As promised, here is the article about our Eatwell experience. Kudos to Adam Edell, Jon Rosenfield and Zelig Golden for putting it all together.

An article about the Berkeley chapter of Tuv Ha’Aretz’ Shabbaton at Eatwell Farm will be posted here in a few days, but in the meantime, I wanted to post a photo that sums up a great deal about our experience.

In short, we had an awesome time. It was really wonderful to camp in the very orchards that have been supplying our delicious plums, and meet the chickens who have been feeding us the most delicious eggs we’ve ever eaten.

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Two of Hazon’s Tuv Ha’Aretz groups - New York and Long Island - went out to the Garden of Eve Farm today to glean produce (green beans, eggplant, sweet potatoes, and beets) for Island Harvest and build a sukkah - better late than never!  Check out below 1. sukkah construction 2. sukkah close up 3. Farmers Chris and Eve Kaplan-Walbrecht with Forest and Shira.

Thanks to Abigail Schade for the great photos.  There are many more great photos here by John Feinberg here!

Thanks to Cong. Ansche Chesed’s Social Action Committee for joining in on the fun and Temple Sinai for piloting the gleaning event last year!

Members of Berkeley’s Tuv Ha’Aretz learned a hard lesson in CSA farming last week. I had two Israeli cousins in tow — they were staying with me for a few days as they took their two teenaged kids on a jaunt through parts of the U.S., and incidentally, just as they looked at me in astonishment when I told them I lit candles and said kiddush every Friday night, they were equally incredulous when I told them that I picked up a box of organic veggies every Wednesday from my synagogue — as soon as I took my box, I felt it was much lighter than usual. I didn’t stop to find out why; I was in a rush to get my cousins to the car rental place.

If we were disappointed to learn that we wouldn’t be getting our gorgeous tomatoes last week, it was heartbreaking to read what is happening on our farm. A vacationer returned from Hawaii to the Dixon area (where our farm is located, right outside Davis, CA) with the dreaded Meditteranean Fruitfly. The whole area of Dixon has been quarantined, and no produce that the fruitfly likes can leave any farm. Read more »

Since Tuv Ha’Aretz started here in Berkeley, I’ve gotten to know Adam Edell quite well. We sit and chat while waiting for members to pick up their boxes of produce. We talk, we schmooze, we inspect the zucchini and tomatoes. I’ve even met his dad. But I can’t say I’ve ever seen him “grinning grubbily.”

That’s how Adam was described in this article called “Sustainable Synagogue,” published this week one of the area’s free weeklies, the East Bay Express.

I’m sorry, I’m a journalist too, so I know how tempting it can be to put in that perfect alliterative phrase, even when it doesn’t fully apply. I’m not even sure what a grubbily-looking grin looks like. But after reading this otherwise very complimentary article about us, I couldn’t help but fixate on that one line. Then again, maybe it’s only natural to grin grubbily when talking about composting.

Be open-eyed to the great wonders of nature, familiar though
they be. But men are more wont to be astonished at the sun’s eclipse than at its unfailing rise. - Hayyim Luzzatto

I’m watching the lunar eclipse at this early hour, 3:00 am PST, as I put together this week’s newsletter for the Berkeley Tuv Ha’Aretz CSA. 18th century kabbalist and astrologer Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto reminds us that witnessing rare shifts in the cosmic gears gives us a lot of bang for our buck, but that there is power too in the regularity of the 24/7 revolution.

Consider our attitudes as we greet the contents of our weekly boxes. They can have the ability to inspire gasps of awe with a new arrival (concord grapes!) or remarks of displeasure as one pushes past the old standby (oh look, zucchini…again). Believe me, with all my aphid- and ant-infested corn, water-stressed eggplant and bitter cukes, I’m actually quite grateful for my indefatigable squash plants, who have churned out a steady crop unscathed by pestilence all summer long, k’naina hora. As sure as I can count on a new crookneck poking out from underneath those broad leaves the minute I turn around, oh constant squash has sustained me through the diminished returns of other crops I’ve grown less successfully.

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Today’s New York Times included a great article by Joan Nathan: Of Church and Steak: Farming for the Soul.  Joan writes about the work being done across the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths to encourage sustainable agriculture, CSAs, responsible meat consumption and stewardship of the land within these faith communities. 

The article is a who’s who of the faith and farming world and includes a shout out to Hazon for the Tuv Ha’Aretz Community-Supported Agriculture program and also The Jew & The Carrot as the front page of the emerging Jewish food movement.  She writes:

“Environment-minded Jews are asking the leaders of Conservative Judaism to rewrite their kosher certification rules to incorporate ethical concerns about workers, animals and the land. Hazon, the Jewish environmental organization, has set up community-supported agriculture programs, or C.S.A.’s, in which customers purchase shares of a farm’s harvest….”

and later

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Thanks to Julie Weiner who wrote an amazing article about Tuv Ha’Aretz, faith and farming for the Associated Press.  It’s copied below, but if you want to read the full thing,  click here.

By JULIE WIENER
For The Associated Press
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
 

Faith meets farming and fuels community supported agriculture movement

On Wednesday evenings, faith and produce mingle at Atlanta’s Congregation Shearith Israel synagogue.

As parents gather to collect their children from Hebrew school or attend lectures, many also pass through the social hall, where they collect boxes of tomatoes, peaches, spinach and other organic produce.

It’s a blending of physical and spiritual sustenance that Rabbi Hillel Norry calls the best of Jewish values in action, and it’s just one of a growing number of faith-based community supported agriculture (or CSA) programs nationwide.

“We’re taking Jewish ideals of justice, economics, health, ecology, well-being and responsibility and putting them to work in the real world in a way that makes our lives and the life of the farmer better,” Norry says.

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Last year, American Jewish Life Magazine identified Hazon as one of the “Hottest” Jewish organizations out there (natch).

This month, our food work is all over their new Green Issue!

- Learn AJL’s take on kosher, organic meat (and check out that green cow) here.

- Read about Tuv Ha’Aretz, Hazon’s Community Supported Agriculture Program here.

- Find out how sexy Jewish farmers are (note The Jew and the Carrot shoutout!) here.

Even without the copious Hazon coverage, AJL’s smart, witty writing makes it a new favorite.  Check them out at http://www.ajlmagazine.com/

In this month of Tammuz, we confront a great paradox.  The sun is passing through its highest point in the sky.  Flowers are blooming, tomatoes are just starting to burst from the vine, and berries – mmm, the berries – this is the time of greatest abundance.  Dipping into cool waters at this time is one of life’s greatest joys.

Yet in our tradition, we are moving through a time of deep reflection and mourning for loss.  On the 9th of Tammuz, the first exile of the Jews began as the Judean King abandoned the Temple and the Babylonians breached the outer walls of the Temple.  (Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 26a-b.)  Today, on the 17th of Tamuz, Jews traditionally fast from sun-up to sun-down, mourning the destruction of the Temple.  This is also recognized as the day when Moses dashed the first set of Tablets from Sinai in response to our worship of the Golden calf.  (Exodus 32:19.) 

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Last summer I had a conversation with Tuv Ha’Aretz farmer, Chris Kaplan Walbrecht (of the Garden of Eve Farm) that shocked the jaded pants off of me. It was the Tuv Ha’Aretz pick up before the 4th of July - and plump, juicy sweet corn slathered in butter was on everyone’s mind. Chris told me how difficult it was to grow corn organically, and to have it ready to harvest by July 4th. But - sweet corn is so firmly rooted in American’s minds as a July 4th staple, that he, along with many other farmers, did their best to make it happen.

Some farmers, he said, fight that corn out of the ground at all costs. Chris described the conventional farms he drives past on long Island that produce vast fields of corn. He told me how they spray a thick layer of pesticides on the baby corn plants and then literally cover the field in plastic (imagine covering a bowl in Saran Wrap) which keeps the bugs out and allows the pesticides to bake in. When the corn is big enough, the chemical-soaked plastic is removed and - no surprise - thrown away into landfills. The corn is large, ripe, and ready for the grill. But at what cost to the earth and our bodies? I knew that industrial, conventional farming was not earth-friendly, but this just absolutely stunned me. How could I possibly celebrate our country’s independence while eating corn that ruined its fertile land?

The Garden of Eve uses organic methods and timing to coax - not force - their corn to grow tall and yellow by Independence Day. I applaud them in their efforts but even so - this 4th of July, as part of my patriotic duty, I vow to eat beautiful, locally grown yellow summer squash instead of corn.

As a CSA coordinator and food blogger, I have the privilege of hearing the rumblings of what’s sprouting in the world of sustainable agriculture and eating.  And the question on everyone’s mind these days seems to be: Is it possible to consume meat and poultry in a way that is responsible for the earth and our bodies?  And, is there a way to do it that supports farmers, without completely breaking the bank?

AND (for kosher-keeping consumers), is it possible to find ethical meat that is also kosher?

As a result of the rising interest in meat from “happy cows,” a crop of organic family farmers across the country have started offerring sustainably raised and ethically slaughtered meat as part of their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) communities or through special meat coops.  This morning, NPR featured a story about these sustainable meat coops and the enthusiastic response they’ve received from members.

And this week, the Tuv Ha’Aretz CSA in Washington DC launched a program that will offer not only ethically raised, but also kosher meat to their members.

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(Posted on behalf of Yigal Deustcher -the farmer at Chava V’Adam Farm in Israel, one of Tuv Ha’Aretz’s partner communities. He is also the founder of the Shorashim:Roots program. Photos taken by Tuv Ha’Aretz member, Naomi Marcus.)

I awoke at 5:30 AM and headed to the kitchen where I found Eitan, one of our Shorashim apprentices, dicing the root of Ashwaganda (aka Middle Eastern Ginseng) to make a medicinal tincture.

Eitan has just finished the pilot season of Shorashim:Roots - 5 month intensive housed by Chava v’Adam, an ecological education center outside Modi’in. Our apprentices live and work in a rustic setting, secluded by the rocky, sparsely forested hills hugging our little valley. Much of the work is agriculturally-based, cultivating 5 bio-diverse plots for the needs of our CSA community. All of the buildings are built with stone or mud. The water from our showers & sinks are cleansed by our greywater wetland system. The sounds from the farm can be hectic at times, with busloads of schoolchildren coming to learn about the wonders of plants, animals & mud.

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Tokyo turnips.
Those are the two words that come to mind when asked how I am enjoying my new CSA membership as part of Tuv Ha’Aretz here in the Bay Area.
I have to admit, turnips have never been high on my list of favorite vegetables. While I certainly don’t harbor any negative feelings toward them, they just don’t usually find their way into my grocery cart, even though I kinda like their dirty white peel, with that lovely purple splotch at the bottom.
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