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Many 20- and 30-something Jews are not just environmentally aware, but are actively advocating for the environment and implementing the changes they hope will positively impact the planet.

At the Jewish Center in Princeton, a 15-person committee created a year-and-a-half ago by Suki and Matt Wasserman is making significant strides toward greater sustainability at the synagogue. They have installed solar panels to power the eternal light, put recycling containers everywhere, trained custodians on how to handle recycling, added a "recycling" job on the nursery job wheel, and labeled light switches with "bal taschit (do not destroy)" cards asking that lights be turned off when not in use.

Another step toward sustainability happened on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 13, at the Jewish Center's Back to Shul Green Festival, which aimed to build the community's environmental consciousness while giving congregants a chance to renew relationships after the summer.

Environmentalism was behind every decision about the festival, even the "utensil-less" meal of pizza, ice cream, and water -- in jugs rather than little plastic bottles. "You can have just as good a time doing less," said Suki, who co-chaired the festival with Neil Wise, the Jewish Center's director of youth and family services. Tablecloths were also reusable.

The day was also permeated with environmental education. The only school bus in the world that runs on vegetable oil brought in a crew of young environmental educators from the Teva Learning Center.

Explaining Teva's mission, Jonathan Dubinsky, who is in charge of the bus program, said, "Teva seeks to renew the ecological wisdom inherent in Judaism." Inside the bus children listened intently to short lessons, for example, about how long it took the earth to produce a piece of coal and how worms turn waste materials into compost.

Eco-art projects also kept the kids busy; they made pencil boxes out of soup and coffee cans and plastic bottles collected by the congregation, and they constructed solar ovens from used pizza boxes. Children also competed in a recycling race that taught them how to properly dispose of different waste items in their houses: coffee grinds, batteries, paper, and cans. Also, the Princeton Public Library offered "green" storytelling.

The festival also tied the Jewish New Year to its environmental theme. A Jewish New Year's resolution table featured 54 things that people can do to be more environmentally friendly. Visitors were asked to pick one item and to leave their email addresses so that the committee would be able to keep track of their efforts.

To emphasize the importance of biking, walking, or carpooling rather than driving, the organizing committee asked attendees to bring along old bikes that volunteers would fix, sell at reasonable prices, and then donate the proceeds to the Mercer County and Trenton Boys and Girls Clubs. A bike safety stop helped bikers get their bikes and helmets properly fit.

The "reuse" theme also came to fore in another collection -- a pile of gently used shoes for the homeless people serviced by Home Front.

Adults also got some environmental education. The Princeton Environmental Commission gave a talk about how to compost leaves, and the Stonybrook-Millstone Watershed's River Friendly Residence Program gave one about what people can do to keep streams and canals clean. An organic farmer from Orchard Farm Organics offered her vegetables and also had applications to get shares in her CSA (community supported agriculture).

Assistant Rabbi Annie Tucker has been very impressed with the synagogue's sustainability committee, the festival, and Suki, its intrepid leader.

"Suki is a force of nature," she said. "She is really picking up on the zeitgeist. The environment is in our consciousness, and we are capitalizing on it in a Jewish way."