This past July at Sadeh, we organised our first summer camp. Rooted in Jewish values Sadeh cultivates community, grows food, and sows the seeds of change. Sadeh, which means field, is the first UK Jewish farm and environmental community of our generation. Our summer camp was a week long day camp for children ages 5 – 10 and we had a great mix of children from our Jewish community and our local community. This was one of the first events both specifically for children and to encourage local people to come to our site. It was a massive success and we are already planning next year’s event! Three practical tips we learnt from this event that I want to share: – We definitely needed all 4 staff for 15 – 20 children. – Don’t be afraid of doing morning Jewish songs with non – Jewish participants. Everyone loved it! – We planned every second of the week but a lot of the time at least some of the children just wanted to play on the obstacle course or colour in by themselves which we let them do. Free play is so amazing and otherwise they might as well be in […]
Topic: Jewish Intentional Communities
Hakhel Spotlight: Shana Tova from Hakhel!
Dear friends, Shana tova, Happy New Year! Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot are upon us again. It is the month of the year the Jews all over the world most look to their communities for meaning, connection and personal acceptance. Much has been written about the Jewish Holidays being like an ascending spiral: although the Holidays repeat year after year, those celebrating them ascend rather than return around the circle as they find deeper and more personal connections to the festivals each time they come by. The same can be said of many of the communities which have grown through Hakhel – as the only Jewish Intentional Communities incubator. We map out growth of communities which may run the same programming year after year- communal prayers, Rosh Hashanah dinner, a picnic at sukkot, but it is a great honour to see that through those activities, communities deeper their internal connections to each other, find more meaning in their interpersonal relationships, and give of just a bit more of themselves into the collective spirit with every year that goes by. Benedict Allen, the jungle explorer famed for crossing the Amazon basin by foot, describes his philosophy saying, “exploration isn’t about […]
Hakhel Spotlight: Frum Farm, Colorado
Experience a real Old West wilderness adventure for Sukkot, in the beautiful Rocky Mountains! Rustic but comfortable accommodations, delicious Glatt kosher food, stunning views and fun activities, on a Colorado family homestead! Come relax and re”jew”vinate in a more simple way of life. Bring your family, or perhaps find your shidduch! For complete details, email us at shaare_shamaim@yahoo.com. Facebook page Frum Farm is a Hakhel community. Learn more about Hakhel – the first-of-its-kind Jewish Intentional Communities Incubator
Hakhel Spotlight: Living Tree Alliance, Vermont
It’s August in Vermont’s Mad River Valley. Youth scatter themselves across the covered bridge of Waitsfield and fly into the river below. A family floats by in their tube and a band plays by the river’s edge. Our fields are growing high with corn, squash, and beans. The edges of the meadow and the perennial beds sprout color as they ripen with blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and thimbleberries. We gather on the porch of the Oshkello’s net-zero house to plan for our regional Sukkot festival while the owls come out at dusk. On the table, there is basil to be made into pesto and broccoli to be frozen for the winter. The sheep and chickens raise their voice in blessing for this beautiful summer day. We recite the Shehecheyanu prayer as we eat the first cucumbers of the season. Welcome to life at Living Tree Alliance! Our land consists of 93 acres of farmland, meadows, forest, trails, a working maple sugarbush, and private swimming beaches along the Mad River. The property adjoins the running and skiing trails of the local high school which includes an amazing forest frisbee golf course. We steward this land with a vision of community and hope […]
Urban Kibbutz – San Francisco
By Sara Linden, Hakhel Fellow of Urban Kibbutz-San Francisco and Associate Director of Admissions at Jewish Community High School of the Bay June 26, 2018 DIY Kibbutz – Diaspora edition Is this what if felt like to emigrate to Israel in the 1940s? Ready to build community with like-minded strangers who speak different languages, arriving at a new destination, and probably a little discombobulated from a well-worn journey (trains, planes, automobile style). Fast forward, June 2018, we are a pluralistic bunch of Jewish community inspired zealots arriving from 10 different countries to our weekend sanctuary, Camp Pearlstone Retreat Center, for Hazon’s 5th Annual Jewish Intentional Community Conference all doing our best to communicate in one language “Hebr-ish” (English with a side of Hebrew-based fervor). About 150 participants in total are here. Of the group, half of us are representing two new cohorts: The Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs in partnership with Hazon is sponsoring the Hakel JIC (Jewish Intentional Communities Incubator) program, an initiative convening leaders from newly forming intentional communities across the Diaspora, and Makom is the umbrella organization connecting the leaders of the Kibbutz 2.0 Movement, known as mission-driven intentional communities in Israel. Since I’m in the Hakhel […]
Why Do We Wander? | D’varim HaMakom: The JOFEE Fellows Blog
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 […]
Sustaining Together: How and why communities are the building blocks of sustainable living
By Aharon Ariel Lavi Somewhere in the early 90’s, when I was in 5th grade, I remember watching a TV show describing what might be the consequences of what was then known as Global Warming and the Ozone Layer Hole. Don’t test me on the details, it was a long time ago, but I do remember the sense of upcoming catastrophe that completely freaked me out and sent me to bed lying ill for three days. On the fourth day, I decided I had to do something about it, so I ran for my school’s “pupils council” and became chair, joined a youth movement, and ended up working mostly on developing intentional communities in Israel. What’s the connection? Well, I ask myself the same question from time to time, wondering if communities are really what we need as the climate system is going off track. True, the dark forecasts of 25 years ago did not come to pass – at least not yet – but experiencing our 5th year of drought in a row here in the Negev (Israel’s Southern desert) does sound like an alarm call to me. Something is changing: we are about to reach 8 billion people […]
Jewish Intentional Communities Tour of Israel: Day Seven (March 20, 2016)
Shir Yaakov Feit, Spiritual leader, Kol Hai: Hudson Valley Jewish Renewal in New Paltz, New Yor The Hakhel Tour opened my eyes, heart and mind to an Israel I’d never seen before. We heard an empowered and hopeful narrative about healing society by weaving community. The territory comes with it’s own language. Below are some new additions to my vocabulary. קְבוּצָה Kvutzah – group, collective גַּרְעִין Garin – seed, nucleus, core group of people הַמִּשְׁפָּחָה הַמֻּרְחֶבֶת Mishpacha Morkhevet – extended family שִׂיחָה Sicha – conversation תַּהֲלִיךְ Tahalik – process הַגְשָׁמָה Hagshamah – actualization, realization, manifestation or fulfillment; bringing the dream to life מְשִׂימָה Mesimah – mission, task, assignment (as opposed to jobs) חֲמָמָה Hamamah – incubator, greenhouse קְהִלָּתָנוּת Kehillatanut – communitarianism, focusing on community and society, prioriting group goals over individual goals תְּנוּעָה T’nua – movement, often youth movement, often centralized עֲמֻתָּה Amutah – non-profit organization, association
Jewish Intentional Communities Tour of Israel: Day Six (March 19, 2016)
by Eliahu Ebrahimi currently living in Tzfat and developing a vision for an eco-village in California Shabbat in Shuva I had the pleasure of spending a Shabbat in . After already having spent a week together, the Hakhel group had become a community in its own right. We were warmly absorbed into the community of Shuva, a moshav near Sderot, for a weekend. On Friday afternoon, I was invited to immerse myself in a mikvah in the middle of a field. I changed into my Shabbat clothes and was ready to transition into 25 hours of much-needed rest. Our group congregated on the back porch of one of the community member’s homes where we joined the Shuva-ites as they welcomed the Shabbat with song and dance. After nightfall, we made our way to an intimate indoor space where sat around a communal table sharing Torah insights, songs and stories for several hours while enjoying the delicious home-cooked meal. The following day, we all met at a community bris which was followed by an outdoor picnic outside of the synagogue. Parents, children, elderly, dogs, cats, peacocks — all coexisting in a chaotic harmony unlike anything I’ve seen. This was a normal […]
Jewish Intentional Communities Tour of Israel: Day Five (March 18, 2016)
by Morriah Kaplan Member of GariNYC: Brooklyn, NY We started off the day early at the Waldorf-Hassidic school that the community ‘garin’ within Moshav Shuva built. Their pedagogy is inspired by teachings of the ancient commentator Rabbi Chiya, who insisted on teaching the Torah to his students in an experiential way. We spoke with the kindergarten teacher, who described how they teach the students to appreciate and honor individual differences, to have patience that success won’t come in a single day, and to connect with their world – including their religion – in an emotional and experiential way, rather thing simply using their intellect. Building this school was a huge accomplishment of the Shuva community, and it’s brought more young families to the area, particularly those who wish to teach their children Hassidic values along with a solid secular education. We then traveled to Be’er Sheva to enjoy a delicious breakfast and conversation at Café Ringelblum, a coffee shop run by a community called Kehillat Kama which emerged a decade ago to revitalize the Daled neighborhood of Be’er Sheva. The café employs youth-at-risk, and has graduated over 60 youth with a high success rate of employment retention, educational attainment, […]
Jewish Intentional Community Tour of Israel: Day Four (March 17, 2016)
by Tamar Fendel currently living in Jerusalem, member of Berkeley Moshav in Berkeley, California This morning started out on a different note than the earlier days of the tour. Instead of having breakfast together at our hostel and then heading out to visit an intentional community, we woke in homes scattered throughout Jerusalem, after a lovely night of home stays in the Horesh community in Kiryat Yovel or with friends. We reunited at a lovely cafe, where we met with two staff members from the Ministry of the Diaspora of the State of Israel. This is one of Israel’s newest executive agencies, which is focused on supporting Jewish communities throughout the world. It is a bold new concept that Israel can have a role in developing Jewish life in the Diaspora, in conjunction with Jewish communities in the Diaspora supporting Israel financially and politically. We had an opportunity to learn about the ministry’s forward thinking global efforts and share about each of our projects. It would be wonderful to continue this collaboration between Hakhel and the Israeli government moving forward. Our next stop was in Lod, where we met with Garin Elyashiv, a community committed to acts of hesed. The […]
Jewish Intentional Communities Tour of Israel: Day Three (March 16, 2016)
by Gulienne Rollins-Rishon Work at Home Mom & Pop: Brooklyn, NY Wow. I’ll start with wow. This trip has been incredible so far. I’m beyond exhausted but in the best possible way. Today we switched gears a little bit. We’ve been experiencing non-Orthodox Jewish intentional communities so far, some of them more Jewish because they’re Israeli and composed at least mostly of people who are of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, and some of people who are intentionally intricately weaving Jewish practice, spirituality, and identity into their communal lives. I’ve loved everything I’ve seen so far, but was wondering where I, as a person who values adherence to halakha as a part of my manifestation of my Jewish identity, could fit into a community so warm, trusting, and intentional. Maybe not me myself exactly, but someone like me at least. Where was this level of intentionality, trust, and ability to be authentically and fully onesself and discuss that self with what’s basically an extended warm, unconditionally loving and accepting family, in a space where if that self also wanted to keep kosher and be shomer Shabbat, it would be fully integrated with the community life? Today, I got some answers. We began […]
Jewish Intentional Communities Tour of Israel: Day Two (March 15, 2016)
by Geulah Finman In the summer of 2011, I found myself half-awake attempting to sleep while my mind drifted to the scene around me. Guitar strumming mingled with the sound of young passionate voices engaged in a dialogue. The social protest movement that gripped Tel Aviv and the rest of Israel felt hopeful but confusing and at the time directionless. What were we asking for? What did we really want? In the first two days of Hazon’s Jewish Intentional Communities tour, I met individuals who are living in Israeli society and responding with meticulous intent to these social, economic challenges that in fact plague our entire globe. “We as humans, we as Jews, are in a state of peril” says Muki Tzur, the famous Kibbutz historian. He presses on further, “Do not accept collectivism as a form of activism or individuality as a negative source of ego.” Being in community is not enough. How are we helping those beyond ourselves? In what ways can intentional community fill the gaps we no longer depend on our governments to solve? Today we met young people filled with a deep sense of conviction speaking of the past. Revolution needs to occur in […]
Introduction to Intentional Communities in Israel: Day One (March 14, 2016)
by Rabbi Deborah K. Bravo, Founder and Spiritual Leader of Makom NY: A New Kind of Jewish Community Today was our first full day of learning about intentional communities at the Hazon Hakhel Israel Seminar 2016. We came together as a group of individuals of varying ages and backgrounds from across the Unites States and Israel, representing a variety of very different intentional communities at home. Not only did we spend the day getting to know one another and our communities, but we were also introduced to the framework of intentional communities in Israel. We began the day by visiting the Kinneret Courtyard, where we learned from Muki Tsur, a giant in the history and understanding of the Kibbutz movement. We had the opportunity to really understand and discuss the beginnings of the Kibbutz movement, which truly are the basis for intentional communities in Israel today. We then drove on to Kibbutz Degania Aleph, the first Kibbutz to be opened in 1910. Though the Kibbutz movement today is nothing like it was then, it planted the seeds and thoughts for what would be created nearly a century later. Our afternoon conversation began with a discussion about Makom, the umbrella organization […]
Four Questions For Your Second Night Seder
I’m writing in Israel, following a rather remarkable tour of “kehillot mesimatiot” – a newish phrase that literally means something like “mission-driven communities” and which maps, more or less, to the English “Intentional Communities.” It includes a variety of experiments in urban communal living and social change: some of them sharing all their money and some not; some living together and some not. But all of them living in participatory and democratic communities, with an explicit commitment to making the world around them better. We met diaspora 20-somethings who’ve made aliyah and are living in urban kvutzot – groups – in Haifa. We went to Beit Jann to see a Druze community doing remarkable leadership work with teens. We stayed with garinim toraniim, religious groups, in Akko, Bet Shemesh and Lod. In Afula we met the founders and leaders of Tarbut – an artist’s kibbutz of approaching 100 people, who have spawned a youth movement, and developed a queer nightclub scene in the town. In Nazareth Illit we were with Kibbutz Mishol, the largest of the modern urban kibbutzim, co-founded by James Grant-Rosenhead. In Akko we helped the garin there pack pre-pesach food boxes for local people – both Jewish […]
