Programs
We have two broad program areas: outdoor physical challenges (especially bike rides) and food-related work.
Outdoor Physical Challenges
Rides
Hikes
Future Projects
Food-Related Work
Outdoor Physical Challenges
Rides
The New York Jewish Environmental Bike Ride
The NY Ride was founded in 2001. It takes place each year over Labor Day Weekend. The Ride is a powerful transformational experience in its own right - bringing people together across difference to learn, celebrate, and challenge themselves physically. And it raises money to support Hazon's year-round work, and the work of many of our partner organizations here and in Israel. Read more.
The California Bike Ride
The inaugural CA Ride will take place this May in Northern California. We are excited to bring to the West Coast the joy, challenge, learning and celebration characteristic of Hazon's multi-day rides. The Ride raises money to support Hazon's year-round work, and the work of partner organizations chosen by the Hazon community. Read more.
Arava Institute Hazon Israel Ride: Cycling for Peace, Partnership & Environmental Protection
The Israel Ride was founded in 2003. It takes place each year in November. The Ride enables people who've been to Israel many times the chance to see the country from a unique vantage point - the seat of a bicycle! It brings people to Israel who've never visited Israel before, builds relationships among American Jews, and between Israelis and Americans, and raises significant funds to support the work of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and for Hazon. Read more.
Torah Trek
TorahTrek retreat combines backcountry hiking with traditional and innovative Jewish practice. Read more.
DC Jewish Environmental Bike Ride
Earth Day 2007 saw the first DC Ride and brought together 82 riders and crew from the DC, Virginia and Maryland Jewish communities to raise $40,000 towards environmental projects in the DC area. Read more.
Bike to the Beach
Hazon's annual day of biking and beach lounging! Starting from multiple locations and riding to Coney Island for a party on the beach, it's the perfect summer fun (and free!) activity for friends and family. Read more.
New York Training Rides
Hazon Training Rides are free, fun rides of varying lengths and difficulty. We ride in New York City, Brooklyn, and New Jersey, all summer long. Training Rides are a great way to find out what Hazon is all about, meet people who are going on the NY Ride, connect with old friends you met on a previous ride, and explore new places…by bike! Read more.
Future Rides
JBike
We’re in the process of launching JBike, an online Jewish cycling network that will be a national clearinghouse for ideas and events, expose more Jewish cyclists to trips, ideas, events, and ways to enjoy cycling, and promote cycling in the Jewish community in general, both in the US and in Israel. Read more.
Cross-USA Ride
In 2000 Hazon ran a successful Cross-USA Bike Ride. 11 riders stopped at Jewish communities along the way to raise awareness about cycling and the environment.
Warsaw-Tel Aviv Ride
Food-Related Work
Hazon CSA : Hazon's Community-Supported Agriculture Project
Like organized bike rides, CSAs have existed for 20 years, but Hazon is the first organization that has created a CSA program that will have Jewish as well as ecological impact. Community-Supported Agriculture is a co-operative agreement between a farmer and a group of urban members where members pay in advance for a share of a farmer's produce for the season. The arangement guarantees members fresh (often picked the same day!) organic produce, while supporting local farmers and sustainable agriculture.
Hazon CSA was the first Jewish Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program in North America. The 41 Hazon CSAs which span the United States, Canada and Israel, give members the opportunity to put their purchasing power behind local, sustainable farms while deepening their connection to where their food comes from, and doing so within a context of Jewish community and learning. Read more.
Min Ha'Aretz
Min Ha’Aretz is a three-part family education initiative for Jewish day schools comprised of a curriculum for students, a related beit midrash for adults, and joint family-education programs.
Min Ha’Aretz uses food and Jewish tradition as focal points to create innovative programming for Jewish grade school children and their parents. It aims to strengthen intra-family conversations about food, Jewish tradition, and the world around us. Read more.
Food Conference
The Hazon Food Conference brings together participants from Tuv Ha'Aretz communities and our partner day schools, as well as educators, food lovers, farmers, home gardeners, nutritionists, rabbis, chefs, and community organizers from across the country to explore the intersections of Jewish tradition and contemporary food issues. The 4th annual Hazon Food Conference will take place December 24th to 27th in Monterey, California. Read more.
The Jew & The Carrot
Hazon’s award-winning blog “The Jew & The Carrot” at www.JCarrot.org serves as a front page for all of Hazon’s food work, bringing the discussions of food, Jewish life and contemporary issues to far reaching corners of the Jewish community. The Jew & The Carrot covers food news and politics, food celebrity interviews and resources to green your holidays and life. The Jew & The Carrot won awards for "Best New Blog" and "Best Kosher Food/Recipe Blog" in the 2007 Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards. Read more.
Education
Food Curriculum
Beit Midrash / Learning Community
Our pluralistic Beit Midrash, held annually since 2000, explores the synergy between Jewish tradition and the world in which we live. Participants learn from teachers and from each other in a variety of traditional and non-traditional ways, including chevruta study, text learning, art midrash, and body movement. Past topics include: Yetziat Mitzrayim, Adam V'Adamah, and How and What Should a Jew Eat?
Teaching, writing & consulting
We write, teach and consult in a variety of contexts. Hazon emails go out occasionally, on a wide range of issues. We assume that many people delete them unread; but we know from a wide range of feedback that many people enjoy our emails, and some have been distributed widely. (To join our email list, click here.)
In 2002/2003 Hazon consulted for the Commission on Jewish Identity and Renewal (CoJIR) of UJA-Federation of New York, to help CoJIR understand the Limmud conference in the UK, and to create a basis for creating an equivalent project in New York. From that consultation Limmud NY arose.
Fellowships
Hazon Fellows
Hazon Fellows hold full-time posts at Hazon, usually for one or two years, during which they will be involved in a wide range of Hazon's activities, and will have the opportunity to lead one or two specific Hazon projects. The intent of the Fellowship is to staff Hazon with outstanding young Jewish innovators and leaders, and to expose them, in a supportive environment, to more responsibility and direct leadership experience than would be the case in traditional Jewish organizations.
The first Hazon Fellow was Janice Simsohn. In her own words: "Being the first Hazon Fellow has been a privilege and a responsibility. There have also been individual highlights for me, such as going to the COEJL Conference in Malibu as a Hazon Fellow, or the learning we did together before Pesach about giving up chametz in our lives. But I think the highlight overall has been and will be the Bike-Ride. It's been incredibly hard work to organize, but it's taught me a lot, and the best is...knowing that I played a key role in making it all happen."
If you are graduating in May or June, have an outstanding record academically and in extracurricular activities, and would be interested in becoming a Hazon Fellow in the future, please get in touch with us. For more information, contact Nigel Savage at nigel@hazon.org.
Hazon Rabbinical Fellowship
Hazon's Rabbinical Fellowship affords an opportunity for an outstanding rabbinical student to work on one or more of our projects, integrating educational work and activism. Fellows work 10 hours a week during the academic year and then full-time in the following summer. This is a paid Fellowship. Fellows work with Hazon staff, volunteers and with the chair and members of our Rabbinical Advisory Board.
Hazon's first Rabbinical Fellow was Edie Meyerson.
Edie said of her Fellowship, "what I've most learned is that the rabbinical role in the non-profit world is really all-encompassing. What I've most enjoyed has been interacting with people across such an incredibly wide range of the Jewish spectrum. It's one of the things that's unique about Hazon. It sounds cliched, but I feel really honored to have been part of the Hazon community."
Hazon's second Rabbinical Fellow, in 5765 / 2004-5, was Arianna Silverman.
Hazon's third Rabbinical Fellow, in 5766 / 2005-6 was Jacob Fine.
Hazon's fourth Rabbinical Fellow in 5767 / 2006-7 is Jessica Marshall.
If you're a rabbinical student and would like to be involved in our work, please be in touch:
Rabbi Eric Solomon / rabbi@congregationtehillah.org
Nigel Savage / nigel@hazon.org
