Did you know that Metro Detroit is at the forefront of both the urban agriculture movement (and here) and the Jewish food movement? In 2000, there were about 80 farms within Detroit city limits; in 2016 the number soared to an amazing 1,400 urban farms in Detroit. Detroit’s number of black urban farmers is growing, and cooperation with Jewish organizations such as Hazon and the Isaac Agee Downtown synagogue, is on the uptick. Here is a nice reflection on this cooperation by rabbinic student and Hazon fellow Zoe McCoon.
The Jewish food movement connects food accessibility, eating, cooking and sustainable agriculture with Jewish tradition. For 3,000 years, Judaism has been encouraging us to think critically about the food we eat, the land our food comes from, and the ways our food choices affect the health of our community and our planet. Hazon organizes from the principle that the more people are able to understand their own relationship to food and land, and simultaneously, to Jewish tradition, the more they will engage in creating healthier and more sustainable communities for all. Hazon does this by building connections and relationships between farmers, entrepreneurs, farm workers, consumers, distributors, rabbis, Jewish leaders, business leaders, and other faith leaders.
On Sunday August 27th, Hazon Detroit will sponsor the 2nd Annual Michigan Jewish Food Festival.
The Festival will be at Eastern Market and will run from 11am-4pm. Carpools will be meeting at East side of Arborland Sunday at 9:45am, leaving at 10am. RSVP to Idelle hammond_sass@msn.com, or Martha marthakransdo@umic.edu.
Last year, 5,000 people came to the first Michigan Jewish food festival This year’s event will bring together over 60 Jewish organizations and more than 60 food entrepreneurs and food justice organizations to share traditions and to build relationships.
You will be able to meet and learn from chefs
- Joan Nathan
- The Gefilteria’s Liz Alpern
- Taste of Ethiopia’s Meskem Gebreyohannes
There will be speakers and demos on:
- Jewish Ethics and Eating Meat;
- Water Issues from Flint, Detroit and Southeast Michigan
- Detroit and Regional Food Policy and Food Sovereignty
- Demo tent for hands-on learning and skill sharing
- Single Flower Honey Tasting
- Making your own Herbal Teas for Health
- Oral History Story Booth (on the Topsy Turvy Bus) where immigration and food stories will be recorded by the Jewish Historical Society of Michigan and the Leonard N. Simons Jewish Community Archive.
- Plus lots of activities for kids, free guided walking tours of the Eastern Market, music, and a health area sponsored in part by Henry Ford Medical Systems.
On Sunday, September 25 the Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice (ICPJ) is hosting the 42nd Annual Washtenaw/Ann Arbor CROP Hunger. ICPJ has organized this 5k charitable walk since 1974, raising a total of $3.2 million over the decades. Last year Washtenaw County walkers raised $48,500, with about 300 walkers participating.
On Saturday evening January 23, AARC visiting rabbi Michael Strassfeld led about 60 people on a ritual journey through the mystical four worlds of the Kabbalists, exploring the different qualities of each world and our relationship to them. The Tu B’Shevat seder, modeled loosely after the Passover seder, was created by the mystics of S’fad in the 16th century, but the original holiday itself grew out of ancient tithing, and later was associated with planting trees in Israel and caring for the land.
