On Exploring Being a Jewish Farmer

By Ida Aronson

I don’t feel very connected to my Jewish heritage. I was raised Jewish as a child, whatever that really meant. I wasn't raised religiously or in Jewish community. In my mid-20s, I worked at a JCC theater summer camp. It was a job, but I was also trying to see what connections to Jewish life felt like, and it was cool not having the weirdest name in the room for once. It was nice seeing a range of Jewish identity, but I was still very much on the outskirts. When I heard about the Jewish Farmer Network and the Jewish Seed Project I thought, oh, maybe this is another different way that I can kind of connect to Jewishness. I already run a small farm- Raccoon Oak Farm, outside of Lafayette, Louisiana- where I grow Indigenous southeastern plants and herbs

and I raise some birds. In talking to my Jewish father later on, my great grandmother, whom I'm named after, also had a chicken farm, so I thought that was an interesting connection that I hadn't really thought about before was: do chickens connect to Jewish people in this way? What kind of plants connect Jewish people, especially such a diasporic people with so many facets? This question of what is a Jewish seed really resonated with me, when I was reading the project website initially.

I'd never heard of a qishuim before, so I was really excited to grow this plant. I got chosen to be a 2025 diaspora mix grower! I was so excited to get started! It seemed to grow pretty well down here in the swamp- I was not convinced it would be, being a Mediterranean/semi-arid plant at first, but it seemed to grow fine. The heavy flow of the year’s summer rain watered the plants very well for a number of months, although root rot did eventually get the plants in the end. Much like myself, the plant just thrived, growing, doing what it just needed to do without anyone messing with it. I split up the growing of the seeds, transplanting many, as well as some direct seeding. The direct seeded starts did much better than the transplanted plants. They did not like to be moved, so I did lose a number of the seedlings in that way. Otherwise, I just kind of fed the plant into the fencing around it so it would grow and vine up and have some more sunlight. I did minimal weeding. The plant seemed to do very well.

Finding the qishuim fruit was really amusing. I did miss a number of them and had to scrape seeds from the bottom of the planting bed, because I just missed seeing them. Going to the Jewish Seed Project retreat, I learned that there was a whole job of qishuim watchers, and they would watch the plant to make sure no one would steal them, and that animals would not mess with the fruits, and also to make sure that they would be caught at the optimal ripeness, or sometimes caught at all! There was another story about a rabbi doing magic and saying, behold, here's the qishuim, here they are, bam! Sometimes it really felt like that, you lift a leaf that you hadn't lifted the day before, and you're like, oh, wow, that's… a huge qishut that's just fruiting there, how did I miss that? That happened to me a number of times, and it was very amusing. 

Seed gathering was very satisfying. I was able to gather a number of seeds, especially after learning about how to correctly get the seeds at the retreat. I had enough to be able to share with some other Jewish friends that are also on their own journeys of connecting into Jewish heritage in a variety of ways. To be able to teach about and share this interesting and ancient plant that we have had a relationship with for so many generations is really beautiful and exciting, and it's an interesting door to lead me back into Jewish culture that's fun for me, and has no pressure: the plants don't judge me for what I do or don't know.

The seed project retreat itself was really a great treat for me, I felt very spoiled going there, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be able to go out and see so many new things. The Hudson Valley Farm Hub is a beautiful facility and so well resourced, it's amazing to see what a farm project could look like, and I look forward to seeing what other projects the Farm Hub seeds and helps establish and put out into the world. It was very inspiring to see all these different facets of the Farm Hub, and what they support. It was really great meeting so many other Jewish farmers and seeing how different people connect in. It was really interesting to learn about these plants historically, and written down all those thousands of years ago, and be able to have theological discussions today with that content. 

It was amazing how safe I felt. I didn't realize that it was going to be such a beautifully diverse group of people of aligned folks, and that made me feel really safe and happy. The facilitation was held very well, everything flowed very nicely. The hosts were gracious, the food was delicious, and it feels very welcoming and exciting to be invited to be part of more collaboration and organizing in the future.

Ida Aronson

September 9, 2025

Raccoon Oak Farm

https://raccoonoakfarm.carrd.co/