Rabbi Ed Rosenthal, who served Beth Shalom in Auckland from 1987-91 and is currently the Executive Director/Campus Rabbi of Hillels of the Florida Suncoast, has created a meaningful program for Tashlich and is encouraging UPJ congregations to participate. Currently there are 59 teams registered from the US, Israel, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Sweden and Palau. To learn more and register, CLICK HERE, and click on "Read More" to hear how this program developed.

Rabbi Rosenthal explains how the program developed: "Five years ago when I was discussing Tashlich with some students at Eckerd College who were part of our Jewish Scuba Club (Scubi Jew), I explained how during Tashlich we symbolically cast our sins into the water to begin the New Year with purity of heart and a clean slate. When I finished, one of the students asked: 'Rabbi, there’s already more than enough human “sin” in the water. Why don’t we reverse the process and take some of it out?' This led to the creation of our Reverse Tashlich, and the students organiaed a beach cleanup on campus. What began five years ago with just a few students at Eckerd College has now turned into an international event. With two months remaining before the program, we already have 59 teams registered from the US, Israel, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Sweden & Palau and we expect teams in Argentina, Canada and England to sign up next week. In total, we’re anticipating over 1,000 participants removing debris from waterfront locations in their local communities." Rabbi Rosenthal added: "What I would love is to have the UPJ seriously represented. It’s an incredibly easy program to organise and is very meaningful, as participants actually see for themselves the tremendous amount of plastic and debris that is washing into the ocean and their local waterways."