In the Media

Laura Labovitz and Shawn Bernard run a working farm with many moving parts as they focus on healthy living and educating others.

A new generation goes back to the land, seeing new ways to connect to Judaism

On a hot, humid day in late August, Nahanni Rous joined a gathering at Linke Fligl, a queer Jewish chicken farm and cultural organizing project in New York's Hudson Valley. (Linke Fligl is a pun—Yiddish for "left wing.") For the past seven years, queer Jews have celebrated holidays, farmed, and built community on this ten-acre, off-the-grid piece of land

When K Greene, co-Founder of Hudson Valley Seed Company, started working at the Gardiner Library in 2004 to offset graduate school expenses, he never imagined the journey this seemingly impermanent position would take him.

In October 2021, Slow Food Denver co-hosted their first annual seed-saving event at Ekar Farm, an organization that serves as a “focal point for Denver’s Jewish community to come together around issues of food security, environmentalism, and urban farming,” and Spirit of the Sun, an “indigenous womxn-led nonprofit working to empower Native communities, one youth at a time.”

Un progetto di agricoltura, comunità ed ebraismo nel mondo rurale statunitense

In this episode, we speak with Jonathan Dekel-Chen about the long history of Jewish agricultural life. The episode traverses continents and centuries, describing Jewish farming from Abraham through the 21st century.

Wendy Rhein’s day begins at 5 am, when she wakes up, checks the weather and puts on her headlamp to bring a bag of kitchen food scraps to her two young Berkshire pigs. “From there, it’s usually off to the sheep, who hear me coming,” says Rhein...

For this month's episode, I had the privilege of speaking with one of the founders of The Jewish Farmer Network, Shani Mink. We got to talk about her intro to the outdoors, as well as what her relationship with the outdoors looks like now.

Cody Nicholson Stratton isn’t your average TikToker. Among the reported 1 billion users on the app, the Northern Californian farmer stands on his own as the Unorthodox Farm Daddy, which also happens to be his handle.

From biblical farming practices to ancient wayfaring, these communities are reviving their cultural traditions to sustain body, mind, and planet.

"North Carolina has been transformed by the labor, vision, and creativity of a new generation of immigrants, and nowhere is this more visible than in the state’s contemporary food economy."

Celebrating Jewish community around food and farming is a central focus at One Soil Farm

Jewish Farmer Network co-founders SJ Seldin and Shani Mink on the Judaism Unbound podcast!

"This paper pre­sents methodological findings and reflections from the initial stages of a participatory action research (PAR) collaboration led by the authors and JFN organizers centered on Cultivating Culture, JFN’s inaugural conference in February 2020. "

Being Jewish at Gann Farm is unlike being Jewish in a synagogue or classroom. It means muddied knees, singing in open air and connecting with the land — a chance for youth to do as their forebears did.

"Shani Mink wakes up at 7 a.m. and lets the chickens out of their coop... By noon she’s [inside for] office work for the Jewish Farmer Network..."

"Almost overnight, Hertzmark’s Migrash Farm, which produces certified kosher flour from grain grown in the Chesapeake Bay region, lost virtually his entire wholesale business after local restaurants and bakeries were shuttered by public health authorities. "

"As Shani Mink, executive director of the Jewish Farmer Network, put it, 'Before we were the people of the book, we were the people of the land.'"

"Last month, most Jews were forced to grapple with how to celebrate Passover in a time of quarantine and lockdown. "