Biography
Leda Zakarison is a first year student at Yale Divinity School pursuing her Master of Divinity degree. After completing her B.A. in religion at Whitman College, she worked at Earth Ministry/Washington Interfaith Power and Light, where she saw first-hand how love of creation unites and motivates people of diverse faiths to work for material and political change. More recently, she lived and worked in Beirut, Lebanon at the Forum for Development, Culture, and Dialogue, where she witnessed the transformative power of relationship building in creating lasting peace. She brings these experiences to her research on how communities use the language and tools of faith traditions to promote peacebuilding, justice, and equity.
Paper Abstract
Bal Tashchit (“Do Not Destroy”) is upheld as a cornerstone of Jewish environmentalism, an indication of the deep care for creation embedded in Hebrew scripture and Jewish tradition. The ethical principle draws its source from Deuteronomy 20:19-20, which advises Israelites to refrain from cutting down fruit trees while besieging Canaanite cities. Although the passage may display a concern for trees, it is situated within a series of laws mandating conquest and destruction.
In the modern era, Zionists have used the destruction and planting of trees as means to claim and control Palestinian and Lebanese land and people, citing Biblical passages to justify their actions. Olive groves are a locus of violence – Israeli Defense Forces bulldoze and burn thousands of acres of trees, while settlers attack Palestinians harvesting their fruits. In the face of ongoing threats, Palestinians and Lebanese claim olive trees as a symbol of national pride, resilience, and resistance to domination. Year after year, families return to tend and protect their groves.
In the face of ongoing regional ecocide, environmental rehabilitation has proven to be a powerful force for facilitating peacebuilding among Palestinians, Israelis, and Jordanians. Groups like EcoPeace Middle East have successfully brought together Jewish, Christian, and Muslim leaders to advocate for environmental protection and regional cooperation. These efforts have largely focused on restoration of the Jordan River. Olive trees, a symbol of divine blessing and nourishment in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, have rarely received similar ecological attention. In this presentation, I will examine the consequences of constructing contemporary environmental movements embedded within rhetorics of domination. I will explore the ongoing symbolic and material deployment of olive trees as a tool both of control and domination and of resilience and resistance. Finally, I will consider the potential of olive trees as site of interreligious environmental peacebuilding.