Eden Village Camp is a living model of a thriving, inspired, sustainable Jewish community, grounded in social responsibility and vibrant spiritual life. It is not a place where campers retreat from the world, but one that allows them to more powerfully step into the world. EVC creates a fun, safe and inclusive space for young people to be themselves – to learn, grow and explore their true gifts and passions. As campers gain both technical skills like outdoor living and social skill sets like learning to thrive in community, they deepen their sense of personal purpose, contribution and Jewish identity. The camp offers an immersive education in Jewish values that provides a context for making choices and taking action. Campers consider and express those values through activities like hands-on farming, hiking, arts, contemplation and service to others, which simultaneously transforms them and changes the world.

Adamah connects people to their roots, to the land, to community, to Judaism, and to themselves by providing educational programs and products in order to build a more sustainable world.

Programs at Adamah integrate physical, social, spiritual, Jewish and ecological realms in order to inspire participants to a life of service – to the Jewish community and to the earth. We emphasize hands-on experience and peer leadership to empower participants with skills and confidence to make a difference, and we offer positive ways to connect to the core Jewish principles of awe and gratitude, which inspire participants well after they leave.

Adamah is unique in its natural setting, its experience of intentional community, its ecological vision and holistic approach, its integration of hands-on activities and text study, and its teaching of Jewish values through sustainable agriculture. Adamah is also the largest, most established Jewish educational farm in North America.

Adamah is a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center.

The Teva Learning Center, North America’s foremost Jewish Environmental Education Institute, is a non-denominational educational service for participants from throughout the Jewish community. Working with Jewish Day Schools, Congregational Schools, synagogues, camps and youth groups, Teva’s programs touch the lives of 6,000 participants annually.

Thousands of students from Community, Conservative, Orthodox and Reform Jewish Day Schools throughout the Northeast have been transformed by their Teva experiences. We take pride in the diversity of our participants and in our flexibility to meet the unique needs of each group. We will work with you to create a program that addresses your logistical and educational concerns, regardless of your denominational affiliation or philosophical perspective.

The Jewish Farm School is an environmental education organization with a mission to practice and promote sustainable agriculture and to support food systems rooted in justice and Jewish traditions. Aspirations of the Jewish Farm School are driven by the traditions of using food as a tool for social justice and spiritual mindfulness. Through its programs, the Jewish Farm School addresses the injustices embedded in today’s mainstream food systems and works to create greater access to sustainably grown foods, produced from a consciousness of both ecological and social well being.

The Jewish Farm School currently runs a wide range of programs around the US, including service-learning trips for college students, workshops for educators, and an urban sustainability series in Philadelphia. JFS is partnering with Eden Village Camp in creating an organic educational farm in the Hudson Valley, which is a living laboratory of sustainability and education. Finally, JFS Cooperative Design, the consulting wing of the organization, designs and implements Jewish educational gardens at institutions throughout the greater New York area. More information about JFS is available online at jewishfarmschool.org.

Check out this clip from CBS News featuring Jewish Farm School

American Jewish World Service (AJWS)’s Hunger Campaign, Fighting Hunger from the Ground Up works to empower local farmers so that they can create sustainable, long-term solutions to alleviate hunger in communities throughout Asia, Africa and the Americas. By implementing new farming techniques, better production and distribution methods, and by organizing agricultural cooperatives and opening new markets, AJWS-supported projects deliver vital technical and material resources to families and communities. As part of this campaign, AJWS urges the U.S. government and the international community to promote local food production as a basic principle of economic security. AJWS recognizes that “Without sustenance, there is no Torah” and uses the campaign to harness the collective energy of the American Jewish community to make a difference

While one out of six Americans (including a quarter of all kids under six ) does not have access to healthy fresh food at their food pantry, 40 million Americans grow food in home gardens… often more than they can use, preserve or give to friends. It does not have to be that way. The AmpleHarvest.org Campaign is a national effort that enables these gardeners to easily donate their excess harvest to one of 3,609 currently (as of May 2011) registered local food pantries spread across all 50 states.

Located in southern Israel, the Arava Institute is a regional teaching and resource center for environmental leadership and Jewish-Arab cooperation. The Institute’s academic program typically brings 35-45 university-aged Israelis, Jordanians, Palestinians and North Americans to live, work and study together over the course of one or two semesters. The intimacy afforded by the program provides a unique opportunity for Jews and Arabs to truly get to know each other, and time and again, students leave the Arava Institute having formed lasting friendships that see them through their professional lives as environmental advocates in the region.

B’nai Jeshurun is a passionate Jewish community that inspires spiritual searching, lifts the soul, challenges the mind, and requires social responsibility and action. We strive to experience and express God’s presence as we study, pray, and serve together. We are unified yet diverse and explore the living tension between tradition and progress. We carry out deeds of loving-kindness, foster a meaningful relationship with Israel, and participate in serious dialogue and collaboration with Jewish people and people of other faiths to heal the world.

This grant will support the development of a food justice course at RRC that will be incorporated into RRC’s broader social justice leadership concentration. The course will be comprised of three elements: (1) understanding the broad policy context for food-justice issues in Philadelphia (particularly the access to fresh, healthy food in urban areas), (2) understanding Jewish tradition and perspectives around justice and food, and (3) connecting students to hands-on community learning through service projects with Philadelphia non-profit organizations working on food justice. Through the course, rabbinical students will be better equipped to step into leadership regarding food justice issues in the Jewish communities they will serve in the future. Also, the course can become a model for similar food-justice courses that could be taught in other Jewish educational contexts. Hazon mini-grant funding will support the work of a social justice intern to organize course materials, develop the service-learning component of the course, and summarize current food justice efforts taking place in Philadelphia.

Yiddish Farm is laying the foundation for a Yiddish-speaking intentional community on a farm in upstate New York. Our Yiddish-immersion organic farming program is being piloted in August 2011. This program helps native and non-native Yiddish speakers to learn sustainable agriculture, improve their Yiddish, and develop deep friendships with other Yiddish speakers.