What we call “Jewish Food Education” is an important part of any Jewish education experience.
Topic: Education
First Annual Shmittah Summit
Join grassroots activists and top leaders for two days of compelling Jewish learning, community organizing, action and advocacy.
Global Day of Jewish Learning at the JCC East Bay
Sunday, November 13, 2011, 10 AM – 2 PM JCC East Bay, Berkeley Branch 1414 Walnut St., Berkeley, CA Come celebrate the Global Day of Jewish Learning at the JCC East Bay (1414 Walnut St.), on Sunday, Nov. 13, from 10 am-2 pm! The day will begin with two exciting sessions of classes, taught by the very best educators from our co-sponsors in the East Bay Jewish community. Then, a closing panel will explore new and fast-growing initiatives in the Jewish environmental movement, featuring representatives of Hazon, Urban Adamah, and Wilderness Torah. The event is FREE, and delicious refreshments will be served! Questions can be directed to Noah Zaves at noahz@jcceastbay.org or 510-848-0237 x138. (more…)
Greening Seminar: Bringing Fresh and Local Food to Your Community
For professionals or lay leaders who are involved in agency or synagogue gardening, CSAs or greenmarkets or who would like to begin programs of this nature. Also relevant for food service providers or nutritionists who buy or provide food for their agencies. Your organization or synagogue can begin to prepare for next summer NOW. Come learn from experts about how to create a number of different kinds of food programs that address climate change, build community and local economy, and help people eat more healthfully. Specifically you’ll hear about community-supported agriculture programs (CSAs), farmer’s markets, and gardening that provide opportunities for education, growing food, and engagement of people of all ages. And, as always, you’ll meet in small groups to learn more from the presenters and each other. (more…)
Grants Available for Portland Jewish Food and Sustainability Projects!
Portland Tuv Ha’Aretz and Hazon are pleased to announce an exciting grant opportunity for the Portland community!
This Book Might Change Your Life
By Judith Belasco, Director of Food Programs, Hazon My first Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) pick up of fresh, local, organic veggies is a few days away. In mid-winter, I plunked down $550, signed up for my volunteer slots, and felt good that I was voting with my fork for a healthier, more sustainable food system. During the 2011 growing season, I’m joined by a network of 56 Hazon CSAs and thousands more CSAs in communities across the country. While I am excited for the East Coast season to begin, I’m aware of the many people who are unable to access CSA shares and those who are unable to access healthy food at all. Our food system is broken. Joining a CSA is a great first step, and there is more we can do in order to fix it. Enter Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable Food System for All, a practical guide to changing not only what we eat, but how our food is grown, packaged, delivered, marketed and sold. Author and founder of the Fair Food Network, Oran B. Hesterman, shows how our food system’s dysfunctions are the unintended consequences of our emphasis on efficiency, centralization, higher yields, profit, […]
Kayam Leader’s Kollel 2011
Kayam Farm’s Leaders Kollel aims to provide an in-depth learning experience of Jewish agriculture, sustainability, and pluralistic Jewish community. We ask that participants bring their full and honest selves to the program, including your passions and expertise as well as your challenges and imperfections. We hope this experience will strengthen your knowledge, understanding, and commitment to Jewish tradition as it relates to sustainability. Upon leaving the Leaders Kollel, we ask you to take on a new/continued leadership responsibility to empower your Jewish community to live in greater balance with all of G!d’s Creation. DATES: July 12, 2011 – July 24, 2011. TUITION: Tuition covers room & board, program supplies, and staff time. Before June 1, 2011: $800 Before July 1, 2011: $900 After July 1, 2011: $1,000 APPLICATION AND INTERVIEW: The 2011 Kayam Farm Leaders Kollel is limited to 20 participants. Please review the below materials and send in your application as soon as possible. We look forward to speaking with you! Please be in touch with any questions, and hopefully we’ll see you this summer! Jessy Gross, Kayam Leaders Kollel Director jessygross@gmail.com Jakir Manela, Founding Director, Kayam Farm jakir@pearlstonecenter.com Learn more about the 2011 Karam Farm Leaders Kollel [PDF]
The 17th Annual Teva Seminar
Engage with experiential Jewish education at its source! May 31 – June 3, 2011 The Teva Seminar is an innovative professional development opportunity for Jewish educators, environmentalists, camp staff, farmers, rabbis, lay leaders and students. Engage in a three thousand year old dialogue about the connection between God, earth, and humanity within a dynamic learning community. Gain the skills you need to bring inspiration and vibrancy to your camp, synagogue, school, youth group and college campus. More Information and Registration for the Teva Seminar
Great Strides in Greening Israel
David Krantz is President and Chairperson of the Green Zionist Alliance September 21, 2010 On Sukkot, we are all immigrants, dwelling in temporary lodging in the desert on our way to the Promised Land. We leave the safety of our homes and go to dwell outside, to connect with God and begin our spiritual journey to Israel. For most of us, this experience lasts only for a week. But for the thousands who make aliyah annually to the modern State of Israel, the immigration experience is year round. Instead of temporary sukkot, they live in absorption centers where they learn how to be Israeli. They’re taught to care about the land of Israel. And soon, thanks to the work of the Green Zionist Alliance (GZA), they will be taught that caring about the land means caring for the land. That’s because the GZA this June passed legislation in Israel that will lead to all absorption centers in Israel developing community gardens for new immigrants to use and connect to the land. Environmental education will be incorporated into the immigrant experience at all absorption centers in Israel. That’s from one piece of GZA legislation. And that’s just the beginning. With […]
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 […]
Judaism and the Environment 101
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?” – Rabbi Hillel, Mishneh Avot, first century CE Like all peoples and faith communities, the Jewish people has had an evolving relationship with the physical world. Because we have traveled through time and place for more than thirty centuries, ours is a rich and diverse tradition. Right now we’re at an interesting moment in history. There is, on the one hand, a growing awareness of the need to manage our planet’s resources more carefully, and an intuition that as well as acting as individuals and as citizens, we also have the resources of Judaism and the Jewish people to draw upon. On the other hand, our postmodern perspective is a different one than a biblical one, and in its contemporary form, the conversation between Judaism and environmentalism is young – all sorts of issues, open questions and problems abound. (more…)
Jews in the Woods
In the summer of 1998, I led a group of Jewish teenagers on a two week hiking trip in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. This is the story of how awful it was – the miserable weather, the arguments, the religious problems, the midpoint mutiny – and why, nevertheless, I think we should all get out in the woods a lot more often… This is the group: nine Jewish teenagers: seven girls and only two boys. Religiously most are observant, but not all: of those who are there is some difference between the strictly halachic and the conservadox. At the other end of the spectrum is a girl who attends a Conservative dayschool but has a Turkish Moslem father and and is proud of her Turkish heritage. Most are from the Boston area, but one is from the Midwest. The strongest character is a sixteen year old girl; the youngest, a thirteen year old boy who is big for his age and who seems to be present in consequence of familial “encouragement” – his cousin really wants the trip to happen and says that without him there’ll be too few people. (more…)
