JCC, synagogue to share produce fresh from the farm

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

Susan Kraham, an attorney from Maplewood, has made a career of preserving farmland in New Jersey through the Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic. Still, the Oheb Shalom Congregation member and mother of three has never introduced her love for the land into her private life, especially when she volunteers for the Jewish community. The disconnect struck her over the last couple of months, she told NJ Jewish News.

“I realized I wanted the opportunity to cross over and make the environmental work I do more overt in my volunteer Jewish work.” So she contacted Hazon, a Jewish environmental organization headquartered in New York and known for its environmental bike rides.

That’s when she found out that New Jersey’s first Jewish CSA, or community supported agriculture project, was about to be launched in West Orange through a joint effort of Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston and the Leon and Toby Cooperman JCC in West Orange. The West Orange CSA, known as Tuv Ha’Aretz, or “good for the land,” will partner will a local organic farmer, John Krueger, of Starbright Farms in Stillwater near the Delaware Water Gap. Kraham signed on to coordinate logistics of distributing organic produce to those who sign on as CSA “shareholders.”

The community-supported agriculture movement in the United States began on two East Coast farms in 1986. In general, participants buy shares in a farm. As the produce is harvested through the summer and into the fall, it is distributed among the shareholders.

As of 1999, the movement had grown to include over 1,000 CSA farms, according to a survey at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Jewish CSA initiative is the brainchild of Nigel Savage, Hazon’s founder; it was implemented last summer at Congregation Ansche Chesed in Manhattan. The West Orange effort marks the second Jewish CSA.

Tuv Ha’Aretz adds a Jewish twist to CSAs. “What we want to do is create a CSA that, like all CSAs, is really good for the land,” said Savage. “But [this CSA] comes from the Jewish community and builds Jewish community and gives us a chance to do some good Jewish education for the Jewish community.”

It also offers participants the opportunity to do the mitzva of payot, or leaving the corners of the field for the poor: when participants are away on vacation and do not arrange for someone else to pick up their shares, they will be donated to the poor.

While additional programs will ultimately be determined by the participants, Jill Kaplan, assistant director of the MetroWest Jewish Health and Healing Center at the JCC, suggested that some possibilities include cooking Shabbat dinner together using the produce; studying texts on Judaism and the environment; even having a field trip to the farm.

Seed money for the Tuv Ha’Aretz project at Hazon came from the organization’s annual environmental bike rides. In fact, the bike ride is how the West Orange JCC got involved. Eric Robbins, the JCC’s associate executive director, heard about it while participating in the ride last year, thought it would work well here, and spoke with Savage about it.

Meanwhile, Natalie Mauskopf, a member of Temple B’nai Abraham, came up with the idea independently while spearheading a number of other environmental initiatives at the synagogue. Before she had the chance to take her idea to the next level, the JCC learned of her work and contacted her to suggest combining their efforts. Initially, she acknowledged, she had “mixed feelings,” until she realized the JCC wanted to take the program in the same direction she did.

At a March 29 meeting at the JCC, Mauskopf, Kraham, Savage, Kaplan, and Krueger spent about an hour providing information and answering questions posed by 25 attendees. For $485 for members of either the JCC or Temple B’nai Abraham and $495 for non-members, participants receive organic produce from the farm for 20 weeks beginning in June. Participation is limited to 40 shareholders this year.

A list of produce received last summer by another area CSA using Starbright Farms reads like a horn of plenty. While the first week offered one bok choy, one head lettuce, one bunch of spinach, garlic, and an oregano plant, by mid-August the offerings had grown significantly to include three different kinds of tomatoes, basil, celery , beets, green beans, garlic, zucchini, green pepper, cucumber, yellow squash, cabbage, and potatoes. The produce wound down in late November last year with a final delivery consisting of greens, radishes, leeks, winter squash, carrots, broccoli, turnips, and parsnips.

“I think it’s really neat,” said Kreuger. “People put so much emphasis on the Creator, but they often don’t seem to have so much respect for creation. If they believe in that, they should believe in protecting creation. They are really one.”

For more information, contact Jill Kaplan at 973-736-3200 ext. 216 or jkaplan@jccmetrowest.org.

Johanna Ginsberg can be reached at jginsberg@njjewishnews.com.