Jewish Farm School

JCF Seed Packet

Six months ago we announced that Jewish Farm School would be closing in late 2019 and that we would be dedicating the final phase of our work to curating a “Seed Packet” of resources for new and emerging Jewish farm and garden projects.

We are thrilled to have completed this process and share this work with the wider world. You can learn more about the content of these resources and gain access to them on our website.

With the publication of these materials, we are now closing our doors. We are incredibly grateful for all of your support and partnership over the years!

May the work of our hands continue to be blessed,

-Jewish Farm School

JCF Seed Packet A Collection of Resources for Jewish Farm and Garden Projects

a prayer for rain

Chag Sameach!

a prayer for rain

Thanks so much to everyone who came out last night to celebrate in the sukkah.

If you missed the message, we changed the date because of tonight’s rain.

May everyone have a meaningful fast - g’mar tov!

Jewish Farm School, which has taught farming skills through a Jewish lens since 2005, is closing this fall

Nice write up in this week’s Jewish Exponent about plans to close in the fall and how we’re spending our final months seeding our work in other organizations and the growing Jewish farming movement.

Jewish Farm School, which has taught farming skills through a Jewish lens since 2005, is closing this fall With its executive director and co-founder Nati Passow leaving his post, the Jewish Farm School will close its doors this fall.

More Latinx Farmers Own Their Land. Could They Make the Food System More Sustainable? | Civil Eats

Moving from farmworker to farm owner has long been a challenge for Latinx farmers. But with support, more are making the leap, increasing the number of diverse, small-scale operations.

Could They Make the Food System More Sustainable?

More Latinx Farmers Own Their Land. Could They Make the Food System More Sustainable? | Civil Eats Moving from farmworker to farm owner has long been a challenge for Latinx farmers. But with support, more are making the leap, increasing the number of diverse, small-scale operations.

Philly Is Trying to Save a Beloved Vietnamese Bakery From Demolition

Please continue to support Hoa Binh Shopping Plaza and VietLead in their efforts to save this community hub! Petition goes out JULY 24TH!

Philly Is Trying to Save a Beloved Vietnamese Bakery From Demolition Community organization VietLead has started a petition to stop the demolition and development of Washington Avenue's Hoa Binh Plaza.

Friends,
We are writing to share an important announcement. After nearly 14 years of leadership and innovation, Jewish Farm School Co-founder and Executive Director Nati Passow will be stepping down from the organization in the fall of 2019. We have decided to close our doors at that point. There are many factors that went into this decision, and it was not an easy one to make. The wider Jewish Community Farming (JCF) field is rapidly growing and thriving, employing a range of models and scales to connect the Jewish community with the agricultural and ecological roots of our traditions. As one of the leaders in the field, we want to support this success and continued growth. With this in mind, we are taking the next four months to complete an organizational capstone project that will ensure the continued use of our strong and unique curricula and program resources, and which will ultimately benefit the growing Jewish Community Farming field in meaningful and productive ways.

We are incredibly grateful for financial and in-kind support from the Jewish Community Farming Field building Initiative, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, UpStart, and the Natan Fund for this organizational capstone project and responsible sunsetting process.

We are deeply grateful for JFS co-founder Simcha Schwartz, whose vision and work over our first six years were instrumental in building the foundation that enabled our subsequent growth and success. And we would like to thank our past and current board members, as well as the thousands of participants, staff, partners, mentors, and supporters who made all of our efforts possible and who continue to inspire this work in the world.

For more information about our sunsetting process visit: https://www.jewishfarmschool.org/sunset

GrowTorah Garden Educator at Kohelet - Job Description (1).pdf

We're helping our friends at GrowTorah find a part time garden educator for a new garden they are putting in at the Kohelet Yeshiva Lab School in Merion. See link for the job description. Could be a great fit for a college student or someone with a flexible schedule. Please share through your networks.

GrowTorah Garden Educator at Kohelet - Job Description (1).pdf Shared with Dropbox

Because of the threat of thunderstorms, we're moving tonight's Lag Ba'Omer Celebration w/ Jewish Farm School, KT, & Rising Song Institute inside. We'll be at the Cedar Works (around the corner from 707). The address is 4919 Pentridge St. 19143. We'll still be singing and grilling, but no fire tonight. Parking can be found on Pentridge, 49th, 50th, and Baltimore Ave.

Please note: Space is now more limited. If you want to ensure your spot, purchase tickets online in advance.

We’re keeping our eyes on the weather for our Lag Ba’Omer gathering on Thursday evening and will announce a rain plan around 2pm. Stay tuned.

already in the fourth week, appreciating the cyclical nature of it all!

This week is the fourth week of counting the Omer, the week of Netzach. Like the other attributes of the weeks, Netzach is infinitely interpretable and can be translated in dozens of ways, but this week we’ll come to you with one question:

How do I show up in the world?

Netzach means eternity, energy, perseverance in the face of long-suffering. Horizontalness, presence, persistence. If in these opening moments of spring we’ve been finding that our strength, our relationship to the beautiful struggles of this world, is depleted or tenuous, this is the week to rebuild.

To feel into the past and understand how we’ve persevered and thrived through time and empires’ onslaughts.

To look into the future, into eternity, and feel held by all that time for regeneration, feel the healing gift of possibility.

And to locate yourself now, in that great arc, and feel empowered to participate, to work and play in this great myth and know that “struggle” is just one word for all of this.
And we know the struggle is great.
And--you are great. you are needed on this planet, in these movements, in the monumental demand for presence and energy as we persevere against the violences of this world and for each other.

In the words of a wise elder,
“Live mythically, and don’t bore God.”

Today we revel in the quality of beauty within harmony, of Tiferet within Tiferet, and offer this week's meditation--

In the first two weeks of the counting of the Omer, we’ve walked from one pole to another, between infinite outpouring and conservation-minded boundary drawing, between the health of abundance and the health of measurement. And bless the technology of the Omer, because in this third week we are arriving into balance, into the healing power of harmony, into a word--Tiferet--whose closest english approximation is “beauty."

What makes a story beautiful? Or a meal? A place, a song?
You? Us?
In the language of Tiferet, of this week, the answer is contrast, the balance of complexity, harmony.
And this answer is powerful. We can feel within ourselves or out into the world and notice darkness, fault, trauma, despair, and in the same places we see life, beating hearts and flowing blood, green plants, abilities to create, love, and share. Tiferet means that all of this is beautiful; that we need all of it, because the beauty is in the harmony, and not just the good.

The beginning of this week corresponds with the new moon, the first night of the month of Iyar, which is known as the month of healing. Iyar, the month when the Israelites were gifted Manna from the divine, when Solomon and his workers began building the temple, when we finally revel in the sunlight and dance with the bees, is when we begin to heal. To heal, maybe, is to find balance. Or at least part of it is finding within yourself that beautiful harmony, and finding partners and community with whom to harmonize.

When you walk around this week and look at the world, and at yourself, and see something that you don’t consider beautiful, ask yourself or those you’re with, how can we start to see this as beautiful? If you can’t, maybe ask: how can we restore this into harmony? How can we restore harmony in ourselves, to once again see this as beautiful?

Here is part two of our Omer-counting--we're almost caught up!

Today marks the beginning of the second week of the counting of the Omer, the week of Gevurah.
Gevurah can be translated as judgement, limitation, and might. Tirzah Firestone, mystic and author, describes it as that which says “Stop!” when the obligations of the world cause us to overextend ourselves, but also that which endows absolute strength in the moments we truly need it.

When we’re so filled with the abundance of spring, it’s easy to have a lot on our plate. There might be that moment when you start your garden, you have all your seeds in the ground, and then your beds are covered in weeds, bugs and squirrels have made teeming homes for themselves, and your compost smells weird. Maybe you look around your community and your city and see injustice and oppression pouring down from institutions of power, pouring from one person to another, and you want to step up your involvement in community organizing and fundraising and knowledge sharing, and you also have kids, or two or three jobs, a sick parent, and those aforementioned garden problems.

This is that moment when you meditate and as the initial confidence fades away, the work shows up.
When you realize all that it takes to grow a garden.
When you’re overwhelmed by the world and all of its truths and what it takes to mend it.

This week we can meditate on our limits. On our burdens. Can we find Gevurah within Gevurah? Strength within limitation?

There’s the elation and the beauty of the previous week, Chesed, and then there comes the point when other truths worm their way into our reality. We’ve had our celebration of freedom, eight days of gratitude and love for family, for life, and for the exaltedness of our culture, and now, as the Israelites did in our great story,
we look towards the desert.
A massive gulf filled with struggle and the ultimate individual and collective questions.
Who are we?
With limited resources, without a map, how can we trust these forces, the holy whispers and bellows, that guide and pull us?
Maybe this is the week to begin deciding within ourselves and amongst ourselves:
what do I need, what do you need, to go forth?

We just dug this up from last year, and although we're starting a week or so late, we'll be matching up with the correct timing of the counting of the Omer starting next week!

The No-B.S. Guide to Recycling in Philadelphia

"Recycled products have to meet a certain cleanliness threshold in order for them to be sold on the commodities market, and there’s only so much the workers at the recycling plant can do to decontaminate them. In other words, you need to wash out that jar of peanut butter before tossing it."

The No-B.S. Guide to Recycling in Philadelphia You’d better be informed, because bad recycling habits can end up doing more harm than good.

Philly names its first-ever farm czar

Sometimes we're really proud of Philadelphia:

Philadelphia has named city planner Ashley Richards as its first-ever urban agriculture director. Richards will direct the creation and implementation of Philadelphia’s forthcoming urban agriculture plan.

Philly names its first-ever farm czar

Chag Pesach Sameach - may the last days of your Passover be restful and free!

Free bins in front of Municipal Services Building just in case! The recycling program isn't quite dead!

📢 Recycling bin (+ lid) giveaway Wednesday, 4/24! 📢
After reducing our consumption and increasing our reuse of "single-use" items whenever possible, let's commit to "recycling right" together.
Join the Streets Department at Thomas Paine Plaza tomorrow, 11am - 1pm, to learn about Philly's new recycling contract (yay!) and snag a lidded bin.

Do not miss out on this important information

RIP: Recycling is Dead as We Know It

Welp :-/

5 WAYS TO IMPROVE RECYCLING:
Reduce your plastic use. Reuse what you can. Buy Local. You’ll avoid a lot of packaging by shopping at farmers markets. Compost your food scraps. This will cut recycling contamination and a huge portion of your trash.
“Recycle” what’s left.

RIP: Recycling is Dead as We Know It Earlier this year, people learned that Philadelphia is burning half of its recyclables. On NextDoor, people are calling out the sham of recycling, and others are choosing to discard their plastics …

In the month of Nissan, we are requested to recite the blessing made upon seeing a fruit tree in bloom. Today is the first opportunity to make this blessing! Take time today or during your shabbat to make this blessing as a radical act of self love and to show gratitude and appreciation to every aspect of nature.

How to Plant Seeds in a Community (Garden) - Mural Arts Philadelphia

🙌✌️👏

How to Plant Seeds in a Community (Garden) - Mural Arts Philadelphia "We took a space that can seem cavernous and made it intimate."

Jewish Community Farming Field-Wide Survey 2019

Today is the final day to complete this survey. Please take 4 minutes to tell us how our programs have impacted you! Thanks!

Jewish Community Farming Field-Wide Survey 2019 Jewish Community Farming Field-Wide Survey 2019.

Vacant Land 215 | The Public Interest Law Center

Want to learn more about community gardening and farming on vacant land in Philadelphia? Garden Justice Legal Initiative and Soil Generation invite you to come discuss legal land access and preservation for gardens, farms, and other community-managed open spaces. This FREE program is open to everyone, including current gardeners looking to maintain community spaces and also new gardeners looking to create space.

Vacant Land 215 | The Public Interest Law Center Want to learn more about community gardening and farming on vacant land in Philadelphia? Our Garden Justice Legal Initiative and Soil Generation invite you to come discuss legal land access and preservation for gardens, farms, and other community-managed open spaces. This FREE program on April 11 at...

Facebook Bans White Nationalism and White Separatism

"In a major policy shift for the world’s biggest social media network, Facebook banned white nationalism and white separatism on its platform Tuesday. Facebook will also begin directing users who try to post content associated with those ideologies to a nonprofit that helps people leave hate groups"

Facebook Bans White Nationalism and White Separatism After a civil rights backlash, Facebook will now treat white nationalism and separatism the same as white supremacy, and will direct users who try to post that content to a nonprofit that helps people leave hate groups.

This Shabbat is Shabbat Parah, the Shabbat preceding Shabbat HaChodesh, in preparation for Passover. Sounds like it's time for to start preparing to leave whatever Egypt we find ourselves in today!

Could the Ancient Jewish Practice of Shmita Be a New Tool for Sustainable Ag? | Civil Eats

Cool piece about how Shmita (the sabbatical year in which all land lays fallow) is manifesting in both literal and symbolic ways throughout the Jewish farming movement.

Could the Ancient Jewish Practice of Shmita Be a New Tool for Sustainable Ag? | Civil Eats The practice of letting the land lie fallow after every six years of farming requires a complete reset in sustainable practices—and could gain traction as a way to combat climate change.

Community Portrait

Have you heard about Community Portrait? It’s a population study, commissioned by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia once every 10 years, that will help effectively evaluate and support the needs of our local Jewish communities. Your answers will help to direct resources to where they're most needed so our entire Jewish community can continue to grow and thrive! Keep an eye out for the survey in the mail to see if you've been selected to take part in the survey. Learn more at the link below!"

https://communityportrait.org/

Community Portrait A Population Study of Greater Philadelphia Commissioned by Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia

Jewish Community Farming Field-Wide Survey 2019

Have you participated in a JFS program over the last 3 years? If so, please take 4 minutes to complete this short survey!

https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4816355/JFS?fbclid=IwAR2He93iVPRk9xnhqWcL3yOiW3JfwPLHtlC6l5VkrNO9Vf9vbUfVSSkQCrk

Jewish Community Farming Field-Wide Survey 2019 Jewish Community Farming Field-Wide Survey 2019.