After a few years of visioning,
brainstorming and time on the land, the Bela Farm Creative Team is pleased to
share the following details with you so that you can better understand the
values and intentions that will inform, inspire and motivate the design, public
programs and artisinal products that will make up Bela Farm.
Bela Farm is a centre for sustainable,
land-based Judaism located an hour northwest of Toronto in rural Ontario.
This one-hundred acre farm produces organic fruits, vegetables, and value-added
products, offers a full season of public educational programs, merges
nature-based art with experimental agriculture, and serves as a laboratory for
creative responses to global environmental crisis. A project of Shoresh, the
design, goals and activities of Bela Farm are rooted in Jewish values and
practices and open to all.
Bela
Farm Core Values
Through its landscape design, public
programs, products, and working process, Bela Farm will model new ways of
approaching longstanding Jewish and global concerns. As Jews have
throughout history, we emphasize the Jewish laws and ethical principles that
help us to respond to the pressing problems of our time.
1.
Healing the Earth /
Healing Ourselves: Bela Farm offers a new
interpretation of tikkun olam for the
twenty-first century. Using permaculture principles, we observe, respect,
and encourage what grows in the particular soil and climate of our farm. We aim
to nourish and heal the land and in turn reap sustenance for our bodies, minds,
and souls and those of our larger community.
2.
Wandering Home:
Bela Farm offers a new perspective on diaspora
Jewish life in our contemporary context. In the face of climate change,
we recognize that all parts of creation are fundamentally interconnected and
interdependent. Bela Farm celebrates both the productive potential of
wandering and the urgent importance of connecting to the land on which we live.
3.
Holy Land / Sacred
Table: Activities at Bela Farm model the organic connection
between environmental ethics and the ways in which we grow, prepare, eat and
share our food. We explore biblical agricultural laws, unearthing
ancient wisdom we can use to develop innovative twenty-first century farming
practices and a land-based approach to tzedakah.
We produce food that is kosher,
in the fullest meaning of this term.
4.
Nature Time / Jewish
Time: At Bela Farm, we attend closely to the
intersections between Jewish time – Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh, the holiday calendar – and “nature” time. We
plant both annual and perennial crops, animate our holiday rituals by
recognizing their connections to the seasons and the land, and celebrate the
phases of the moon and the sun. Along with Jews around the world, we are
working to restore the ancient cycle of shmitah
(sabbatical) as a model for sustainable attitudes toward land-use and
economy.
5.
Community:
At Bela Farm, we believe in the power of the shared meal. We aim to educate,
nourish, and inspire a broad and inclusive community and to foster an effective
multi-faith environmental and social justice movement. We encourage visitors
and participants from diverse Jewish and non-Jewish backgrounds, consciously
designing our programs to offer multiple ways of encountering both the land and
Jewish values and practices.
Bela
Farm Activities
Bela
Farm is a work-in-progress. We plan to be fully operational by 2016.
In 2013, we will be planting the Perennial Meadow and expanding our series of
public programs.
Spaces
The
Perennial Meadow: This beautiful two-acre meadow
will be a demonstration site for innovative agriculture, an art installation,
and a space for wandering, discovery, and education about the core values of
Bela Farm. The spiritual, ethical, and aesthetic heart of the property,
it will serve as a space of revelation which opens out on to the practical
spaces of work. At one end is the restored barn, which will include
offices and workshop space for farm development. At the other end is a
gateway to the farm proper.
The
Farm: The 100-acre farm will include fruit
trees, berry patches, grain crops, a varied market garden, chickens (for eggs
and meat), goats (for dairy), beehives, fields for hay and pasture, and a few
fields for rental to neighboring farmers. We are committed to restoration
of native forest and grasslands on the property where possible. In
addition to the necessary outbuildings to support these activities, the farm
will also include a commercial kitchen, a house for the farm manager, offices
for Bela Farm staff, housing for interns, and various spaces for programming.
Programs
Farm
Internship: We intend to offer a seasonal
internship program for those interested in pursuing in-depth learning about
sustainable agriculture, artisanal food production, and intentional Jewish
living and learning, while deepening their commitment to the core values of
Bela Farm.
Community
Programs: We offer an annual calendar of events
open to the community. These will include programs such as our annual
Sukkot harvest festival, learning sessions throughout the year, and multi-day
retreats (for work and study).
Products
Artisanal
Kosher Products: We intend to produce a line of value-added
products from the crops and livestock of Bela Farm. These will include
baked goods, jams and preserves, pickles, and goat milk yogurt and cheese.
All products will be produced according to laws of kashrut. Our kitchen
will be regularly open for inspection for those interested in understanding
more about our kosher process. These products will be distributed through
farmers’ markets, specialized retail outlets, and through a CSA program
described below.
Holiday
CSA: We envision a CSA subscription program
that will follow and support the Jewish holiday cycle. This CSA will be
offered as a supplement to the Jewish CSAs already operating in the city, and
will also be offered as a stand-alone option for congregations, JCCs and Day
Schools in the Greater Toronto Area.
Bela
Farm Creative Team
Mati
Cooper: Mati is
currently teaching at Montessori Jewish Day School in Toronto, where he helps
organize greening initiatives such as their sensorial and mixed vegetable
gardens. Mati is
a former Educator and Program Coordinator at the Teva Learning Alliance.
In Israel, Mati apprenticed at Chava v'Adam Educational Farm and
participated in the Eco-Activist Beit Midrash at Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo.
Risa
Alyson Cooper: Risa
completed her B.A. Honours at Queen’s University in Comparative Religious
Studies, and her M.A. at the Centre for the Study of Religion at the University
of Toronto, focusing on Contemporary Jewish Environmental Ethics. Upon
graduating, Risa moved to rural Connecticut where she worked as a Jewish
environmental educator at the Teva Learning Centre for three
years. She then transitioned into small-scale organic farming as a member
of the Adamah Jewish Farming Fellowship where she grew vegetables on
a four-acre farm, worked in a raw goat-milk dairy, and dabbled in the art of
fermentation. In 2008, Risa returned to her native Toronto to work as the
Executive Director of Shoresh and to establish the Kavanah Garden,
bringing together her experience in Jewish outdoor education with her love for
Canadian soil and the plants and people that it sustains.
Sabrina
Malach: Sabrina is
Director of Community Outreach for Shoresh. She participated in the Adamah
Fellowship in 2005, graduated from the Eco-Activist Beit Midrash in
Jerusalem in 2006, and worked as the program assistant for Hazon from
2006-2007. Upon returning to Toronto, she helped to create and grow
food for the Kavanah CSA as a farming intern at the Cutting Veg Organic Farm
and founded The Pollinators Festival at Evergreen Brick Works before taking up
her current position with Shoresh.
Andrea
Most: Andrea is
Associate Professor of American Literature and Jewish Studies at the University
of Toronto. A local food activist, Andrea headed the Core Group for the
Everdale Community Supported Agriculture program at the First Narayever
Congregation for six years. She has been Co-Chair of the Narayever Food
Committee and the lead organizer of the First Narayever’s Sustainable Food
Initiative since 2009, and has served as a member of the Hazon Food Council
since 2011. She is a founding Board member of Shoresh and one of the main
organizers of Shoresh’s Jewish Food Conference. Her current research
project, Holy Lands, focusses on the
pastoral dreams of diaspora Jews in the 20th and 21st century.
Rochelle
Rubinstein: Rochelle
is the owner of the two adjacent properties that make up Bela Farm. A
Toronto-based printmaker, painter, fabric and book artist, Rochelle is also a
community arts facilitator and curator of Mon Ton Window Gallery.
Bela Farm Friends and Advisors
Fred Cox: Fred has farmed one of the two properties that make up
Bela Farm for the last 40 years. He is a wealth of information about the
history of the land itself and the community of Hillsburgh.
Gavin Dandy: Gavin is the Director of Everdale Organic Farm
and Environmental Learning Centre, located just a few minutes north of Bela
Farm. Gavin is very excited about the partnership potential between
Everdale and Bela Farm is helping Shoresh to develop Bela Farm’s first edible
food forest.
Marc Levy: Local handyman and Shoresh volunteer extraordinaire!
Gary Lichtblau: Gary is a Toronto-based architect who is passionate
about sustainable design. Gary’s role on the advisory council is to
advise about the different structures at Bela Farm.
Gail Oliver: As the editor and publisher of Edible Toronto, Gail is
extremely connected with the local food movement in Toronto and its surrounding
areas. Gail lives on a farm around the corner from Bela Farm.
Shamu Sadeh: Shamu is the Director of Adamah and a mentor to the
Shoresh leadership team. Adamah is currently in the third year of
developing their edible food forest on Kaplan Family Farm in rural Connecticut.
Stephen Scharper: Stephen is an Associate Professor at the Centre for
the Environment at the University of Toronto. Stephen’s research centres
on faith communities and environmental ethics.
