A Southern Jewish Farmer?!

But perhaps the biggest gift of all is that my Jewish farming journey pointed me back home to the South, and made me long to put down roots in the place that, as a Jewish teenager, I could not wait to leave. As Jews of diaspora, we have so much healing work to do around putting down roots. I see us feel the pull to leave a place (mentally or physically) when things get hard – after all, there have been times in our history when it has been necessary to uproot. I’ve seen this tendency play out in my own life; I have transplanted myself many, many times, searching for the place that felt just right or the most exciting or the most like home or just…safe, for me. Where was my forever place, my forever people?

When I came to the Jewish farming community at Adamah after that Google search, I felt myself come home in new way. And I knew that my mission was to stay long enough in that place that I could carry a Jewish home within myself, and bring it with me back to my own homeland of North Carolina. 

Jewish farming also taught me what it meant to get to know a particular piece of land, and see it change over the seasons and the years, and to learn to steward an eco-system over time. For the first time, I longed to choose a place and stay and see what I could build.

Finding home is about deciding to belong enough to put down roots, and being brave enough to rely on the ecosystem of relationships around us as we figure out our own essential role. Building trust in community to tend to each other if the waters rise, the temperatures drop, or things start to heat up.

The South is where I grew up. My family is here. This is my home, and I choose it. I’m ready to see what can grow in more than a season, more than a few seasons. I’m ready to put down deep roots and see what blossoms.

Learn more about One Soil Farm, and contribute to our Farmraiser to help us build a permanent home for our Southern Jewish Community farm: onesoilfarm.com/donate