JCAN

Celebrate Tu B'shvat
2026-02-01 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | The Pryde, 59 Harvard Ave, Hyde Park, MA, 02136, United States
Join JCAN-MA to celebrate Tu B’shvat with a vegan seder. Loosely modeled after the Passover Seder, we’ll enjoy a light dinner which will include foods symbolizing the seven different species of food, drink four glasses of juice, as well as sing, reflect on how we can act locally to affect positive environmental change, and celebrate the bounty of nature and community.

What is Tu B’shvat? Sometimes called the Jewish Earth Day, it was first celebrated in the sixteenth century in Safed (pronounced Tz-faat), Israel. It is also known as the New Year of the Trees, and is observed on the 15th (tu) of the Hebrew month of Shvat.

You are invited to bring a plant-based dish (no meat, fish, poultry, dairy, eggs, or honey) to share if you would like, but are welcome to join without one.
REGISTER HERE. After you register, we’ll send you an email for you to let us know if you plan to bring a dish to share, and if you have any dietary restrictions.
Need a recipe or an idea? Let us know!
We are honored to host our Tu B’shvat seder this year at The Pryde, Boston’s first LGBTQ+ senior housing community.
February 1 at 5 PM
at
The Pryde
59 Harvard Ave.
Hyde Park, MA 02136

Jewish Ecopoetry
2026-02-24 19:00 - 20:30
Jewish ecopoetry is an expanding tool for spiritual resilience in the face of climate disaster and ecological collapse. Join JCAN co-founder Rabbi Katy Allen and ecofeminist writer Thea Iberall, along with other area ecopoets such as Carla Schwartz and Laurie Rosen for an evening of poetry, reflection, and response. Through prompts during the event, you will also write your own poem, no experience required.
Rabbi Katy Allen
Katy Z. Allen is a rabbi, chaplain, poet, and eco-chaplain whose lifelong love of the outdoors shapes her spiritual and creative work. From her early days exploring fields and streams in Wisconsin to decades of teaching, writing, and leading in Massachusetts, she draws wisdom from the natural world and helps others discover meaning there too.
She founded Ma’yan Tikvah – A Wellspring of Hope, an outdoor congregation, much of whose programming has since moved to Congregation Beth El in Sudbury, and she co-founded the Jewish Climate Action Network-MA. Katy has also served as a hospital and hospice chaplain, bringing care and nature-based spirituality to those she served.
Her recent book, A Tree of Life: A Story in Word, Image, and Text, reflects her love of weaving poetry, story, text and image. She is also the editor of Earth Etudes for Elul and other works, and she previously shared reflections at www.mayantikvah.blogspot.com.
In her retirement, Katy has turned her focus to poetry and her work has appeared online at New Verse News and in The Jewish Poets Collective Journal. Forthcoming, her work will be included in the Art on the Trails chapbook and online at Bluebird Word.

Thea Iberall
Thea Iberall has been called ‘a shimmering bridge between heart and mind.’ She’s performed poetry and storytelling since 1998, representing LA at the National Poetry Slams. An inductee into the International Educators Hall of Fame, she is featured in the documentary GV6: The Odyssey – Poets, Passion and Poetry. OC Weekly said Thea “tells narrative stories using simple words that mask hidden layers of meaning and emotion.” The host of Expresso Yourself Coffeehouse, she has performed in Massachusetts and Southern California at Story Space, Limmud, Menino Arts Center, Rozzie Reads, Ugly Mug, to name a few. Her book of contextual poems, The Sanctuary of Artemis, traces the roots of patriarchal domination. Her musical We Did It For You! Women’s Journey Through History tells the story of how women got their rights in America. And her ecofeminist novel The Swallow and the Nightingale is a way to wake people up to the real moral issue of today: not who you love, but what we are doing to the planet. She has a Master’s Degree in Writing and a Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience. www.theaiberall.com

The Gardener's Gathering
2026-03-21 10:00 - 17:00 | Northeastern University, Curry Center
After you attend *Transition Your Lawn* on March 16, celebrate the start of the gardening season with The Trustees! The 50th Annual Gardeners’ Gathering brings Boston-area growers of all kinds together for a free day full of informative workshops, engaging exhibitors, networking, and inspiration.
Celebrate the start of the gardening season! The 50th Annual Gardeners’ Gathering brings Boston-area growers of all kinds together for a free day full of informative workshops, engaging exhibitors, networking, and inspiration. The event will feature an array of garden skills workshops, and a day long exhibitor’s hall with opportunities to network with local urban agriculture and garden groups. There will be at least one workshop each session that is offered in Spanish or with Spanish translation.
This event is free.
About the Trustees
The Trustees care for nearly 52,000 acres, including 120 special places – all around Massachusetts. For more than a century, The Trustees has been on the ground in communities across Massachusetts, working to protect special places, providing loving care of our reservations, building creative new programs to engage people, and sharing our expertise with neighbors and partners across the state.
The Trustees of Reservations preserve, for public use and enjoyment, places of exceptional scenic, historical, and ecological value.

Author and Activist Gerry McGovern discusses his latest book, 99th Day: A Warning About Technology
2026-03-26 13:00 - 14:30 | Virtual Event
Our current ways of life are unsustainable, and we–and generations after us–are already living with the consequences, in spite of decades of warnings. Gerry McGovern’s new book, 99th Day: A Warning About Technology, examines how we got here as well as what we can do for future generations. In his words, “we must protect and resist”.
Collapse is coming. Driven by AI, data centers, bitcoin, greed. All the devouring mining, the relentless toxic waste. And ‘great’ men’s fragile egos and insatiable need to dominate. What will we leave those who must come after us? How did we get here?
“The timing is perfect: just as the public is waking up to the human and environmental toll of big tech and its ballooning infrastructure, along comes this book. In 99th Day: A Warning About Technology, journalist Gerry McGovern takes us around the globe—from Ireland to Spain to Brazil and West Africa and beyond—to share stories of those whose lives have been upended by mining, chemical dumping, and corporate land grabs. Deeply researched and written with heart, 99th Day is essential reading as we grapple with what a “green transition” really means.”
Judith Schwartz, author of The Reindeer Chronicles
This event is free.
About Gerry McGovern
Gerry McGovern has spent most of his career focused on reducing data waste, particularly with his method Top Tasks. He has published nine books. His upcoming one, 99th Day: A Warning About Technology, deals with a rapidly oncoming environmental and civilizational collapse driven by the excesses and wastes of our abusive technological society, and particularly by white male supremacy culture. His 2020 book, World Wide Waste: How digital is killing the planet and what to do about it, focused on reducing digital waste. His new book, 99th Day: A Warning About Technology, will be published in February 2026.

Caring for the Caregivers
2026-03-27 16:00 - 2026-03-29 19:30 | Cambridge Cohousing
A weekend retreat for those doing emotional labor—such as therapists, healthcare workers, and climate justice organizers—using the Work That Reconnects spiral to process climate grief and build resilience together. The workshop features an anti-oppression approach, focuses on resistance actions, offers vegan and gluten-free meals, is wheelchair accessible, and accommodates neurodivergent needs.
This gathering is for anyone who identifies as doing emotional labor in their daily work or activism, including:

Mental health, social work, and healthcare professionals
Climate and social justice organizers and activists
Caretakers, mutual aid workers, and community support roles
Anyone who regularly holds space for the pain of others or for the pain of the world

We offer this workshop specifically for people who do emotional labor because this work has been consistently forgotten, undervalued, and disrespected under capitalism. It is work that disproportionately falls to women, people of color, queer and trans people, and disabled people. We believe a just world is one in which emotional labor is taken seriously, fairly compensated, and supported by care for those who carry it. This workshop is our small and humble contribution toward bringing that world into being.
Cost is sliding scale ($0–$500) with free scholarships for BIPOC and low-income participants. Full attendance, including an integration call, is expected.
For more information, click here
About the Co-facilitators
Julia Levine (she/her) is a New York-based social worker with theatre roots. She brings drama therapy into her social work practice to address mental health implications of the climate crisis with individuals and groups. Julia currently provides therapy and case management for people across the lifespan, prioritizing trusting and collaborative relationships as the foundation for healing. She is drawn to practicing Work That Reconnects because of the integrative, iterative, and transformative nature of the spiral to support life on earth. You can reach Julia via Signal at 314-313-1914 or via email at juliaslevine@gmail.com
Alex Chambers (they/them) is a climate justice organizer who engages in direct action and civil disobedience to mitigate the worst impacts of climate breakdown and ecological collapse. Living outside the gender binary taught them to notice where systems draw hard lines between people from different walks of life, and between humans and the living world. They’ve been facilitating climate grief circles for the past five years and are currently developing their Work That Reconnects facilitation skills. You can reach Alex via Signal/text at 774-804-2270 or email at alex@foragedlandscape.com
