Neil Amswych

Neil Amswych is a rabbi and prominent interfaith and environmental activist. He served as Principal Rabbi of Bournemouth Reform Synagogue from 2005 - 2014 before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico to serve as the Rabbi of Temple Beth Shalom.
Early in 2007, he personally called over 100 local faith communities to invite them to become more sustainable. After arranging an interfaith environmental conference, IDEA: Interfaith Dorset Education and Action was formed. Since then he has helped set up the website of which he wrote a number of sections.
In 2008, he presented The Earth Charter to Bournemouth Council which subsequently became the first UK authority to adopt it. In November 2008, he was the UK representative invited to speak at the Earth Charter’s global online conference.
He is frequently in local media - BBC Radio Solent, Hope FM, Bournemouth Daily Echo - urging individuals to integrate their religious beliefs and practices with the urgent need for sustainability. Combined with his frequent presentations at local schools, his work to make Bournemouth and Dorset more sustainable involves work with educational, religious and governmental establishments.
In 2009 he was an instrumental part of what eventually became The Big Green Jewish initiative and in 2010-2011 he helped the Movement for Reform Judaism (a movement covering 20% of all British Jews), create its own overarching sustainability plan and commit itself to work towards total carbon neutrality.
As Chair of IDEA, near the end of 2010, he personally called the 400 faith communities in Dorset to invite their clergy or representatives to help create The Big Green Believers’ Agreement. Guiding the IDEA Steering Group, he helped arrange the conference to launch the initiative and was instrumental in chairing the intense year-long negotiations so that the many communities that initially wanted wildly differing outcomes eventually all agreed on one text. At its launch in November 2011, around 10,000 people were affected by the Big Green Believers’ Agreement.
In 2011, he raised the issue of palm oil in kosher food in an article in the national newspaper The Jewish Chronicle.
In 2012, he was invited to contribute to UNESCO's book on The Earth Charter and Faith Values and was shortlisted for the national Climate Week's "Most Inspiring Leader" award.

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