On a recent, beautiful Sunday afternoon, an interfaith gathering of gardeners and Community Supported Agriculture volunteers gathered to meet one another and share the successes and challenges they face. Congressman Jared Polis was on hand to hear the stories from members of Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, Buddhist and Unitarian congregations, as well as graduate students studying faith communities and food sustainability. Hazon is a founding member of the Interfaith Coalition for Food Sustainability, which hosted the event. Read more about the gathering in the Boulder Daily Camera. The Interfaith Coalition for Food Sustainability enjoys a delicious potluck with ingredients from congregation gardens.
Tag Archives | CSA
Hazon Friends in the 2011 Best of Kosher Awards
We’re proud to note two friends of Hazon are among this years nominees!
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
By Michael Pollan – Penguin Press, 2006 Reviewed by Natan Margalit From Tikkun Magazine, August 2006 Ben Zoma used to say, “What labors Adam had to carry out before he obtained bread to eat! He ploughed, he sowed, he reaped, he bound the sheaves, he threshed and winnowed and selected the grains, he ground and sifted the flour, he kneaded and baked and then at last he ate. Whereas I get up in the morning and find all these things done for me.” –Babylonian Talmud, Brakhot 58b Claude Levi-Strauss once said that food is not only good to eat, but also good to think. Our meals are statements that help us to understand ourselves and our world. Of course, the Bible makes this connection between food and thought with Adam and Eve’s fateful meal from the Tree of Knowledge. In today’s world of complex, industrial food chains, however, that connection is broken. Food seems to come from the supermarket, manufactured and packaged. Ignorance, not knowledge, characterizes modern eating. Even more disturbing is the fact that food categories that we might imagine are more transparent, more ethical, such as organic food – and kosher food — are increasingly involved in this […]
Hazon Food Programs: What’s Happening?
“Does every Jewish institution need a farmer?” The question struck me a few weeks ago when I was at the Long Island Hazon Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) site for a “Meet the Farmer” night. Rabbis, cantors, and educators are usually seen as necessary staff in a Jewish organization; and in this room full of CSA members, some new and some returning, it seemed that a farmer should be considered essential as well. For the Forest Hills Jewish Center in Queens and the Reconstructionist Synagogue of the North Shore in Long Island, Maggie, from Golden Earthworm Farm, is their farmer. Maggie spoke about the time, attention, and thought that went into building each member’s box of vegetables each week. In addition, she felt privileged that through the support of these institutions, she was able to live her life as a farmer. Since 2004, when Hazon launched the first CSA site in the Jewish community, Hazon has been on the forefront of the new Jewish Food Movement. In 2008, when 560 farmers, rabbis, educators, students, chefs, and foodies attended the Food Conference, Hazon became the home of this movement. The Food Conference, like all of Hazon’s Food Programs, examines food through the […]
The True Cost of Food
Barbara Lerman-Golomb, Director of Education and Outreach, Hazon From PresenTense Magazine – February 2009 Last winter I was at a retreat hosted by a Jewish organization when on the buffet table I spotted something white. It was watermelon, in February in Upstate New York, which was literally unnatural and tasteless. I thought about our unsustainable demand for food and all the energy it took to get that watermelon from farm to fork and wondered, what is the true cost of our food? Like all our lifestyle choices, our food choices increase our carbon footprint and therefore affect our health and the health and sustainability of our planet. According to the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, around eighty percent of the energy used in the US food system can be attributed to processing, packaging, transporting, storing, and preparing food. In fact, after transportation, the food sector uses more fossil fuels than any other sector of our economy. (more…)
