Photo by Emma Quirk '26. Julia Watts Belser, above on Zoom, discusses climate change, queer disability politics, and Judaism.
By Emma Quirk ’26
Staff Writer
Content warning: This article mentions mass death.
On Nov. 2, 2022. Dr. Julia Watts Belser gave a lecture to the Mount Holyoke College community entitled, “Hope and Grief in the Age of Climate Change: Queer Disability Politics and Ancient Jewish Story.” Belser is a professor of Jewish studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University, faculty member in the Disability Studies Program at the same school, senior research fellow at the Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, and author of several books, essays and articles, according to Georgetown University. She was introduced by Mara Benjamin, the Irene Kaplan Leiwant Professor of Jewish Studies and chair of the religion department at the College.
Throughout her lecture, Belser discussed the intersections of climate change and disability, using ancient Jewish stories to emphasize and explain her points. She focused not only on the factual urgency of the environmental crisis, but also on its “emotional terrain” and how ancient rabbis also struggled with grief, loss, power and violence, emotions that are often linked to the current crisis.
She started with stories of Jonah, the “reluctant, bitter prophet,” calling on both the biblical text and a contemporary poem by Rabbi Jillian Cameron. This poem is an example of Midrash, a Jewish practice of “expanding upon the biblical text” by questioning it, adding to the stories and exploring the emotions of biblical figures. It begins with the line, “I didn’t ask to be born in a cruel time,” which may resonate with many people in relation to the current climate crisis. As the poem progresses, it highlights Jonah’s feelings that if one city is corrupt, then all the others must be too, therefore leaving no purpose in attempting to fix it.
“It was clear that Professor Belser’s discussion of grief and hope resonated very personally with many people who attended, and that encouraged people to share their emotional responses in the [following] discussion,” Madeleine (Mindl) Cohen, academic director at the Yiddish Book Center and visiting lecturer in Jewish studies at the College, said. “It was incredibly moving how open and vulnerable people were.”
Returning to the poem, this desolate resignation or “soulful … numbness” portrays a perception that it’s too late and that all is lost. Belser warns against getting stuck in this mindset. This numb feeling is, per Belser, “[the one] I’m working hardest to transform.” She does not want people to lose sight of what they can do to help.
The use of biblical texts and theological beliefs in collaboration with the ideas of more current activists highlighted the complexity of religious studies. In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, Benjamin said that she “[felt] proud to be part of a field, religious studies, in which diverse resources and methods can be brought to bear on matters of utmost importance.”
Belser also drew upon the writings of Rebecca Solnit — a feminist, climate activist, writer and historian — to highlight the issues that arise due to “climate doom,” or the notion that the world is dying and there is nothing that anyone can do to fix it. Belser believes that this ideology is a privileged one.
“For those on the frontlines of crisis, giving up means surrendering to devastation. For the rest of us, [Solnit] said, giving up often ends up making life easier, at least in the short term,” Belser stated.
Clara Tupitza ’26 felt the combination of ancient and modern texts was captivating. “I most appreciated the interweaving of excerpts from various poems and religious texts. It made the lecture very moving and spiritually uplifting,” Tupitza said.
Another ancient story Belser discussed at length was the story of the city of Sodom. Due to her intersectional lens, she started by acknowledging that as a queer person herself, she knows that this text is often used to condemn homosexuality.
“It’s an awful story. It’s a brutal one. But one thing it’s not is a condemnation of love between men,” Belser stated. “It’s a chilling account of … how privilege can sometimes turn us insular and cool.” To expand on this notion, she explained how in the Talmud, men in Sodom would lend a coin to poor travelers. It was not in good faith, however, as they would mark the coins, not accept them as payment and recollect them when the person had died.
Belser tells this story because Sodom is “the city where so many of us live,” and the story explores how “the residents in one rich city set up a system that keeps themselves safe and secure while other people suffer.”
“Unlike the Sodom story, where we can at least imagine a single person stopping and breaking the brutal pact, climate acceleration doesn’t offer individuals a lot of meaningful ways to throw a wrench in the system,” Belser said.
However, this idea does not mean that everyone is affected by the climate crisis in the same way — it demonstrates precisely the opposite. “The profound disparity of climate impacts the fact that … some of us have wealth and luxury to spare while others face the storm head,” Belser stated. The effects of climate change affect marginalized communities first and the hardest. Black people, Indigenous people and other people of color have, as Besler stated, “disproportionately borne the brunt of toxic pollution, resource extraction and environmental harm.”
As she neared the conclusion of her presentation, Belser focused on the different ways that hope moves people. “Hope can inspire us, propel us to action and give us a sense of strength and resolve, …[but] certain kinds of hope can foster passivity,” Belser said. “We’ve got to be critical of these types of hope.”
Audience members were appreciative of this approach. “[The talk] was a powerful example of … what it looks like to center and learn from the people who are most affected by the climate crisis,” Cohen said.
Benjamin agreed and felt that Belser was able to articulate the nuances of this issue in an honest way. “[Dr. Belser] spoke about difficult and painful topics that many of us think about a lot but often don’t know how to talk about. [She] modeled how to connect to others on intellectually and emotionally difficult terrain,” Benjamin said.
It was not solely the topic that engaged the listeners, but Belser’s passion as well. “The event was incredibly informative, but also moving because of how heartfelt and earnest [Belser] was,” Tupitza said.
Belser ended her lecture by emphasizing how disabled people and other marginalized communities have been both the most affected by the climate crisis, and also the people on the front lines of the climate justice movement. She has been creating a digital archive “to document the wisdom we have for navigating crisis,” filled with the work and ideas of disabled first responders, activists and artists.
“Disabled people, especially queer [and] disabled people of color, are already doing the work to help fight for each others’ lives,” Belser said. “Through grassroots organizations and mutual aid, I want to highlight all the ways people have been showing up for each other.”