Topic: Adamah

Hazon Farm Bill Campaign: for Justice and Climate Resilience

By Hazon on July 26, 2022 in Adamah, Education, Farm Bill, Farming, Food, Food Justice, JOFEE

The once-every-five-years Farm Bill authorization process is in full swing! This presents an historic opportunity to lower the nearly one third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions spewed by the food system and reshape food production and distribution toward justice and equity. Join a robust, intersectional movement from a Jewish perspective! There has never been a better time for working together on behalf of our food future. A Just and Climate-Friendly 2023 Farm Bill Could Help the Food System… bring its emissions to net-zero by 2040 adapt to a changing climate prioritize racial justice reduce food waste incentivize land, soil, and water conservation increase equitable access to healthy, fresh food uplift community-led land use and food sovereignty Seven Ways to Take Action with Hazon’s Farm Bill Campaign Building on centuries of Jewish wisdom, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Z”L said that “The opposite of good is not evil; the opposite of good is indifference. In a free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” Terrible, fixable wrongs exist in the food system. Thirty-five million people in the U.S. confronted hunger in 2019 while 30-40% of food produced was wasted, accounting […]

Food and Farm Advocacy: Recommended Reading

By Hazon on March 11, 2021 in Activism, Adamah, Climate Change, Food Justice

The Jewish practice of determining what is “fit to eat” (a literal translation of “kosher”) is complex in this age of global food systems. It is not simply upon us to find the purest ingredients for our tables at any financial cost to ourselves, but rather to weigh in on the systems that determine what food is available and what the consequences of its production will be. Integral to influencing whether we have ethical, healthy, climate-smart options on the table is a deeper understanding of how the policies work. Check out the articles below to gain some of that insight. Where to Start in Taking Action A Matter of Degrees Podcast: What Can I Do? How to Find Joy in Climate Action Food and Farm Policy Background: How 2 Save a Planet Podcast: Soil: The Dirty Climate Solution How 2 Save a Planet Podcast: The Beef with Beef How 2 Save a Planet Podcast: Is Your Carbon Footprint B.S.? World Resources Institute: Creating a Sustainable Food Future Here’s how America uses its land What is the Farm Bill? Staying Up to Date on Food and Farm Policy Happenings: October 2022 On big federal legislation: What the Historic Climate Bill Means […]

Food, then and now

By Hazon on August 6, 2020 in Adamah, Climate Change, Detroit, Elul, Farming, Food, Food Justice, Nigel, Tzedek/Justice

Thursday, August 6, 2020 | 16 Av 5780 Dear All, This week’s sidra, Eikev, is the week that introduced into English (via the King James version) “man does not live by bread alone” and “a land flowing with milk and honey.” It’s the week that lists the seven species – shivat haminim – that are indigenous to the land of Israel, which Bill Slott points out to me every few years as we ride from Jerusalem to Ashkelon on the first day of the Arava Institute Hazon Israel Ride. And it includes the second paragraph of the shm’a, linking our behavior to the climate of the world. Food is a recurring motif. Perhaps that was why Ruby Rivlin, President of Israel, chose this week to spend the day helping Leket pack food for people in need. As Joe Gitler subsequently wrote, President Rivlin wasn’t just doing a photo-op. He’s seriously engaged by the topic and thinking hard – and striving to put the weight of his office – behind new ways to help get food to people who are food insecure. But you don’t have to be President of Israel to make a difference. “Pivot” and “swivel” are words-of-this-year, and they encapsulate […]

Isabella Freedman: an update, and an invitation

By Nigel Savage on June 23, 2020 in Adamah, Farming, Food, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Newsletters, Nigel, Reflections

Thursday, June 23, 2020 | Rosh Chodesh Tammuz 5780 Dear All, I want to explain how and why Freedman has been closed, and also to invite you to join us for an “Isabella Freedman Getaway” – a 5- or 12-night stay at Isabella Freedman. An amazing opportunity to escape from the city – or wherever you are – and hang out in a beautiful place, with kosher food, space for kids, and great hikes, trails and trips nearby. And I’m delighted, separately, to share with you the launch of a Virtual Camp Isabella Freedman for adults ages 55+, for the week of July 6th – 10th; and to remind you that registration for our first ever cohort of Adamah At Home is now open. We hope and intend that each and all of these will be very special experiences. To learn more about each, click here for Getaways, here for Adamah At Home, and here for Virtual Camp Isabella Freedman. To explain how these three programs arose, I want to give an update on Isabella Freedman in the last four months. On February 25th, we set up a coronavirus task force. On March 3rd, I left Freedman after a superb and impactful Kenissa retreat led by Rabbi Sid Schwarz. And on […]

The launch of Adamah At Home, and thoughts about M4BL

By Nigel Savage on June 18, 2020 in Activism, Adamah, Farming, Food, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Newsletters, Nigel, Reflections

Thursday, June 18, 2020 | 26 Sivan 5780 Dear All, Isabella Freedman is closed as a retreat center, but the state of CT has reduced the minimum period for bookings, which now enables us – next week – to launch Isabella Freedman Getaways. If you’re interested in coming up and spending 5 or 12 days at Isabella Freedman – with three meals a day of (local, ethical) kosher food, in beautiful surroundings – look out for our email next week. We similarly had to take the very difficult decision to suspend the Adamah Fellowship for this summer – the first time since the program began, in 2003, when that has been so. But – but! – we’re now happy and excited to launch a new program: Adamah At Home. The program runs from July 6th to July 26th, and you can send in applications on a rolling basis from now through July 1st. It’s an exceptionally strong program encompassing practical skills, daily conversation and what we hope and intend will be a strong group. We’ll cover Jews ecological learning, garden mentorship, food systems and policy; also food choices, cheesemaking and regenerative farming. And we’ll also talk about structural racism in this country – […]

Visions for Our New Land

By Nigel Savage on April 4, 2019 in Adamah, Climate Change, Farming, Newsletters, Reflections, Shmita

Thursday, April 4, 2019 | 28th Adar II, 5779 Dear All, I had asked Janna, Rebecca, and Shamu – leaders of our Adamah program – to write something for all of us, about the new land we have been able to buy at 181 Beebe Hill Road, contiguous with our existing Adamah land at Isabella Freedman. They’ve written an extraordinarily beautiful piece, and I hope you enjoy it and are inspired by it as much as I am. In the Jewish tradition of fractal sevens, between the seven days of Shabbat and the seven years of shmita, we have sefirat ha’omer, seven weeks of seven, starting the second night of Pesach. Seder night – just two weeks from now – is our gateway to this journey. I hope that what they have written offers wisdom for all of us. Shabbat shalom, chodesh tov, Nigel “Our design at 181 deepens the resilience of our farm while nurturing the land and a community. And maybe it will offer inspiration to you ahead of Pesach…” As we walked on the new land across crusty snow this January, we were tempted to shout out and point: Put fences here! Plant trees there! Fix that […]

Big News: Extending the Adamah Farm & Increasing Capacity at Isabella Freedman

By Nigel Savage on December 14, 2018 in Adamah, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Newsletters, Nigel

By Nigel Savage Thursday, December 13, 2018 | 5 Tevet 5779 Dear All, With strong active staff and lay involvement, and support from Project Accelerate, Hazon’s board earlier this year signed off on a new master plan for Isabella Freedman. Isabella Freedman is a place that touches people’s lives individually and strengthens and thickens Jewish institutions. Through Adamah, Teva, the Hazon Food Conference, and our other national retreats it has had a profound impact across the American Jewish community. As Jessica Haller, one of our senior board members, says, “there are some places that do some of the things that this place does, but there are no other places that do all of the things that this place does.” So the master plan is critical not only to Isabella Freedman and Hazon but also, in fact, to the future of the American Jewish community. Isabella Freedman is a place where magic happens – but we need to increase capacity; we need to improve the quality and range of our accommodation and meeting space; and we also need more land to be able to grow our flagship Adamah program, and to enable us to use the land itself more lightly and more carefully. Happily, we believe that […]

Why Do We Wander? | D’varim HaMakom: The JOFEE Fellows Blog

By Hazon on July 13, 2018 in Adamah, Animals, Education, Holidays, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Jewish Intentional Communities, Jewish Texts, JOFEE, JOFEE Fellowship, Reflections, Resources, Shavuot, Spirituality, Weekly Parsha

by Eliezer Weinbach, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Hazon Parshat Maasei Earlier this year, Isabella Freedman hosted a Moishe House retreat called “Wandering Jews.” Led by New York Times contributor Eli Reiter, twelve people in their twenties and thirties got together to discuss their experiences and wisdom regarding travel as a Jewish person. They discussed things like kashruth and shabbat observance while abroad. The question is: Why bother? When the Torah lists all the stages of the journey through the desert, as per the text from Numbers above, it really does discuss each part. All forty-two stages, in fact! The question is: Why bother? God commands that when the Jews do finally enter the land, they are to travel three times a year to Jerusalem. Wasn’t the journey to the land long enough?! Why bother?! Travel is hard. Sitting at home is easy. Hiking is hard. Watching Netflix is easy. Adventures change you. Inaction keeps you the same. Wandering is change. On a very basic level, you are moving from one place to another. But it’s so much more than that. I could quote Emerson on “roads less traveled” or Kerouac on basically anything, or any of the myriad formulations regarding […]

Korach: Disruptive Visionary or Disgruntled Rabble-Rouser? | D’varim HaMakom: The JOFEE Fellows Blog

By Hazon on June 14, 2018 in Adamah, Animals, Education, Food, Food Justice, Holidays, Israel, Jewish Texts, JOFEE, JOFEE Fellowship, Resources, Shavuot, Shmita, Spirituality, Tzedek/Justice, Weekly Parsha

by Eliezer Weinbach, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Hazon Parshat Korach וַיֵּרְדוּ הֵם וְכָל-אֲשֶׁר לָהֶם, חַיִּים–שְׁאֹלָה And they and all their belongings went down, alive, into Sheol Numbers 16:33 I was traveling once, and my tour guide, a wizened Arab, asked me if I wanted to see the pit that swallowed Korach’s followers. Intrigued, I followed my guide through the desert. After some time, through a haze of heat and mirage, we saw smoke billowing from a fissure in the ground. My guide doused a towel with some of his water, and tied it to the tip of his staff. He cautiously approached the fissure, and held his staff over the smoking vent. To my surprise, the wet cloth began to burn. As he was walking back to me, I could hear voices carried on the warm desert wind. Faint voices, singing, or perhaps chanting. Softly enough that I wasn’t sure if I was hearing anything at all. “What are those voices?” I asked my guide. “Those are the children of Korach,” he replied. “They are slowly lowered into the hellish heat of the Earth and then raised back out, rotated like a roast on a spit. When they finish […]

Wrestling With Darkness | D’varim HaMakom: The JOFEE Fellows Blog

By Hazon on December 7, 2017 in Adamah, Education, Farming, Holidays, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Jewish Texts, JOFEE, JOFEE Fellowship, Resources, Spirituality, Weekly Parsha

by Jacob Weiss, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Hazon Parashat Vayishlach This week’s Torah portion — Vayishlach — is jam packed with complex and significant plot lines that the reader can surely glean valuable lessons from. The parsha opens up with Jacob preparing himself and his family for their eventual encounter with his twin brother Esau, who he has not seen in quite a long while. We then read about Shimon and Levi’s attacking of the city of Shechem, followed by Rachel’s passing away, while giving birth to her youngest son Binyamin. I want to further examine the relationship of Jacob and Esau — and how that presents in this week’s parsha — as well as exploring Jacob’s nighttime meeting with the angel. In the first chapter of Vayishlach, Jacob says to God: “Now deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him, lest he come and strike me, and strike a mother and children.” We see here very clearly just how anxious Jacob is in anticipation of encountering his twin brother. Jacob and Esau are the perfect twin foils for one another. Since the time that Jacob came out of Rebecca’s womb clutching onto […]

Calling the Congregation | D’varim HaMakom: The JOFEE Fellows Blog

By Hazon on June 20, 2017 in Adamah, Animals, Counting the Omer, Education, Events, Farming, Food, Holidays, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Jewish Texts, JOFEE, JOFEE Fellowship, Resources, Shavuot, Spirituality, Weekly Parsha

by Jacob Weiss, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Hazon Parashat Beha’alotcha “Make thee two trumpets of silver; of beaten work shalt thou make them; and they shall be unto thee for the calling of the congregation… And when they shall blow with them, all the congregation shall gather themselves unto thee at the door of the tent of meeting.” Bamidbar perek yud, pasuk bet (Numbers 10:2) I recently recalled to a friend— just after our festival of Shavuot — that I had now been in attendance at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center for all three of the Shalosh Regalim, which are the three main pilgrimage festivals. Shavuot, Passover, and Sukkot all took on very different energies at Isabella Freedman. There remained a constant, though: the spirit, joy, and sheer heart that was poured into those festivals by everyone who attended, and by everyone who worked so tirelessly to make those retreat and community gatherings manifest. An incredible sense of community occurs during Jewish holiday retreats at Isabella Freedman, where I am currently a JOFEE Fellow. After spending the seven weeks of the Omer preparing ourselves, the Jewish people traditionally celebrate the festival of Shavuot to commemorate the receiving of the […]

In the Sukkah We Trust | D’varim HaMakom: The JOFEE Fellows Blog

By Hazon on October 28, 2016 in Adamah, Animals, Climate Change, Events, Farming, Food, Food Justice, Holidays, Jewish Texts, JOFEE, Opportunities, Spirituality, Sukkot, Teens, Tzedek/Justice, Weekly Parsha

by Rachel Binstock, Urban Adamah, Berkeley, CA Parashat Breishit + Sukkot Editor’s Note: Welcome to D’varim HaMakom: The JOFEE Fellows Blog! Most weeks throughout the year, you’ll be hearing from the JOFEE Fellows: reflections on their experiences, successful programs they’ve planned and implemented, gleanings from the field, and connections to the weekly Torah portion and what they’ve learned from their experiences with place in their host communities for the year. Views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily represent Hazon. Be sure to check back weekly! P.S. Interested in being or hosting a JOFEE Fellow? Applications for cohort two are now open for both prospective fellows and prospective host institutions! Priority Deadline is October 31! Of all the Jewish holidays, I learn most about trust on Sukkot. Why? you might ask. After the New Year and the Day of Atonement, is not Sukkot the holiday of celebration and happiness? Sukkot is about trust for a few reasons. We build ourselves sukkahs – impermanent booths in which we are commanded to dwell – and in so doing we find ourselves up-rooted. We create a new home susceptible to the elements and porous to the sky. The holiday necessitates a release of control, a faith […]

Listen and Gather: Jewish Rain Makers | D’varim HaMakom: The JOFEE Fellows Blog

By Hazon on October 13, 2016 in Adamah, Climate Change, Education, Farming, Food, Food Conference, Food Justice, Holidays, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Jewish Texts, JOFEE, JOFEE Fellowship, Spirituality, Sukkot, Tzedek/Justice, Weekly Parsha

by Jessica Berlin, Hazon: Transformative Experiences, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center – Falls Village, CT Sukkot and Parashat Ha’azinu Editor’s Note: Welcome to D’varim HaMakom: The JOFEE Fellows Blog! Most weeks throughout the year, you’ll be hearing from the JOFEE Fellows: reflections on their experiences, successful programs they’ve planned and implemented, gleanings from the field, and connections to the weekly Torah portion and what they’ve learned from their experiences with place in their host communities for the year. Views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily represent Hazon. Be sure to check back weekly! P.S. Interested in being or hosting a JOFEE Fellow? Applications for cohort two are now open for both prospective fellows and prospective host institutions! On a hot summer day in late August, I led a group of young adults on a tour of the Adamah farm on BeeBee Hill at Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. The inscription above the gateway, “And God saw that it was good,” reminds us of a classic JOFEE interpretation of the Genesis creation story: that the interdependent relationships found in nature are fundamentally good; and that by emulating these relationships, humans can learn to create more sustainable relationships with one another and the land. […]

Feeling The Gratitude Of Our Bounty And The Pride In Our Colleagues

By Hazon on August 2, 2016 in Adamah, Food, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center

by Mordechai Schram, Director of Food Services It seems like just yesterday that we celebrated Shavuot/Yom Habikurim with a celebration of First Fruits – reveling in the tingling fresh taste of our delicious Shavuot Schav Shooters – Schav, is a delicious Sorrell and Potato Soup served hot or cold and made with Sorrell from Adamah Farms. Now that we are in early August, our fruits and veggies are in full abundance, and they have begun making their way to our kitchen in their full glory. So many colors, flavors and textures from the Collards, Kale, Cucumbers, Salad Turnips, Salad Greens, Romaine, Oregano and Basil. Today we held our second annual Farm & Table Team Farm Tour (say that 5 times fast). We toured the farm together and learned how the farmers grow such bounty without the use of chemicals- through the use of crop rotation, the creation of habitat for beneficial insects that help control pests, the mile high compost piles of food waste decomposing into rich fertilizer, drip irrigation technology (developed is Israel) and more. A fine and fun day was had by all. Now is a glorious time to be here at the farm, so we look forward to […]

Adamah Farm and Table: Journey to Red Barn Produce

By Hazon on February 19, 2016 in Adamah, Farming, Food, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center

by Mordechai Schram, Director of Adamah Food Services Yesterday, the Adamah Farm and Table team took to the road to visit Kevin Terr, owner of our produce supplier Red Barn Produce in Highland, NY. It was an amazing trip where we learned about all the ways that Red Barn supports local farms and sustainable farming practices. Red Barn, a family owned business in operation for over 20 years, had identified the need for a local and specialty fruit and vegetable distributor here in the Hudson Valley. They work with more than 30 local farms to bring the best of what the bountiful Hudson Valley has to offer in seasonal and sustainable fruits and vegetables. In addition to fresh produce, they also distribute local farm-fresh dairy items, grains, and artisanal foods. They support equal exchange practices for produce grown outside of the US, utilize controlled atmosphere technology for apple preservation, and contract with local farms to do freezing and canning thereby extending our access to local fruits and veggies throughout the winter. They are true and valued partners with us here at Hazon/Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center helping us to create a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community and a healthier […]

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