Out Of The House And Onto The Farm

At Eden Village program, local home-schooled kids get hands-on learning and a chance to socialize.

Putnam Valley, N.Y. — On a sunny afternoon last week, while the rest of New York’s schoolchildren were stuck indoors, 15 kids were literally rolling around in the dirt while their parents looked on approvingly.

The children, most of whom are home-schooled, are students in the Farm and Forest Home School program, a unique project of Eden Village Camp and the Jewish Farm School.

In its second year, Farm and Forest — believed to be the only example of a Jewish overnight camp catering specifically to home-schooled children — teaches a curriculum of nature-based education and Jewish values.

Participants, who range in age from 5-14, come to Eden Village Camp, in this Hudson Valley town, every few weeks during the fall and spring to learn science, agriculture, and Jewish thought in a hands-on setting.
Each session draws a few dozen participants, with 10 families consistently attending the program.

Home schooling has become increasingly common in the United States in recent years, with the U.S. Department of Education reporting 1.5 million home-schooled children nationally and 125,000 in New York state. While no data is available on Jewish families who home school, Ellen Brown — who coordinates Farm and Forest Home School — said that it is becoming more common than it once had been. Officials at the Torah Home Education Group, which sponsors an annual conference, put the number of Jewish home-schooling families at between several hundred and a few thousand.

At last week’s session, the group went on a nature walk in the forest together then broke into two groups: the ones 8 and under scavenged for seeds and worms across the farm while the older group wrestled with some weeds before planting kale, chard and collard greens.

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Jewish Environmental Activist Saving Seeds and the Rain Forest

St. Louis native Tom Newmark does more than write a check to his favorite environmental charity. The grandfather and attorney works tirelessly to protect the environment, tending his own organic farm in Central America.

Newark, who is also the founder of Sacred Seeds, a St. Louis based seed bank, said he has always been fascinated by the outdoors.

“I spent a lot of time hiking the rivers and exploring the ponds of our area, a lot of time in the Ozarks, a lot of time in the less developed areas of the county,” he said, adding that his father, Melvin, was also a major influence in his life.

“He was a very dedicated horticulturist,” Newmark said. “Every weekend, I’d accompany him out in the garden and we’d sit and talk. He helped develop my love and appreciation for nature.” His father also worked hard to instill him with Jewish values early on.

“I think if there were a central casting call for Moses, my dad would be exactly the person you’d want in the play both in physical appearance and demeanor,” he said. “I am proud to be part of that uninterrupted continuum of Jewish experience.”

Today, Newmark spends most of his time advocating for the environment and encouraging others to conserve the planet.

“He can make a more powerful and persuasive case for the preservation of these incredibly endangered habitats than anyone I’ve ever met,” Kate Danna, director of development for Friends of the Children’s Eternal Rainforest in St. Louis, said. “He just lives and breathes conservation.” His dedication to environmental causes has also helped strengthen his Jewish roots.

“My temple is the rainforest right now,” he said. “My spirituality is not defined by my Judaism. My Jewish identity is enriched by my environmental ethic and my planetary spirituality.”

Make Shavuot Green

by Kali Brodsky

The holiday of Shavuot, or the Festival of Weeks, on May 19 marks the Jewish community's receiving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, and it also signals the beginning of the harvest season in Israel. The date marks the completion of the seven-week counting period between Passover and Shavuot.

Unlike other Jewish holidays, Shavuot has no prescribed mitzvot (Torah commandments), but it is characterized by several customs, including reading a specific liturgical poem during morning services, eating dairy products, reading the Book of Ruth, decorating homes and synagogues with greenery and engaging in all-night Torah study. Every year on the holiday, we are renewing our acceptance of God's gift.

Here are several suggestions to celebrate Shavuot and make it a "green" holiday in your home:

Decorate your home with local flowers and green plants, as is customary to honor the holiday.

Pitch a tent in your backyard (or inside!) and have a family sleepover. Tell stories from the book of Ruth before bed and blow horns (or a shofar, if you have one) in the morning.

Bake your own challah to honor the wheat season.

Go on a nature walk in a park, and collect flowers to make a centerpiece for your holiday meal. You can also make these colorful floral paper crowns using recycled paper.

Use local cheese to make your own blintzes (yummy recipe ideas here, including gluten-free).

For a Shavuot guide for kids, click here.

Why Jewish Environmentalism

 by Alana Schwartz

 

What is Jewish environmentalism?

1. The beginnings of a Jewish environmental ethic emerge out of Bereishit, – Genesis – through the two creation stories, which set up models of our relationship as human beings with the rest of creation, and which obligate us to tend and to protect the world.

2. Our agricultural roots, celebrated on holidays and in sacred texts, are intended to connect us to the land.

3. The cycles of the Jewish year are grounded in the natural world and our connection to it

4. Shabbat – stopping and resting on the Sabbath – teaches that there are higher values than production and consumption. Resting on Shabbat – one day in seven – lies at the heart of a healthy relationship with oneself, one’s friends and one’s family, and the wider world.

5. The biblical concept of shmitta – having the land rest on its seventh year – provides an equivalent model of rest for the land itself.

6. The biblical concept of peah – leaving the corner of the field unharvested for the poor to pick themselves – connects ecological issues with human values: our obligation to see that people live free of hunger and that their basic needs are met.

7. Protecting God’s creation is a theme throughout subsequent Jewish philosophy, literature, liturgy and law. Scholars and rabbis from Maimonides to Reb Nachman of Bratzlav, and from Rav Kook to Shimshon Raphael Hirsch to Abraham Joshua Heschel have taught and written about this relationship.

8. Our liturgy is rich in natural imagery, from blessings that give us a framework for awareness and appreciation for the wonders and sanctity of creation to the image of the Torah itself as a tree of life.

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