In memory of Rabbi Ellen Bernstein, Centre Call Article by Dr. Ruth Loew 2024

Rabbi Ellen Bernstein z”l (may her memory be for a blessing) is widely credited for having created the Jewish ecology movement.  As part of this work, she popularized the American Tu biShvat seder, which brought new life to the holiday as a celebration of the fruits of the land and, more broadly, of the Jewish connection to nature and our planet. She maintained that Judaism is an earth-based religion and that extending this foundation into modern-day ecology is essential.This year, in late January, she brought her unique energy and spirit to a Tu BiShvat seder/book launch at Germantown Jewish Centre. By the end of February, shortly after a cancer diagnosis, she was gone.

Ellen’s involvement with the Jewish ecology movement--highlighted in her obituaries--was her life’s main mission. She was also deeply interested in facilitating connections between people. Her husband, Steven Tenenbaum, cited this as “indicative of a systems mind.” In whatever she did, she looked for connectedness, from ecological wholeness to interpersonal relationships. She saw us all as part of the fabric of a greater whol

As Rabbi Mordechai Liebling said in his eulogy, she reveled in planning events that brought people together, even making two shidduchim (romantic matches). Friends recall having long, deep intellectual conversations with her, as well as lighthearted, even silly ones. Ellen served for a time, starting in 2013, as Spiritual Life Adviser and rabbi at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, and a former student said that Ellen loved forging connections with students. She was open and nonjudgmental, providing a safe environment in which they could confide and learn. She was an excellent mediator of student issues and disagreements, equally happy to debate the concept of dominion in Genesis and what kind of soup students might make for Shabbat dinner. She was interested in every student, not just the Jewish ones, and was happy to counsel or debate with any of them.

Not surprisingly, Tu BiShvat became the major Jewish holiday of the academic year at Hampshire. Even the college president, who was not Jewish, attended the Tu BiSh’vat seder.

Ellen also loved to travel. She was no superficial tourist checking off the major sights. She liked to get a real sense of a place’s land, topography, and architecture. She was disturbed by the secularism of much of the environmental movement, seeing true environmentalism as arising from a human spiritual relationship with the land. She was attuned to natural beauty, from colorful flowers to majestic scenery. In 2020 she told the Jewish Women’s Archive, “You have to nourish people . . . showing them the beauty in the world and the beauty in nature . . . This is critical to keeping people engaged and motivated. Finding beauty has been central in all my work.”

She lived in Mt. Airy from 1984 until 2004, when she moved to Massachusetts to join Steven. Although they had a beautiful house in Holyoke, she longed for the Mt. Airy community and Germantown Jewish Centre, and she saw her return as a homecoming. She loved the Charry services and those of Dorshei Derekh. She was at home and had close friends in both communities. Her friends spanned all age groups; she looked to people’s essences instead of age or other factors.

Thank you to Rachel Falkove, Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, Max Nemhauser, Steven Tenenbaum, and Rabbi Simkha Weintraub for sharing their memories of Ellen for this column. Additional information came from the New York Times, March 5, 2024.