


Last week, dozens of Jewish volunteers gathered on a Zoom call to prepare to call voters for a get-out-the vote campaign called Chutzpah 2024.
Between a song, a Hebrew blessing and training on how to reach low-propensity voters in Louisiana, the call’s organizer paused to share the state’s “I voted” sticker. A dapper cartoon crawfish, outfitted in a top hat, appeared on the screen.
“Obsessed with this sticker,” someone wrote in the chat.
“Not kosher,” another shot back.
The mood was jovial, but the volunteers were there to fight what many believed to be the biggest existential threat facing not just the Jewish community, but every walk of life on Earth: climate change.
The phone bank was organized by Dayenu, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group of Jewish Americans that is working to get climate-minded voters to the polls.
Dayenu is a song of thanksgiving sung at Passover, and means “it would have been enough” in Hebrew.
Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, the group’s founder and chief executive, said the name holds dual messages: “We’ve had enough” of the climate crisis, and “we have enough” to address it. The group, which says it has tens of thousands of members and social media followers, runs dozens of branches in synagogues, college campuses and other communities and is partnering with other climate and faith groups.
“Enough” has also been the cry of Jews on both sides of an often-tense divide over the Israel-Gaza war this past year. Younger Jewish voters are particularly split over Israel’s response to Hamas Oct. 7, 2023 attack, in which more than 1,200 people in Israel were killed and 250 taken hostage. The Israeli counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians.