ADAMAH:
Frequently Asked Questions
What draws people to the ADAMAH Fellowship?
There are as many reasons to come to ADAMAH as there are ADAMAHniks! Here are just a few:
- You know nothing about Judaism and are curious to learn more.
- You want to learn hands-on farming and sustainability skills.
- You are interested in learning about, participating in and advancing small-scale sustainable food businesses.
- You know a lot about Judaism and want exposure to an ecological, social justice-oriented, spiritual Judaism.
- You want to live in an intentional Jewish spiritual community.
- You feel the need to bring together your ecological life and your Jewish life.
- You want to grow and be grown as a leader.
- You want to try out living in a Jewish community.
- You want to develop skills for healing the world.
What is the community like?
ADAMAH Fellows live together in shared housing, work together, learn together, spend Shabbat and celebrate Jewish holidays together, and plant and harvest together. Living communally creates a myriad of rich learning opportunities for developing communication skills, appreciating differences, and resolving conflicts. Fellows are supported by the ADAMAH staff through community-building exercises, regular community meetings and other programs.
What is the relationship between ADAMAH and Isabella Freedman?
Fellows are integrated into the larger Isabella Freedman community in three ways: as teachers, community members and as institutional support. ADAMAH fellows lead educational programs for Freedman’s three primary client groups: senior adults during Freedman’s summer adult programs, elementary school students who participate in the Teva Learning Center, and Jews of all ages and affiliations who visit the retreat center during the summer and fall. Fellows may lead garden, farm and green facilities tours, prayer services or nature hikes. During special retreat programs (like High Holy Days), ADAMAH fellows are members of the larger spiritual community, learning and praying with Isabella Freedman staff and retreat guests. Adamah Fellows provide institutional support by working 10 hours a week in the kitchen, housekeeping and maintenance. This work is an important piece of ADAMAH’s financial sustainability as well as our integration with the larger staff community at Freedman.
What skills can I expect to learn at ADAMAH?
In the sadeh (field), fellows learn the techniques of organic vegetable production, including bed preparation, transplanting and direct seeding, mulching, hand and tool weeding, drip irrigation, foliar spray applications, tilling, and composting. Fellows learn proper harvesting and post-harvest handling techniques as they prepare vegetables for delivery to our CSA (community supported agriculture) in White Plains.
In the picklearium (our commercial food-processing kitchen) fellows learn hands-on how to make pickles, sauerkraut, jam, tomato sauce and other value-added food products. Working in the picklearium provides an opportunity for fellows to learn about sustainable farm business and food preservation on a small commercial scale.
In the greenhouse, fellows learn to seed and care for the young vegetable plants, as well as the basics of saving seeds from open-pollinated crops. Fellows learn animal husbandry skills while taking care of our milking goats and laying hens.
- On the Kaplan Family Farm (our newly acquired land), fellows are exposed to permaculture design and application in perennial beds, fruit orchards and herb gardens.
ADAMAH Fellows may also work on a variety of additional projects, including building compost bins and shelters, repairing bicycles, painting, caring for the lawns, brewing biofuels and making soap. ADAMAH is an ideal program for folks who are new to these endeavors, as well as for people with previous experience who wish to expand their skill set.
What else might I learn at ADAMAH?
- How to open your heart and voice to prayer
- Gratitude
- The empowering potential of Jewish ritual and learning
- How to move your community toward sustainability
- Listening with compassion
- How to work hard
- The joys and challenges of communal living
- How to lead
- Your path in the world
- To be a Jew in your own way
Wait, is ADAMAH an educational program or a farm business?
It’s both. At ADAMAH, there is the potential to learn from everything we do. Learning happens in both traditional, discussion-based classroom settings and during work sessions in the field, pasture, greenhouse and kitchen. We are a foundation and a donor-supported non-profit, and we are increasingly seeking to sustain ourselves from the revenue of our CSA and our value-added product business. At ADAMAH, we strive to balance fellows’ learning and creative exploration with the realities of producing healthy products that support our financial sustainability. We model this sustainable and conscientious business as a tool for learning and supporting the bottom line. This means that you will learn and your work here will be productive.
Will I get to interact with other farms and farmers?
Yes! ADAMAH has great relationships with many nearby farmers, and fellows have the opportunity to visit (and sometimes work at) these farms. Past field trips have included:
- Moon on the Pond Farm (Sheffield, MA): meat, chickens, vegetables
- Chubby Bunny Farm (Falls Village, CT): vegetables, eggs, pork & lamb
- Thompson Finch Farm (Ancram, NY): berries, apples, vegetables
- Local Farm (Cornwall CT): dairy cows
- Hawthorne Valley (Ghent, NY): biodynamic dairy and vegetables
In addition, summer ADAMAH fellows often attend the NOFA Conference in Amherst, MA, and fall ADAMAH fellows attend the Jewish Farm School Urban Sustainability Conference in Philadelphia, PA.
How Jewish is ADAMAH?
Jewish observance levels vary considerably among ADAMAH fellows. The program allows for most levels of Jewish observance. The ADAMAH community has a scheduled morning prayer service daily, yet time is also made available for those who would like to pray individually three times per day. Our joyful morning Shacharit chanting service, Avodat Lev, is Renewal in flavor and generally includes fifteen to twenty minutes of silent meditation. All fellows are expected to participate.
What about Shabbat?
Shabbat is the fellows’ time off. The workweek ends on Friday a few hours before sunset, and begins again on Sunday usually at 1:00 pm. Fellows are free to leave the program during this time. Fellows may also choose to participate in the Shabbat services that are held at the retreat center or create their own services together as an ADAMAH community.
After hard work and intensive learning, Shabbat at ADAMAH is a powerful community experience of rest and rejuvenation. Many fellows tell us they have never immersed themselves in Shabbat as they did in ADAMAH. The ADAMAH fellows spend late Friday afternoon cooking, cleaning and planning prayer services. We reflect on our week, fellows lead a soulful and accessible Shabbat service, and we sit down to a bountiful feast prepared from our field.
Each season we plan one or two Shabbat retreats for the ADAMAH community. On these weekends, fellows participate in all programmed activities. Otherwise we do no programming on Shabbat and ADAMAH fellows are free to come or go, sleep or pray, spending their time however they choose. Each group of fellows comes together to make their own decisions on what Shabbat observance will look like in the ADAMAH house communal spaces (lights, stereo, kitchen, etc.) In your private room or tent you are welcome to celebrate Shabbat however you choose.
What about Kashrut?
Fellows eat most of their meals in the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center’s dining hall, a strictly kosher facility supervised by the Hartford Kashrut Commission and a trained mashgiach. The ADAMAH House kitchen, where fellows eat breakfasts and weekend meals is a kosher vegetarian kitchen, where any food that isn’t harvested directly from the sadeh must have an accepted hechsher.
How much free-time is there?
Like the exodus from Egypt, a wilderness backpacking trip, or Yom Kippur, the ADAMAH fellowship is an intensive, immersion experience. The full schedule is designed to facilitate personal and community growth, learning and productive work. Free times include:
- From about 3:00 pm Friday afternoon (depends on sunset) until 1:00 pm on Sunday (except for two planned Shabbat retreats during the season).
- One hour off after lunch.
- One evening off during the week.
For more information about daily schedules see A Typical Day.
Where will I live?
Fellows have the option to live in the ADAMAH house or in a tent.
Tents are on platforms in the woods at Isabella Freedman. The kfar (“village”) has three tent platforms, the shechuna (“neighborhood”) has five tent platforms. You will have a 2-3 person backpacking tent to yourself and access to bathrooms and showers at the pool house and the ADAMAH House. Fellows often choose to live in a tent for the experience and challenge of living outdoors for three months, and for having a little more private, personal space.
The ADAMAH house (where all fellows eat breakfast, participte in Avodat Lev and celebrate Shabbat) has three bedrooms, which accommodate 2-3 people each. Fellows who are looking for indoor accommodations and a more social environment tend to choose to live in the house. We will do our best to give you your first choice of accommodations.
What is the difference between the summer and fall fellowships?
Our work in the summer is focused on the farm, the CSA and starting in July, pickling. Summer fellows get to see all aspects of the growing process (seed to harvest to pickle), go swimming in the river, and enjoy the benefits of summer in the Berkshire mountains.
In the fall fellowship we celebrate high holy days (fellows participate in phenomenal holyday retreats at Isabella Freedman) and focus on harvest and pickling/krauting until we put the field to bed in mid-Octoberish. During November and December we switch into project mode, working on bike repair, shed building, soap making, perennial bed prepping, permaculture design and application, and other projects that emerge.
What is there to do in Falls Village, CT?
Isabella Freedman and the ADAMAH program are located in one of the most beautiful parts of the Connecticut Berkshires. The Isabella Freedman campus is located on 250 acres of woodland, and includes several miles of hiking trails, and a lake where swimming and boating are available. The town of Falls Village is a short bike ride away, and a visit to the Toymaker’s Café, library, or waterfall is a great outing. Other nearby towns include Sharon, CT; Millerton, NY; and Great Barrington, MA.
Falls Village is about 2.5 hours from New York City by car, or two hours by the train via the Wassaic Metro North station, which is a 30-minute drive from Isabella Freedman.
What are ADAMAHniks blogging about?
Check out our blog! Written by ADAMAHniks, about ADAMAH and the things that matter. http://adamahfellow.wordpress.com/
