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Hazon Book Club, Sukkot, the Farm Bill and the midterms

By on September 21, 2018 in Climate Change, Farm Bill, Holidays, Newsletters, Nigel

Thursday, September 20, 2018 | 11 Tishrei 5779 Dear All, I hope you had a good and strong Yom Kippur. Someone yesterday asked me: how do we take all this intensity and good intentions and vulnerability and desire to change and actually integrate that into our real lives? And my immediate response – which, on reflection, I think was absolutely right – was that’s exactly what Sukkot is for. Because here is this festival – Sukkot – which literally celebrates our new openness. Instead of just walling ourselves off from other people and other issues we open ourselves to our neighbors and the world around us. And now, instead of teshuva done in a necessarily heavy way – noting our failures, apologizing, promising to do better – now we have a sense of our best selves and so we do teshuva from a place of joy and celebration. So – may your best intentions for yourself come to fruition. And if you fail – get back on the horse. And that’s literally the perfect segue to two things. First – the Hazon Book Club. I told you that for the first time ever we were inviting people to read a […]

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$7 per Gallon: The Cost of Not Passing a New Farm Bill

By on January 2, 2013 in Farm Bill

When 2012 was coming to a close, the government was in the process of making series decisions about whether to jump off the fiscal cliff or turn around and climb down.One of the central tenets of this challenge is, of course, food. The 2008 Farm Bill expired at the end of September 2012, and a new one has not yet been set in place, which could cause reversion to a 1949, Farm Bill, which was the last time long-term legislation was passed. The cost of not extending parts of the 2008 Farm Bill or passing a new one for 2013, is that milk was said to sky rocket to approximately $7 per gallon from the average $3.65 per gallon it costs now. In 2012, the Democrat-controlled Senate drafted a version of a new Farm Bill for 2013, which the Republican-controlled House rejected followed by a failure to come up with their own version. With time running out and the threat of sky-rocketing dairy prices, Senate voted on January 1 to extend parts of the 2008 farm bill through September 2013, to keep the cost of dairy down. Parts of the Farm Bill regarding organic and sustainable agriculture, were left of […]

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Congress Back at Work… But Not on the Farm Bill

By on September 11, 2012 in Farm Bill

Just to recap: Congress left DC in July with a Farm Bill mess: 5-year Farm Bill legislation was moved aside in the House for a Disaster Relief Bill, which was turned into discussion about a one-year  short term bill while the Senate was holding on to the version of the Farm Bill they passed in June. Ultimately, the session closed and the two houses couldn’t agree on what type of bill to pass, let alone what the details of the bill would be. (more…)

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10 Years Ago in Postville, Iowa / Shabbat Hazon

By on July 14, 2010 in Cross-USA Ride, Nigel, Reflections, Rides

14th July 2010 Dear All, Hazon is ten years old this year. We’re working hard in multiple ways to bring forth our vision – a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community, and a healthier and more sustainable world for all. We’re proud that our 45 Hazon CSAs (Community-Supported Agriculture programs) are now the largest faith-based system of CSAs in the country. This fall, as well as our 10th NY Ride and our 10th Israel Ride, we’re launching a new CSA Conference (at Isabella Freedman) and a Food Leadership Forum (at Walker Creek, in CA). We’re developing Makom Hadash, our shared-space for second-stage Jewish non-profits. We’re planning our second CA Ride – and a second Israel Food Tour, with the Heschel Center. Meantime, New York’s DOT is planning the protected bike lane in the Upper West Side that we organized for. The Alliance for Religions & Conservation is working on a Sacred Cities initiative that grew out of our Jewish delegation last year. And we’re proud of the extraordinary success of Wilderness Torah and Jewish Farm School, the two organizations that we’re fiscal sponsor to. JFS has established a new home at Eden Village Camp, one of the most remarkable new […]

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