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ABOUT
JEWISH FARMER NETWORK
Beginnings
The Jewish Farmer Network started with a conversation.
Thirteen Jewish farmers sat in a circle during the 2016 Hazon Food Conference at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Connecticut. The gathering was impromptu – it wasn't even on the schedule.
We expressed the beauty of this vocation, the deeply felt connection between our heritage and our chosen profession the two combining to form a singular way of living. Each of us expressed the desire for connection with other Jewish growers, giving voice to the feeling of aloneness despite the apparent reality that there are many Jews working land throughout the world.
At the final meal of the conference, New Years Day 2017, Shani Mink & SJ Seldin created the Facebook Group, "Jewish Farmer Network." In two days, we reached two hundred members.
In September 2017, we launched our Instagram, where we feature the faces and stories of Jewish farmers around the world.
Our first conference, Cultivating Culture: A Gathering of Jewish Farmers, was a sold-out celebration by 160+ Jewish farmers and farm allies from February 13-16, 2020 at the Pearlstone Center near Baltimore, Maryland. We learned Jewish agricultural wisdom and practical farm skills, grew relationships, and celebrated Shabbat with Jewish farmers from across the spectrum of Jewish identity, experience, and observance.
In May 2020, we began offering the Jews and Land Study Group, which explores the relationship between Jewish people and land from our origins through to the modern day.
People
Join Jewish Farmer Network
We are a community of Jewish farmers and food system professionals from around the world working to integrate ancient Jewish agricultural wisdom into our lives. Together, we are building a community where every part of your identity is welcome; leave nothing at the door.
Long ago, our agrarian ancestors codified a calendar of holidays that reflected both their storied history and the agricultural movements of the seasons. After thousands of years of diaspora, displacement, persecution and exile, much of the Jewish community regards the agricultural tenants of the Jewish tradition as mere metaphor. We are bringing this rich body of wisdom back to life in the fields of our farmers.
Shani Mink (she/her)
Co-founder | Executive Director
Shani Mink is a seasoned farmer, experiential Jewish educator and the executive director of the Jewish Farmer Network. For over a decade Shani has been working on farms up and down the east coast and abroad as a field hand, educator, manager and consultant including stints at Even’ Star Organic Farm, the Arava Institute, Hava V’Adam, Eden Village Camp, Adamah, and the Pearlstone Center. Her work with the land has deepened her spiritual path, and the wisdom of the Jewish tradition has lent endless meaning and intention to her work as a farmer. Shani’s desire to share the depth and beauty of the connection between farming and Judaism led her to co-found the Jewish Farmer Network with SJ Seldin in 2017. The cultivation of this network is Shani's proudest accomplishment to date.
Liel Green (they/them)
Network Coordinator
Liel Green first began farming in high school as part of Growing Youth Organizers, a coalition of young people committed to ending food apartheid and providing political education for all ages. They graduated from Smith College with a degree in Jewish Studies, the Study of Women and Gender, and a Five College Certificate in Queer, Trans, and Sexuality Studies where they completed their thesis project on Queer-Jewish Futurity and Shabbat. Liel has worked as a Jewish Educator and Farmer at Abundance Farm, as a co-director of Rowe Young People’s Camp, and as a crew member on Astarte Farm. They live in Western MA (occupied Nipmuc and Pocumtuc land) where they are involved in different mutual aid projects, the Great Falls Books Through Bars Collective, and love to create big art with friends.
Board
Vision
We are building a world in which Jewish farmers are not regarded as an oxymoron or a curiosity, but rather, as valued community members with a unique connection to Judaism's ancient technologies for building a more just and regenerative food system for all.
We envision a world in which all Jewish individuals and communities have access to farms and gardens that connect them to both the agricultural roots of Judaism and the timeless food justice principles contained therein.
We envision a world in which any Jewish individual with the desire to both live a land-based life and be a part of Jewish community life has the technical, economic, social, and cultural resources to do so.
We envision a world of social and ecological justice, where life in all forms is honored. We envision a world in which Jewish Farmers are a collaborative force for the collective liberation of all land and all peoples.
Staff
Lily Chaleff
Board Member
Lily Chaleff has worked in non-profit food justice work since 2015, spearheading food security networks, farm to school programming, urban ag growing sites, and equitable organizational structures. As a person raised in an assimilated American Jewish experience, she sees allyship work, especially to newly relocating communities seeking land and food access, and a part of our collective ancestral lineage work. Lily is an herbalist, loves to cook, and spend time in nature. She has farmed throughout the years and has a certificate in permaculture design. She is excited to bring her organizational skills, food and land systems knowledge, and energy for reclaiming the intersection of jewish practice and food systems to the board of the Jewish Farmer’s Network!
Risa Alyson Cooper (she/her)
Board Member
Risa Alyson Cooper is an outdoor educator, environmentalist, and urban homesteader. For 13 years, she served as the Founding Executive Director of Shoresh exploring Jewish traditions in the fields and forests of southern Ontario. She is a founding partner of Bela Farm, a 100-acre farm in Hillsburgh, Ontario that is being jointly stewarded by growers, artists, activists, and educators to develop creative responses to environmental crisis through integrative and regenerative agriculture. Risa currently lives in Toronto/Tkaronto with her partner, Mati, and their children, Ayda and Gavi. Risa believes that growing food sustainably is an expression of her deeply-rooted Jewish ethics and her favourite vegetable is the beet.
Hannah Henza (she/her)
Board Chair
Hannah Henza is a Jewish environmentalist with a lifelong commitment to sustainability and leaving the world better than she found it. Hannah currently serves as a Development Officer at VentureWell working to support start-ups and early-stage organizations. Prior to that she spent 5 years at Hazon: the Jewish Lab for Sustainability as a senior program manager. She has worked as an environmental educator and wilderness guide across the U.S. with nearly 15 years of experience in nonprofit program management and fundraising. She is an avid outdoors-woman and global explorer, spending as much time as she can outside with her husband Jack, and their two Siberian Huskies - Rocket and Kiva.
Beth Jacobs (beth/they)
Board Member
Beth is a queer and gender non-conforming white Ashkenazi Jew. They are an occasional farmer, a carnivorous plant lover, a reclaimer of Jewish ritual and song, and is devoted to joy. They got inspired to farm in 2011 while studying wildlife biology at University of California, Davis and participating in the Jewish Farm School spring break program when they began to put the Jewish and the agriculture pieces together. Their relationship to farming shifts and grows with each season. Beth is a Co-Director of JG3: Jacobs Grounded Guided Giving, a trans-feminist, anti-imperialist family collaboration building towards liberation in our lifetimes. They spend most of their work time redistributing wealth and organizing their class peers to grow their politics alongside their healing for a just and joyful world.
Marni Karlin (she/her)
Board Member
With over two decades of private, non-profit, and government experience, Marni Karlin is a recognized leader passionate about creating a more sustainable agriculture system. She received her B.A. from The George Washington University, her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a certificate in global organic leadership from the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements Organic Leadership Academy. Marni clerked on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals; practiced law; and was counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee. She pivoted to agriculture as VP of Government Affairs and General Counsel for the Organic Trade Association; North American representative to the Global Organic Textile Standard; and USDA’s Senior Advisor on Organic and Emerging Markets, advising the Secretary on how to build a more resilient, climate-smart, and equitable food system. Currently, Marni consults on strategies for developing healthier food systems.
Rabbi Philip Ohriner (he/him)
Board Member
Philip Ohriner is the co-founder of Ma’alot Farms—a non-profit, regenerative farm providing produce and eggs to those facing food insecurity in Silicon Valley. Prior to embracing an intentional, homesteading lifestyle, Philip served as a congregational rabbi for close to a decade. Philip is passionate about family, friendship, food, and community building. On the farm, Philip’s most treasured role is shepherding alongside his pack of livestock guardian dogs. Together, they protect and care for the flocks of poultry and herds of goats that provide Ma’alot Farms meat, cheese, eggs, butter, and milk, as well as the nutrients to regenerate our soil. When Philip isn’t with the herd you can find him powerlifting in the garage, usually with a dog “helping”.
SJ Seldin (she/her)
Co-Founder | Board Member
SJ is a co-founder and steward-in-residence of Yesod Farm+Kitchen, a Jewish community farm near Asheville, North Carolina, dedicated to collective liberation with the land through Jewish agriculture, mutual aid, and growing relationships across difference. In between adventures into the woods and waterways, they studied socio-economic injustice at UNC Chapel Hill. Since graduating, they have been traveling through America's side streets and byways, growing organic produce for donation at educational farms and community gardens, and consulting with organic businesses and community agriculture non-profits. SJ believes that Jewish agricultural wisdom offers modern farmers and stewards compelling questions, tools, and technologies for creating more just and regenerative communities for all.
Wendy Rhein (she/her)
Board Member
Wendy Rhein is a nonprofit professional with more than 30 years of experience in the fields of development, philanthropy, board engagement, and overall nonprofit administration. Throughout her career, Wendy has served as Chief of Staff for the World Food Programme USA and UNICEF USA; Chief Philanthropy Officer for the Legal Services Corporation; Chief Strategy & Engagement Officer for the Points of Light Foundation, and other roles that enabled her to contribute to missions that change lives. In 2010 Wendy launched Rhein Resources, a nonprofit consulting company that specializes in supporting new and emerging nonprofit organizations reach new levels of growth and excellence. When not working Wendy is a farmer, writer, and food preservation advocate.
Gavi Weibel (she/they)
Board Member
Gavi is a young farmer and co-founder of Zumwalt Acres: A Regenerative Agriculture Community located in Sheldon, Illinois on unceded homeland of Kickapoo, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Potawatomi, Myaamia, and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ peoples. They are passionate about environmental justice, their research in soil carbon sequestration, and baking sourdough bread.Gavi believes that the environmental and agrarian undertones of Jewish commandments and customs should not be seen as auxiliary, but necessary to fully understand and celebrate our tradition. She is excited to help build a future of Jewish farming that catalyzes a commitment from Jewish communities to tend to the earth, to address climate change, and to take care of one another.
Ben Weinberg
Board Member
Two threads have been consistent throughout Ben's life: technology and food. His career has been in technology startups as a product leader and founder. He's also spent years learning about growing food, from volunteering for diversified ag programs to participating in community agroforestry projects and replacing hundreds of invasive trees from his back yard with natives and fruit trees. Ben is drawn to unifying human experiences, whether it's exploring mortality or how food gets to our plates. In his free time, you can find him composting, cooking meals for friends, or playing in his garden.
