by stacey palevsky
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Samovar Tea Lounge is the kind of quiet, comfortable place you might go on a non-date first date.
It’s unassuming and casual, the walls a deep shade of red, with foggy windows on rainy days.
While the core of Jesse Jacobs’ business is oolong and chai (with edible accoutrements like scones), he refuses to prioritize that above the environment.
“We are an environmental company. We buy tea. If we can’t support the environment, tea won’t support us,” said the 35-year-old.
As green ideas have shifted away from the fringe and into the mainstream, Jewish business owners are not just giving profits to environmental causes, but building businesses around a green philosophy. Their concern for the earth stretches beyond the conventional “reduce, reuse, recycle.”
And their businesses are profitable. Jacobs opened a second Samovar location in the fall.
Judaism has never viewed poverty as a virtue; long life and wealth have long been thought of as rewards from God. But riches have always been seen as a challenge. Talmudic scholars and rabbis contend that wealth never comes without social responsibility. Jewish law stipulates that money must be acquired honestly and used to help the poor, the needy and the stranger.
“Profits give us options,” Jacobs said. “Money is not a bad thing. It’s what you do with it.”
Jacobs is one of many Bay Area Jewish entrepreneurs who have fused business smarts with social responsibility.
Three Jewish 30-somethings started Sustainable Spaces, a company that helps homeowners make their houses more energy efficient.
A well-known yogi built a studio constructed entirely from sustainable materials.
Two young Jewish parents opened Spring after the birth of their first child made them more aware of harmful irritants in one’s home. The store sells mattresses, bedding and cleaning supplies that help reduce indoor air pollutants.
“To preserve what we have for future generations is a core Jewish value,” said Lucas Heldford, Spring’s owner. “The environment impacts all of us … It’s exciting to see that every industry is having this kind of awakening and changing how they do business.”
Heldford always knew he wanted to do something good for the planet, inspired by his great-grandfather, the well-known philanthropist Benjamin Swig.
Jacobs, in contrast, didn’t always intend to build a career around supporting small tea farms in Asia.
The Boston native studied business and technology in college. While studying abroad in Japan, he and the only other Jewish guy (a Brit) became friends and celebrated Chanukah together at a bar in Japan. The men kept in touch, and for several years both worked in Silicon Valley during the tech boom.
Soon, though, they wanted to do something more meaningful. A tea business topped their brainstorming sessions.
Jacobs remembered spending time with his Russian grandparents as a child, during which time the adults were always drinking tea from a samovar. Literally, it means “self-boiler,” and it’s a metal container traditionally used to brew tea in Russia (as well as other Slavic nations like Iran and Turkey).
“We wanted to create a business that captures and broadcasts the Russian Jewish tradition and tea culture with wide appeal,” he said.
Jacobs designed his two tea lounges — in the Castro and Yerba Buena Gardens — to be eco-friendly. The tabletops are made from bamboo, a durable and renewable resource. Some of the stools are made from recycled wood. Windows in both locations provide natural sunlight and even some heat.
If you didn’t listen closely as he described of the restaurants’ design, you might think he was speaking about a synagogue’s sanctuary.
He wants customers to connect to the space in an emotional way, for them to leave feeling more peaceful than when they arrived.
“When it’s all said and done, why not know you contributed to the betterment of the earth and not the detriment?” he asked.
The idea that humans and the earth are intrinsically related is embedded in Jewish wisdom and law. In fact, Alon Tal, a leading Israeli environmentalist, told j. during a recent visit to the Bay Area that “Judaism and the environment are synonymous.”
Tal’s philosophy is not new. Jewish holidays like Sukkot and Tu B’Shevat connect us to the earth. The Talmud and Midrash contain numerous references to environmental stewardship.
Often cited is what God said to Adam in the Garden of Eden: “See My works, how fine they are; Now all that I have created, I created for your benefit. Think upon this and do not corrupt and destroy My world, For if you destroy it, there is no one to restore it after you.” (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:28).
Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco has long engaged in environmental action. The synagogue has environmental and green committees, and last year invited Jared Blumenfeld, director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment, to give a “sermon” at their Eco Shabbat.
Blumenfeld told congregants that had someone compiled Jewish environmental laws before the birth of the modern environmental movement, one would have obtained the world’s most advanced environmental code.
He said he’s amazed by how many Jews are involved in environmental efforts.
“And it’s worldwide, wherever you go, from nonprofits to government officials to business owners,” he added. “It’s amazing, especially in San Francisco … I think the Jewish religion and culture leads people to think beyond themselves, to figure out how they can help their community and planet.”
Several businesses started and owned by Jews focus on the concept of sustainability and the idea that humans must lessen their footprint on the earth.
Sustainable Spaces works with homeowners, contractors and architects to help them renovate or build homes that are as eco-friendly as possible. Three Jewish 30-somethings own the business.
Co-owner Matt Golden, 30, said the “trifecta” of Sustainable Spaces is improving indoor air quality, energy efficiency and comfort. Golden likes to call their effort “chicken soup for the house.”
The principals began consulting three years ago, and worked with about 60 clients during that first year. They expect to work with nearly 350 in 2007.
“I think the idea to be more at harmony with the earth is a very Jewish concept, and that’s really what Sustainable Spaces wants — to make the house work in harmony with its residents,” he said.
David Lurey, a Jewish San Francisco yogi, built an eco-yoga studio several years ago. The floor and curtains are made from bamboo, the walls are insulated with recycled denim, the paint is toxic-free, and the room is warmed by radiant heat. He acquired all the yoga props second-hand.
Lurey grew up in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. His Egyptian-Sephardic mother and Ashkenazi father blended their spiritual traditions with their interest in the outdoors, and often took their son camping and hiking, which connected him to nature at a young age.
Then, in the early ‘80s, paper mills in Tennessee brought acid rain to western North Carolina.
“Acid rain killed the trees, the undergrowth — a beautiful lush forest became barren wasteland,” he said.
His parents explained in kid-lingo about acid rain and pollution. It instilled in him a responsibility to the environment.
He created a recycling program for the Hyatt Regency San Francisco when he worked at the hotel. On March 17, he will lead a Shabbat yoga class at the S.F. Jewish Community Center complete with Hebrew songs and Jewish philosophy.
“We can put our money toward building new synagogues, expanding Jewish culture, but what I think Jewish people en masse are able to do is use our ingenuity, creativity and resilience as a way to lead the environmental charge,” Lurey said.
“What a beautiful opportunity to say, ‘I’m going to put my own tzedakah to work for the betterment of the planet.’”
He added that as Jews struggle with continuity in the face of rising intermarriage, they should not forget the earth around them. “We need to have a place that has clean air and water for our culture and faith to survive,” he said.
The Torah recognizes that nature exists for the benefit of humans, and that it has value independent of human needs. Jews are prohibited from bal tashchis, or the waste and unnecessary destruction of valuable resources — food, fuel, paper, plants and even money.
Contemporary writings on Judaism and the environment often quote Deuteronomy, “You are not to bring ruin upon its trees, by swinging away an ax against them, for from them you eat, them you are not to cut-down — for are the trees of the field human beings, able to come against you in a siege? Only those trees of which you know that they are not trees for eating, them you may bring-to-ruin and cut-down.”
David Vogel, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, wrote in a paper on Jewish environmental ethics that the verse “evokes the concept of sustainable development: We are permitted to pick the fruit but not destroy the fruit tree because the fruit is a renewable resource while the tree presumably is not.
“To argue that nature exists only for the benefit of man is to refuse to acknowledge all nature as God’s creation,” he added. “But it would be equally misguided to claim that humans ought not use nature for their own benefit.”
Two Jewish women have blended the idea of profitability with saving money, and while they’re at it, the earth.
Anne Vollen and Sheryl Cohen — Jewish women, best friends, business partners and entrepreneurs — founded Green Zebra, a for-profit enterprise that in December published a 300-page coupon book containing 250 coupons that they say could save shoppers $12,000 at local, eco-friendly businesses in San Francisco.
A disproportionate number of participating business owners are Jewish, which they didn’t expect, they said. All the businesses in this story are also in the coupon book.
Their simple mission is to save people money. (“Who doesn’t love coupons?” Vollen joked.)
Overall, though, Green Zebra’s goal is to empower San Francisco consumers to make more educated, eco-friendly choices and while doing so give a boost to businesses working for a better earth.
“During Rosh Hashanah, I was sitting in synagogue, and thinking about my year, and realized, ‘You know, I feel pretty good about this year,” Cohen said.
The Green Zebra guide also is a fundraiser. Cohen and Vollen want to help schools, churches and synagogues raise money. The coupon books cost $25, and fundraising partners get $10 for every book they sell.
Whichever school sells the most Green Zebra guides will receive a solar and wind power system for their school, donated by Bay Solar Power Design.
Cohen and Vollen are at work on Volume 2, and might also publish a coupon book for Marin County.
“We think people want to do the right thing if it’s easy for them,” Vollen said.
“We are a capitalist society,” Cohen added. “We’re talking to people on terms they understand: Money.”
And as people save dollars and cents, the founders of Green Zebra hope consumers will develop an interest in saving the earth, too.
Tikkun olam, one coupon at a time.
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CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California