The  Climate Change Bus Tour, a joint project of The Teva Learning Center and Hazon,  is now in its final leg of the their cross-country tour!

It has been an incredible journey so far. Hundreds of Jewish students, teachers, and families have engaged with environmental education programs and activities. Many have also signed the Jewish Climate Change pledge committing themselves to sustainable action and advocacy.

Check out the latest video of the bus tour’s Chanukah out west and the latest press in The Jewish Exponent.

Calling all New Yorkers!  If you’re around on Sunday, December 13th at 2pm, join me at this fun Jewish food event!

CULTURE IN THE CUCINA
How Rome’s Jews are Cooking up the Past and Future

While Jews have lived in Italy since the 2nd century BCE and are credited with popularizing staple ingredients like eggplant, fennel and pumpkin, the notion of an “Italian Jewish cuisine” is difficult to define. Still, a handful of traditional dishes – like Carciofi alla Guidia (deep fried artichokes) and Pizza Ebraica (a fruit cake-like dessert) – have managed to endure over time.

Food writer, Leah Koenig, will discuss how certain traditional recipes have attained iconic status in Italy’s oldest and largest Jewish center, Rome. She will also explore how today’s urban Jews relate to their culinary heritage. New York’s Jews have their bagels, knish and egg creams. What dishes do Italians turn to when they need a nosh, and how do these foods connect them to their past and their future?  *Bonus! Italian Jewish Chanukah recipes and tips on where to find Jewish Italian food in NYC.

EVENT DETAILS and more photos of Rome’s delicious food culture below the jump…

I am VERY honored to have the chance to join the Jew and the Carrot writing community! Thanks for taking a moment to read my first post, which originally appeared here.)
- Leon

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Judaism divides the calendar into regular days,  (like Purim and Rosh Hashanah) and festivals (like Passover and Sukkot). As American Jews my family adds to that secular holidays – some which we embrace wholeheartedly (Independence Day, Thanksgiving), some which we wrestle with (Halloween, Sweetest Day) and those that we dismiss out of hand (Valentine’s Day. And thank you Rabbi Joe Black for giving us a song for that very dilemma!)

It’s sort of funny when two worlds collide unexpectedly, especially when one comes to the aid of the other. Take for example my recent search for the perfect milk alternative. I don’t dislike good ol’ cow’s milk, nor am I allergic to it. But as an observant Jew, I often find myself at odds with the fridge staple, usually after I’ve just enjoyed a delicious turkey sandwich.  I am what some would call a Fleish-a-phobe: I rarely eat meat if I can avoid it out of dread for the five hours and one minute to follow, when I will be barred from my favorite treats: ice-cream, chocolate, cheese, milk-based pie, the list goes on.

And so I’ve spent some time searching for that perfect alternative, that wondrous, dairy-free concoction that will replace milk in my cookie recipe and help me whip up the perfect pareve pumpkin pie.  Recently, my best friend and I (with both health and Halacha in mind) unofficially took it upon ourselves to taste-test every non-milk available to us, from various brands of soymilk to the less orthodox (and rarely Kosher) hemp milk, with varying results.

I’ve always thought the community should have more of a say when it comes to kosher restaurants.  The way I see it, even though they are for-profit enterprises, it’s in our best interest that they’re around.  Anyway, for a million reasons, please join me in creating what might be the first-ever egalitarian, non-denominational Va’ad Kashrut (council on Kosherness.)  We will supervise, and certify, restaurants and other institutions in Brownstone Brooklyn in a halakhic manner consistent with our community’s values and priorities.  Although first and foremost, I imagine our standards being more or less traditional, even if our approach is not, I hope we can find ways to incorporate labor, animal-abuse and other concerns into our supervision.  One restaurant in Park Slope is already lined up and waiting for your involvement.  Please get involved regardless of where you live, how observant you are, etc.  Learn more:

Late last month, Portland Tuv Ha’Aretz hosted its first Jewish Garden bike tour, focusing on gardens in NE Portland. 25 riders, ranging in age from pre-teen to, well, older than pre-teen, met at a local park. The ride was both conceived and led by Tuv Ha’Aretz member Beth Hamon, with help from Joel Metz. Beth is a bike mechanic and co-owner of Citybikes, a co-operatively owned bike shop here. She’s also a serious old-school bike geek and thought our first bike tour should be commemorated in true bike geek fashion, so she made spoke cards for all the participants (everyone thought they were cool, and you can check ours out at the top of this post; extra points if you can figure out what the Hebrew says)

You are invited to apply (by June 15!) for a highly subsidized five-day Tour of Israel (November 15-19, 2009), from the unique perspective of: food!

What social justice issues do you care about?  Being a Jew and the Carrot reader one would imagine you might think about food justice, hunger, fair trade or local and sustainable food systems – and often through a Jewish lens.  So if we care about food issues, but how do we share that with others?  Over the next three weeks, we are very fortunate to have Jill Jacobs, the Rabbi-in-Residence for Jewish Funds for Justice offering her insight and thoughts on contentious challenges facing America today.

Not only that, but Jew and the Carrot readers will have the opportunity to share their experiences in tzedakah (financial support for the poor) and chesed (acts of loving-kindness) to enter to win a copy of Rabbi Jacobs’ book There Shall Be No Needy.   Simply leave us a comment about how you have given tzedakah or performed chesed. Did you intentionally give your CSA share to someone in need?  Have you volunteered at a soup kitchen? Tell us about it.

“Rabbi Shimon taught: ‘…Three who dine at a table and exchange words of Torah are considered as having eaten at God’s table…’”  (Pirke Avot 3:4)  I suppose a discussion of religion is considered verboten almost everywhere by certain people, but not in Jewish culture.  Then again, we like to talk politics in public, too!  But in the days of the Mishna, of course the conversation was only with the other people at the table.  After all, there was no e-mail, no phones…  and no text messages!  I remember, when cell phones were first becoming popular, my friend railing against people who would answer calls during dinner.  I agreed with her, but felt there should be some wiggle-room:  what if your friend is calling to say she’ll be late?  What if he needs directions to the restaurant?  Also, why should it bother me at the next table?  I understand if it is the person you’re dining with, but the “noise” argument makes no sense, since you wouldn’t be bothered by the people at the next table having a normal conversation.  Nowadays, we’re all used to this and most of us are pretty polite about it (music on the subway is a different story entirely, but I’ll restrain myself for now.)  Text messages, though around for years, have recently become more of a problem according to the NYT Dining section.

On Shavuot, when we celebrate receiving the Torah, we also celebrate the offering of the first fruits in the Temple, the bikurim.

The offering was a supremely humble gesture: the fruits which form first on a tree are often smaller, less perfect, only hinting at the abundance to follow. In ancient Israel, these offerings were gussied up, surrounded by the more beautiful fruit which grew later, brought sometimes in gold baskets, accompanied by flutes, processions. All the trappings of art and wealth were used to beautify the offering. Yet without the small, perhaps wrinkled fruit of the bikurim, there could be no offering.

It was at this moment of offering that the Torah teaches us to recite the story of redemption, the same one we now read in our Passover haggadah. The story was also a garland, as it were, for the bikurim offering, connecting our history to the very physical redemption of another spring and another growing season.

It’s just about that time of year again: the cream cheese is starting to thaw, the cheesecake recipes are dusted off, and the dairy, it is a’flowin. Welcome to Shavuout preparation!

Shavuot is technically the end of the counting of the Omer, and is the traditional high holiday which celebrates G-d’s gift of the Ten Commandments. Shavuot is derived from the word for week and has a number of other intrinsic meanings as well. It is a very happy and joyous celebration, as it marks the most sacred gift to the Jewish people, that which continues to affect the daily lives of so many, that which is the basis of basically all Western civilization codes of morality. As we are educated by the Torah, so we educate ourselves for Shavuot. One tradition is to stay up all night long and learn the night of Shavuot… some mark the break of daylight by reading the 10 Commandments and then running into the ocean for an early morning dip for fun (well, at least in beautiful Santa Barbara!).

Are you looking to live the land?  Dine on organic food that you grow yourself?

Bake in a thermal mass oven?  Build durable mud buildings? Recycle EVERYTHING??

Want to do all of this in ISRAEL?

ECO-ISRAEL, based on the Hava & Adam eco-educational farm between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel,   offers English-speaking Jewish young adults, ages 18-30, a 5 month professional apprenticeship and coursework in permaculture and sustainable living.  Upon completion of the program, participants will receive an internationally recognized certificate in Permaculture Design.

Darkhei Noam’s Scholar-in-Residence program with Rabbi Daniel Sperber is hosting a Shabbat luncheon this Saturday May 16, 2009 from 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM in New York City’s Heschel School (270 West 89th Street between West End Avenue and Broadway.)

Join Rabbi Sperber, Milan Roven Professor of Talmudic Research at Bar Ilan University, rabbi of Congregation Menachem Zion in the Old City of Jerusalem and Darkhei Noam’s halakhic adviser, at a lunch and learn program following services.   Rabbi Sperber will be speaking on the topic of “Kosher & Food Ethics: Exploring vegetarianism, meat production, fair labor and other food related ethical issue.”