Matofska is a public speaker, writer and author of Generation Share. If you know a Brighton Changemaker, email: benita @ benitamatofska. com