Adamah Farm Vacations
Monday, July 29* – Thursday, August 1, 2013
Monday, August 19 – Friday, August 23, 2013
*Join us for Farm Day on Sunday, July 28th and add a night to your vacation!
The summer vacation in the Berkshires that is
affordable, family-friendly, and eco-conscious!
The Adamah Farm is far from the fast-paced world, and just a few hours from your home. On an Adamah Farm Vacation, you'll have the opportunity to spend quality time with yourself and your loved ones without getting in the car! You can participate in an array of activities or simply relax in a beautiful setting and enjoy three delicious kosher farm-to-table meals each day.
- Join goats, chickens, farmers, and friends for a firsthand experience of life on the farm.
- Start each day with a hearty farmer's breakfast.
- Lend a helping hand in the fields or the barnyard.
- Spend the afternoon strolling our edible forest garden, boating, swimming, hiking, reading, relaxing, or visit one of the Berkshires' many local cultural and natural attractions.
- Help us take care of our family of over 30 adorable goats and a flock of friendly chickens.
- Pick cucumbers and make your own pickles.
- Gather fresh herbs, harvest tomatoes, and make goat cheese.
- Enjoy getting to know where our food comes from.
- Help milk the goats, collect eggs, and learn about the magic of composting.
- Explore the Jewish environmental movement, New England permaculture principles, and the new Jewish food ethic.
- After dinner, watch a film about food and farming, join a campfire singalong, or simply stargaze by the lake.
Please note that the majority of our activities are family-friendly and appropriate for ages 5 and up. Children must be accompanied by a parent or guardian at all times. Hourly childcare is available by request for an additional fee.
Click here to see a Sample Schedule*
Arrival Day
2:00 - 5:00 Arrival and Check In
5:00 pm Welcome & Site Tour
6:00 pm Farm Fresh Dinner
7:30 pm Orientation & Campfire
Midweek
7:15 am Yoga
8:00 am Farm Fresh Breakfast
8:45 am - 12:00 pm Join us in the fields or go out on a trip
12:00 pm Farm Fresh Lunch
1:00 pm Cheese or Pickling Workshop
2:00 - 6:00 pm Pool Open
2:00 - 3:00 pm Permaculture Tour, Contemplative Movement, or Jewish Eco-Nature Walk
3:00 - 5:00 pm Open Time for Relaxing or Adventuring
5:00 - 6:00 pm Storytime, Playful Movement, or Farming Workshop
6:00 pm Farm Fresh Dinner or BBQ
7:30 pm Film, Performance, or Trip Out
Departure Day
7:15 am Yoga
8:00 am Farm Fresh Breakfast
8:45 am - 12:00 pm Join us in the fields or go out on a trip
12:00 pm Farm Fresh Lunch
1:00 pm Departure
Shabbat Shalom!
*Activities and timing are subject to change.
Our location provides easy driving access to many cultural and artistic venues in the Berkshires. If you are coming with your own car, we encourage you to explore this beautiful region and take in a performance or festival during your stay with us. (If you do not have a car, ask when you arrive about any organized trips that may be leaving from our site.)
If you're new to Isabella Freedman, check out our Frequently Asked Questions for information about where we're located, arrival and departure times, what to bring, etc.
Click here to learn about the amazing Adamah staff you'll meet!
Shamu Fenyvesi Sadeh, Director of Adamah
Shamu co-founded Adamah and has been its program director since 2004. He has led the growth of Adamah into the most productive Jewish educational farm in the country, with a transformative fellowship program that has produced dozens of leaders in the Jewish farming, environmental education, and food movements. Adamah's 200 alumni include food justice advocates, rabbis, farmers, community organizers, teachers, chefs, and green business leaders. Before coming to Adamah, Shamu was a professor of environmental studies, writer, Jewish educator, and wilderness guide. He directed the Teva Learning Center in its early years and completed a doctorate in Educational Leadership. Shamu is drawn to the integration of soul and soil. He works for the creation of a fruitful ecological landscape while building confidence, mindfulness, and community among participants. Shamu has the yichus—ancestral connections—for Adamah from his great-grandparents and father, Jewish farmers and gardeners who practiced the mystical arts of composting and soil conservation. In 2010, the New York Jewish weekly "Forward" named Shamu one of the "Forward 50" who made significant contributions to Jewish life in America.
Sarah Chandler, Associate Director of Adamah
Sarah Chandler is a Jewish experiential educator, community activist, spiritual leader, and blogger. Most recently, Sarah has served as the Director of Jewish Family Life & Learning (JoyFuLL) at West End Synagogue in Manhattan. She has her M.A. in Jewish Communal and Experiential Education and Hebrew Bible from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and has been an educator with the Teva Learning Center since 2003.
Janna Berger, Farm Manager
Janna fell in love with the nuance, humanism and joy of sustainable agriculture six years ago and has had dirty knees ever since. She has been a farm intern in Illinois, an assistant farmer and head flower farmer in Washington state, a farmhand in Texas, a garden volunteer in south India, a flower manager in Massachusetts and a veggie co-manager in Wisconsin. She is very excited to join the wonderful folks at Adamah who have also discovered the soulfulness and impact of farming.
Glenn Katz, Dairy Manager
Glenn started her farming journey in 2008 in the holy land of Italy, where she learned to drink cappuccino with one hand and weed with the other. After graduating from Tufts University with a degree in Art History and Chemistry, she decided to try her hand at farming full-time. Through a series of farms and travel adventures, she found herself in the other holy land of Israel, working in the goat yard at Kibbutz Neot Smadar, an organic agriculture kibbutz in the Negev Desert. These clever creatures stole her heart and a bit of her sanity and led her to Isabella Freedman as the Adamah Dairy Apprentice for the 2011 season. She welcomes each goat into the milking parlor with an individualized jingle and tries to understand human social dynamics and leadership through observing the social tendencies of the goat herd.
Annie Jacobs, Dairy Apprentice
Annie grew up along a small strip of riparian woodlands on the edge of a Suburban neighborhood, where she worked in her father's organic gardens and cared for an assortment of animals. She has since been exploring ecology and conservation, community, cultural exchange, and the arts. Her beloved homes (and biomes) have included Kibbutz Ketura, where she was a student and staff at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, New England farms and woodlands, coastal Delaware, and an art colony in northern Vermont. Annie writes poems and essays and makes artwork that reflect her encounters with the world. She earned an M.S. degree from Antioch University New England, and she is very excited to learn from the goats and humans of Adamah.
Allie Comet, Field Apprentice
grew up in Brooklyn, NY. She left the city in 2005 to attend Pomona College in California, where she earned a degree in Environmental Analysis and discovered her love for growing food and working outdoors. Since then she has worked on farms in California, Oregon, Maine, and New York, and hopes to have her own farm one day. For the past two years she has been at the Glynwood Center in the lower Hudson Valley of New York, where she helped to care for a diversity of livestock. This winter she was traveling in Israel and is excited to now join the community at Isabella Freedman and explore the connections between agriculture and Judaism.
In the summer of 2012, we welcomed Alan Jay Sufrin and Miriam Brosseau of the NYC-based band Stereo Sinai as teachers and artists-in-residence. During their week here, they recorded and produced this wonderful video with the support of the Adamah farmers and other farm vacationers.
Registration Information
Use Discount Code EARLY when you register four weeks in advance and save $25.
Click one of the purple buttons to the right for information, rates, and to register online. Please note that online registration is for full credit card payments only. If you would like to pay in installments, pay by check, or apply approved financial aid, please call 800.398.2630 x4.
You will receive a confirmation email once you have registered and made a payment online or by phone. If you do not receive the confirmation email within 24 hours of registering, please call us at 800.398.2630 x4.
We strive to make our programs affordable to everyone.
Click here for information about Financial Aid.
