Last Friday, I was recorded for an interview on the water problems out here in Samaria and specifically Shiloh.

It aired three days ago here.

I learned the German for "settler" is siedler.




EG wrote to me that

I think that they distorted what you said. After you stated that the water infrastructure goes back to the Brit mandatory days, it seems to me that the female narrator translated your words or conveyed your words in a very distorted manner, or she [or the ARD staff] did not intend to translate what you said correctly or incorrectly.

The Palestinians should stop being so ideological to argue and help to solve the practical problems.

What I had also told the reporter in that section is that the Arabs refuse to cooperate with environmental issues of pollution, sewage treatment and updating the water pipe infrastructure because no matter what the political resolution, the water has to be preserved and the land has to be protected.

Why don't the Arabs cooperate?  Wouldn't coexistence improve chances for peace or at least a lessening of the hostility that exists? 

There's also a bit in there previously on how fast we get help.  The water exists, even if there are temporary shortages.  So, who is at fault, Israel or the slow-responding or non-responding Palestinian Authority? Or their steadfast refusal to work together on a common problem?  Non-recognition doesn't help them.

Unfortunately, that message of mine didn't air.

Oh, and by the way, we've been requested to severely restrict water use since last night.

^

Sorry for being blunt but, facts are facts, even in Haaretz:

According to a report by the Israel Parks and Nature Authority, a lack of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation has impeded solutions to this problem.

Almost 90 percent of sewage from Palestinian towns in the West Bank flows into the environment untreated, contaminating the groundwater and 162 kilometers of streams, according to a report prepared by the Israel Parks and Nature Authority. A lack of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation has impeded solutions to this problem.

...The city of Nablus exemplifies the problem. It has 126,000 residents, as well as many olive presses that produce extremely toxic wastes. It has no treatment plant ‏(though one is now being built‏), so most of the waste goes into the Nablus Stream. From there, about a third seeps into the groundwater of the mountain aquifer, a major source of drinking water for both Palestinians and Israelis. The rest flows into the Alexander Stream in Israel.  Tul Karm’s waste treatment plant broke down last week, as it does several times a year, sending untreated sewage into the Te’enim Stream, and from there to Israel. “This is an area in which we invested great effort cleaning up and repairing damage caused during the winter,” said Nissim Almon, head of the Sharon Drainage Authority. “Now all that work is gone.”

But the worst problem, according to the report, is Hebron, which has nearly 170,000 inhabitants. Its waste includes toxic runoff from industries including stonecutting and leatherworking. More than 80 of the city’s 100 stone-cutting plants send their waste into pirate drainage pools, from which it flows into the Hebron Stream and then to Israel. Waste from the Hebron area alone has contaminated around 43 kilometers of streams.

Jewish settlements also contribute to the problem: 13 percent of their sewage goes into the environment rather than to treatment plants.

...Attempts at Israeli-Palestinian cooperation on this issue have largely gone nowhere, mainly because the Palestinian Authority refuses to cooperate with the settlements. Thus it refused to connect Palestinian towns in the northern West Bank to an Israeli sewage line because the line also serves several settlements. It also nixed a proposed treatment plant that would serve both Palestinian towns and the settlement of Ariel.

Who will knock some sense into their heads?

The land is there for all.

To destroy it is being fanatically illogical and irrational.

The Arabs hate us and they hate us so much that they would even destroy, contaminate and poison the land they claim is theirs just so long as we can't be there.

They define themselves not who they are and represent but by their negativism vs. Jews and Zionism.

That's idiocy and the EU and even the US supports this approach.

^

Haaretz reports:

Nearly one-third of sewage treatment facilities in the West Bank settlements are either not up to code or not in operation, according to a state report. As a result, a third of the settlements’ sewage is continuing to pollute the environment and to endanger groundwater sources, it warns.

And what is the situation in the Arab-controlled areas of that same area?

Well, two years ago:

Palestinian sewage polluting Israel's environment

Industrial plants in Palestinian Authority controlled areas streaming massive amounts of heavy industrial waste into Israel • Wastewater seeps below ground level polluting ground water and springs, harming the quantity and quality of drinking water.

"The Palestinian Authority has methodically committed a disgusting offense against us over a long period of time," a senior engineer at Israel's Water and Sewage Authority said Tuesday. "Not only have they hindered the building of sewage treatment plants, but they've intentionally streamed massive flows of waste into Israel's streams and rivers."

The engineer said that for many years now industrial plants in Palestinian Authority territory have streamed massive quantities of heavy industrial waste into Israel. Stone and marble quarries in Hebron are particularly to blame. The waste has caused serious damage to Israeli sewage treatment plants and rivers in the Negev region.

"The lives of thousands of residents of Beer Sheva and surrounding towns have become insufferable due to the sewage that gushes out to the wadis and creates stagnant pools of water which turn into breeding grounds for particularly aggressive species of mosquitoes," said Mark Lautman, a spokesman for the Neve Noy neighborhood, which is located near the Beer Sheva Stream.

Tests carried out by Israel's Water Authority, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and other environmental organizations reveal that many streams in Judea and Samaria have turned into channels for crude industrial waste characterized by a high concentration of pollutants.

And three months late we read:

...Israel continues to supply the Palestinians with freshwater every year, 80 percent above what was required of the country in the Oslo Accords, and if the Palestinians would recycle their sewage water as Israel does with most of its own, the Palestinian water supply would be even greater, according to the minister.

“We told Palestinians we are willing to give them all the knowledge, but they insist on using fresh water and sending us sewage,” [then Minister of the Environment Gilad] Erdan told The Jerusalem Post in an interview on Wednesday. “We are giving them fresh water and getting back sewage.”

The minister was particularly worried that along with the building of the new Palestinian city of Rawabi, there will be no solutions for the household waste and sewage created in the process, and he said he has received no answers from the authorities there.

“I’ve been trying around the world to get help from places like the United Nations and the World Bank to pressure the Palestinians to cooperate because they are here to stay and we need to cooperate on basic needs – electricity, water,” the minister said. “They can have an infrastructure.”

An academic study. 

So, what's the percentage in the PA?

This Haaretz story stinks.

^

The Municipal Environmental Associations of Judea and Samaria would be laughing at Amira Hass, if not for the matter's seriousness.


And it is serious:

A Seeping Timebomb: Pollution of the Mountain Aquifer by Sewage

Untreated sewage of over 2 million people on the recharge area of the Mountain Aquifer threatens to pollute the most significant, shared water source of Israelis and Palestinians. The vast majority of Palestinians in the West Bank, and large parts of the Israeli settlements, have none or inadequate sewage treatment facilities...several noteworthy developments took place since its original presentation. These include: launching of a sewage pre-treatment facility in Tul Karem (German funded); the proposed sewage project for Nablus East was cancelled; establishment of a sewage removal project on the Kanah Stream for some Israeli settlements; Enforcement measures were taken by the Israeli Environment Ministry against the settlement of Ariel on the issue of sewage treatment; the USAID froze its Hebron wastewater project, owing to the establishment of the Hamas government in the Palestinian Authority.

 
Amira Hass wrote

Liquid asymmetry: How the PA is forced to support water projects for West Bank settlements
 

According to a British researcher, the work of the Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee reflects another example of Israel's Ability to coerce and restrict the Palestinian population.


The major projects to expand the water infrastructure in West Bank settlements, undertaken between 1995 and 2008, were carried out with the approval of the Palestinian Authority after it was made clear that otherwise Israel would not allow the PA to repair and improve the water infrastructure serving its own population. Dr. Jan Selby of the international relations department at Britain’s University of Sussex found this to be the case after studying the minutes of 142 of the 176 meetings of the Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee that took place during that 13-year period.

The Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) informed Haaretz, however, that during nearly the past three years, it has refused to approve such undertakings in the settlements...he found that the proportion of Palestinian projects approved by the JWC and by the Supreme Planning Council of the Civil Administration was in those years lower than the proportion of projects approved for the settlements: 66 percent of the Palestinian requests to drill wells as compared to 100 percent of the Israeli requests; between 50 to 80 percent of Palestinian water supply networks were approved as compared to 100 percent for the settlers; 58 percent of the wastewater treatment plants for the Palestinians and 96 percent for the settlers.
 
...The average diameter of water pipes used for the Palestinian population is 2 inches, as compared to 8 inches or 12 inches for the Israelis. The 174 water reservoir projects for the Palestinians that were approved have a total capacity of 167,950 cubic centimeters, as compared to 28 projects for the settlers with a total capacity of 132,250 cubic centimeters. The average capacity of an Israeli reservoir is 4,724 cubic centimeters, whereas the average for a Palestinian one is 965.
 
...Due to the need to construct, develop, rehabilitate and upgrade Palestinian systems to supply much needed water, the Palestinian hand was forced to approve some of the Israeli projects.

“Lastly, it is important to keep in mind the overall political context of the agreement on water, which was only intended as an interim agreement. The expectation was the settlements will be evacuated following a permanent status agreement and that any approvals thus will only be of temporary nature until evacuation occurs. However, following the failure of permanent status negotiations and the realization that Israel does not intend to roll back its occupation and colonization enterprise, it became clear that settlement projects will have a lasting effect and will erode the two state solution, and thus the Palestinians have rejected since several years to approve any settlement projects.”

Consider this:

Despite Israeli offers to connect the 22 surrounding Palestinian villages to the same pipe, all but one of them refused the proposal, Environmental Protection Ministry and Shomron Regional Council officials explained during an exclusive tour of the area on Thursday.

Instead, their sewage flows into the aquifer below and ends up directly in the stream, according to the officials.

“That’s a testament to the fact that we are doing everything we can to prevent pollution in Judea and Samaria, but nevertheless, the Palestinians refuse to cooperate,” Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan told The Jerusalem Post ...a third official told the Post he suspected that the local Palestinian governments were unwilling to connect their villages due to “political reasons” – simply “because they don’t want to recognize Israel as a presence in the area.”

And consider this obstinacy:

Conflict over sewage treatment plant risks Palestinians' olive trees

Ein Yabrud residents refuse to utilize Israel-sponsored wastewater treatment plant, seek court order to suspend operations; but lack of clean irrigation water is killing their olive trees   

The olive trees on the outskirts of the West Bank settlement of Ofra are dying at an alarming rate – but not due to any foul play. The thing killing them are the toxins in the wastewater which are flooding the groves.

The unnecessary demise of the groves is largely due to the Palestinian land owners' insistence to refuse the use of the local sewage treatment plant, offered by the Shomron Municipal Association for the Environment (SMAE).

And this news:

According to a newly released report by Israel’s Environment Ministry, the streams in the Judea and Samaria area have been used as a means of discharging sewage by PA Arabs. The report cites reasons of a lack of sewage treatment facilities in the Palestinian Authority as well as the absence of a cooperation agreement between the PA and Israel as being the cause for this problem.

Itche Meir, chairman of the Municipal Environmental Association of Samaria, confirmed in an interview...that the localstreams are contaminated and it is mostly due to Arab sewage. “The reality is that there is no sewage treatment in those Arab cities and villages, and sewage flows into streams, seeps into the ground and pollutes the mountain aquifer. This is damaging both to the environment as well as to natural sites.”

Meir added that Israel does not have a plan to improve or change the situation. “One of the most serious problems is the lack of policy regarding cross-border nuisances,” he said.

And this news:

Sewage: The Stuff of International Politics?

Usually, sewage treatment plants don't make the news. But in Judea and Samaria, even the most prosaic issues make international headlines.

^

You'll remember that 2012 story of Israel flooding Gaza with sewage:-

A Palestinian environmentalist says the Israeli regime is engaged in systematically destroying the environment in the Gaza Strip by dumping sewage into the Gaza Valley and its surrounding areas, Press TV reports.

Something similar occurred in 2007 and Israel, though not at all to blame, was somehow dragged in to the cesspool of anti-Semitic accusations about it even two years earlier:-

Before leaving Gaza in 2005, it is alleged that Israeli settlements diverted sewage water and also industrial and chemical waste into the underground water resources. These sources are managed and operated by the Coastal Water Municipality facility funded by the European Union and other donors.

And then there was the 2008 Hari story (thanks to HR), when he wrote about:

  a remembered smell fills my nostrils. It is the smell of shit.

and claimed he wrote that after a sewage overrun in Gaza. I countered him later.



Well, what wasn't true then is true now, but Israel isn't involved:-

Egypt Flushes Out Gaza Tunnel Diggers With Sewage! | February 26th, 2013

Besides the really terrible new factor, the consequences for the environment are as equally yuck: the Egyptian army is looking to stall and stop Gazan smugglers from digging tunnels from the Gaza Strip to Egypt’s Sinai have found a new and dirty way to flush out smugglers: they are pouring raw sewage into the underground tunnels. Leaders in Gaza are trying to figure out how this tactic bodes for future relations with the Islamic leaders in Egypt.

So much crap.

^

I did not at all like the use of the term "pollution" to describe my activity of reestablishing a Jewish presence of residency in our national homeland.

But if you are interested in seeing real actual pollution, of our air, here's what I photographed this morning from Shiloh looking south, above the village of Turmos Aya:



In the orange circle you can discern garbage burning.

Not nice nor healthy.

^

J Street has a Rabbinic Director.  He is Rabbi Lawrence Troster who will spearhead efforts to build and cultivate a J Street rabbinic leadership and attempt to strengthen J Street’s presence in synagogues and other Jewish community institutions across the country.



Rabbi Troster received his BA from the University of Toronto and his MA and rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary and is currently pursuing a D. Min. in Ecological Ministries at Drew Theological School.

Environmentalism is an important topic in Judaism.  My neighbor, Rav Dov Berkovits, is involved here in Israel and with Canfei Nesharim in developing the theme of a Torah based approach to understand and act on the relationship between traditional Jewish sources and modern environmental issues amongst teachers and the public. And involved in this project: the Eco-Activist Beit Midrash (EABM) in Jerusalem’s Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo. We are no strangers to eco-environmental issues.

Here are of Troster's Green Faith leture topics which include: God Must Love Beetles; A Jewish View of Biodiversity and the Extinction of Species; Grasping the Tree of Life: Ancient Jewish Wisdom for Modern Sustainable Living; The Blessing of the Place Where You Are: Jewish Environmental Spirituality and Practice; God of Creation/God of Destruction: An Eco-theological Perspective on Evil.

Actually, most of that is quite applicable to what we revenants are doing in Judea and Samaria - not only living in a blessed place but improving it and caring for it with full cognizance of environmental demands as reflected in traditional religious sources.  As Rabbi Troster himself notes, environment also includes humans:

7. The Torah gives an obligation to save human life.
The Jewish tradition mandates an obligation to save and preserve life (called in Jewish legal sources: pikuach nefesh)...[and] forbids us from knowingly harming ourselves (Leviticus 19:28)...Pikuach nefesh...[in] the Jewish tradition, [is] the Precautionary Principle [that] can be seen as a modern form of the warning not to tamper too much with the boundaries of Creation.

8. The Torah prohibits the extinction of species and causing undo pain to non-human creatures.
...Only humans could cause extinction and bring about the loss of one of the members of the Creation choir...It is evident from the first chapter of Genesis and other Biblical texts (Psalm 104, 148 and Job 38-41) that God takes care of, and takes pleasure in, the variety of life that makes up Creation. And although we might regard a species as unimportant or bothersome to human beings, God does not regard them so...Related to this idea is the concept of Tzar Baalei Chayyim, the prohibition of hurting animals without good purpose...

Indeed.

And I would suggest that Rabbi Troster realize that his new organizational employer could be engaged in very unfriendly and life-threatening activities vis a vis not only the earth, the soil, the plants and the animals on it but in a place called Eretz-Yisrael, a people, the Jews, are in danger from a destroyer who does not tolerate diversity or distinctiveness.

I hope he considers all that in his new position.

^

To all intents and purposes, the smug Israeli justices obviously prefer the contamination of the land and the resulting danger to Arabs - and Jews - from this untreated water situation.  Obviously, the Arab owner should have been doing something or at least seeking to cooperate but as we know from the history of the conflict, no matter what benefit that may accrue them from working together with the Jews, the Arab will almost always chose an inferior result.

The story:

High Court forbids use of Israeli sewage plant illegally built on Palestinian land

The High Court of Justice yesterday forbade operating a sewage treatment plant built illegally on privately owned Palestinian land in the West Bank settlement of Ofra.  The ruling came in response to a petition submitted by Yesh Din on behalf of residents of the Palestinian village of Ein Yabrud against building the plant on their land.

The state admitted to numerous failures in the procedures of setting up the plant, which had indeed been built without the required permits on private land.  However, the state said the region's sewage problems had to be addressed. For this reason the authorities formulated a proposal to confiscate the land for public need, to permit operating the plant, which would also serve the area's Palestinian villages, the state said.

The justices ruled it may not be operated and ordered the state and the Binyamin Regional Council to pay the petitioners' legal expenses.

...The authorities are now in process of amending and adjusting the procedure so the settlement may operate the plant.

What crap.

^

'Secret' installations?

What do you see in this picture snapped at Shiloh, the lower neighborhood?


Do you see now what I am referring to, now that I have circled?


Those are water purification tanks for the process of removing undesirable chemicals, materials, and other contaminants from Shiloh's used water for re-use for purposes of agriculture.

We try to take care of our environment.

^

Where is the Green Party when we need them?

Reported:

The developer of Rawabi, a new Palestinian city being built in the West Bank, said he will remove some 3,000 trees donated by the Jewish National Fund and replace them with indigenous olive trees, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported Tuesday.

Bashar al-Masri said that the city's identity is meant to be Palestinian and that Israeli elements are trying "to manipulate the issue," according to the report.

Masri's move came in response to a scathing op-ed published by Ma'an a day earlier by Jewish Israeli-born convert to Islam and member of Fatah, Uri Davis. In the op-ed, he slammed the decision to accept the trees from an organization whose mission "is the 'redemption' of lands in 'Eretz Israel,' including Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza and beyond for Jewish settlement."

Davis further criticized the species chosen to be planted by the JNF. Non-indigenous pine trees, he said "add insult to injury." "Rather than plant indigenous" trees, he added, "the tree saplings planted by the JNF in the area designated for the Rawabi projects are typically political-Zionist pinera (conifers)."

Amazing how idiotic, fanatic thinking leads to irrational extremism.

Oh, sorry.  That's the theme of the Arab/Muslim campaign since the mid-1800s.

^

I found this article on an environmental blog on the theme of Edible Landscaping by someone named Jake enamoured with "Palestine" and "Palestinians" which includes things like:

The olive tree is such a poetically relevant symbol of the people of Palestine...Some olive trees in the region are over 2,000 years old and are nicknamed “Romans” after the ancient occupiers who supervised their planting. Like the Palestinians, olive trees are native to this land. Christians will recognize the Arab word for Palestinians “Filistinis” as the biblical Philistine people that Jesus and many prophets spoke of. Like the Palestinians, these ancient trees have seen the occupation of this land by the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Turks, the Ottomans, the French, the British, and now the Zionists...

...Today I visited the town of Jiftlick in the Jordan River Valley. This visit was arranged by Lifesource, a water rights organization, that seeks to improve water access and reclaim water rights for Palestinians. The dryness of this region is already a challenge to farming and daily existence, but it has been made even more complicated by Israeli policy and the Zionist settlements it supports.

...The Jordan River is the western [sic!!! that should eastern] border of the West Bank, and separates occupied Palestine from the country of Jordan...After the 1967 war, Israel began a massive infrastructure project that redirected the Jordan River into what is now Israel. Now 90% of the water that used to flow the original riverbed instead goes southeast through northern Israel and into the industrial regions near Tel Aviv, supporting Israeli economic activity. This has left the aquifers of the region depleted, a situation made worse by Israeli laws that prevent well enhancements...

...The town of Ma’ Sa is near the Green Line, which is the internationally recognized border of Palestine and Israel. Every Zionist settlement in the West bank is illegal according to UN law because an occupying force is not allowed to colonize an occupied territory. Still, they are being built, and the Ku-Foqasam [???] settlement is one of those illegal settlements...

...Tomorrow I will meet with the “Stop The Wall” campaign and with the Ramallah Farmers Market Association, and then on to Jenin where I will meet with Canaan Farms and the Palestinian Fair Trade Association. I will be making my way back to Seattle this weekend, and am looking forward to educating others about this critical food justice issue as well as launching myself into the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement that I think is the strongest way to hold Israel accountable for its disrespect of international law and fundamental human decency.

and left there this comment (just in case it doesn't go up):

I realize that politics is tricky but several comments:

1. it wouldn't have hurt to mention that in the Bible, olive trees are mentioned many times, in fact, as one of the 7 main species of agricultural produce. Of course, at that time there weren't any "Palestinians" around but if you are devoted to the Land and the Environment, you could have been more generous with your history.

2. Continuing with that, you imply that "Filistin" and "Palestine" are inter-related. The Philistines were one group and the name "Palestine" is another. That the Arabs conquered this territory in 638 CE/AD is not an automatic afirmation of some supposed ancient heritage rights. Your mixing up more than metaphors.

3. And while you do mention Israel and Zionism, Jews seem to escape your vocabulary. Jews are the national grouping most closely associated with this land, for over 3000 years with two kingdoms (and before that a Judgeship regime and a Patriarchal tribal existence), revolts and military campaigns against invaders, two Temples (one of which was visited by the founder of Christianity), all attested to by scientific archaelogical finds.

^

Olive waste potential, a different olive tree story.

Here:-

A factory set up recently near the West Bank settlement of Nokdim is offering an innovative method of "green" heating: compressed olive-waste logs for the fireplace.

The company, Olivebar, trawls olive presses for pellets and skins left after the production of olive oil. Avi Lorber, one of the owners, told Haaretz that about 60,000-70,000 tons of this material is produced in Israel annually. Although it is meant to be sent to landfills, it is often discarded in open grounds, becoming a pollutant...Lorber has developed a process for turning the waste into compressed logs by mixing it with different materials. The ashes from the logs can be reused as fertilizer, and if the trend catches on, he said, it might stop people from cutting down olive trees for firewood, a practice that has become popular because of rising oil prices.

Great job, there.

What those "settlers" can't do.

^

Who said: "...we cannot exist on our own without the intricately balanced web of life around us. Islam has always taught this and to ignore that lesson is to default on our contract with creation.'"

I read that and I thought this was a joke, being in a tabloid:

'Follow the Islamic way to save the world,' Prince Charles urges environmentalists

Prince Charles yesterday urged the world to follow Islamic 'spiritual principles' in order to protect the environment.

In an hour-long speech, the heir to the throne argued that man's destruction of the world was contrary to the scriptures of all religions - but particularly those of Islam.

He said the current 'division' between man and nature had been caused not just by industrialisation, but also by our attitude to the environment - which goes against the grain of 'sacred traditions'.

In 2005 there was a discussion about his supposed conversion. And even in 1997.

And yesterday, another blogger thought he was a blithering idiot.

And here is Pakistan's AP report:

The Prince chose “Islam and the Environment” as the focus of his speech, bringing together two important strands of his work over three decades...‘If I may quote the Quran, ‘Have you considered: if your water were to disappear into the Earth, who then could bring you gushing water?’

And he even gets in a synagogue:

The Prince also noted that these teachings were also evident in Judaism and in his own faith, Christianity and were well expressed in the writings of Islamic poets and scholars, and Western poets like Wordsworth. Ending his speech, The Prince said: ‘There is a profound truth in that seemingly simple, old saying of the nomads ­ that “the best of all Mosques is Nature herself”.’

It was windy a few days ago.

AND THE WIND CAME FROM THE SOUTHEAST.

Which means that the foul, polluted smoke from the garbage heap of Turmos-Aya came wafting across the valley to Shiloh:

From Shiloh, looking out to the south at the hill between Mazra'a A-Sharaki'ah on top and Turmos Aya below.

My wife who manages Kosher Carnival would love this, I think:-

NEAR a prairie dotted with cattle and green with soy beans, barley, corn and oats, two bearded Hasidic men dressed in black pray outside a slaughterhouse here that is managed by an evangelical Christian.

What brought these men together could easily have kept them apart: religion.

The two Hasidim oversee shehitah, the Jewish ritual slaughtering of meat according to the Book of Leviticus. The meat is then shipped to Wise Organic Pastures, a kosher food company in Brooklyn owned by Issac Wiesenfeld and his family. When Mr. Wiesenfeld sought an organic processor that used humane methods five years ago, he found Scott Lively, who was just beginning Dakota Beef, now one of the largest organic meat processors in the country.

Mr. Lively adheres to a diet he believes Jesus followed. Like Mr. Wiesenfeld, he says the Bible prescribes that he use organic methods to respect the earth, treat his workers decently and treat the cattle that enter his slaughterhouse as humanely as possible.

“We learn everything from the Old Testament,” Mr. Lively said, “from keeping kosher to responsible capitalism.”

Humane, sustainable practices like Mr. Lively’s are articles of faith for many Americans concerned with the way food gets from farm to plate. But they are even more deeply held matters of faith for a growing number of farmers and religious groups. In the past few years protecting the environment has emerged as a religious issue. Now, something similar is taking place in the way people of faith view their daily bread.

Christians, Jews and Muslims who see food through a moral lens are increasingly organized and focused on showing their strength. The Religious Working Group on the Farm Bill, a national coalition of more than a dozen religious organizations, is lobbying Congress for legislation to help small farms. The National Catholic Rural Life Conference is helping congregations and universities in the Midwest buy local produce from family farmers.

Environment-minded Jews are asking the leaders of Conservative Judaism to rewrite their kosher certification rules to incorporate ethical concerns about workers, animals and the land. Hazon, the Jewish environmental organization, has set up community-supported agriculture programs, or C.S.A.’s, in which customers purchase shares of a farm’s harvest.

“This is the first time I have seen such a deep and growing involvement of the faith community,” said Brother David Andrews, who is on sabbatical from his job as executive director of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference and has followed these kinds of issues for 30 years.

If this nascent cause was taken up by large numbers of churches and synagogues, the economic effect alone could be profound. “The religious movement is a huge force,” said Arlin S. Wasserman, the founder of Changing Tastes, a consulting firm in St. Paul that advises food companies and philanthropic organizations on trends in food and agriculture. “Already, religious institutions oversee the production of $250 billion per year in food if you bundle together halal, kosher, and institutional buying.

“Religious leaders have been giving dietary advice for decades and centuries, telling us to eat fish on Friday or to keep kosher in your home. What we are seeing now are contemporary concerns like the fair treatment of farm workers, humane treatment of animals and respect for the environment being integrated into the dietary advice given by the churches.”

And there's more there.