building community and changing the food system: off to monterey for a conference on the day

so im off to the hazon food conference in monterey, ca on thursday (a jewish conference on christmas--brilliant except for folks who celebrate both!) to connect/learn/share about moishe house boston's food justice campaign in the context of the larger jewish food movement. crazy that there are 600 people passionate enough about this issue/challenge to make their way out to california, and im one of them.

as context, mh boston has recently embarked on our food justice campaign, a project aimed to educate/organize/build excitement about the importance of supporting local, sustainable agriculture given the negative consequences of conventional ag on the environment, but more pressingly on people (see info on agriprocessors and discussion about kashruth and jewish ethics). in particular, we'll be running a local farm/jewish community tu b'shevat seder as well as educational seminars at congregations around the greater boston area (and beyond?). we've joined together to watch king corn, and have built amazing community and connections on the way folks connect to and around food, justice work and jewish values/culture. weve started conversations with mh providence regarding sukkoth activities and would love buy-in/brainstorming with other houses about local food/food justice-related work youve been a part of.

a marvelous handful of folks from our community will be off to monterey this thursday for this 4-day, intensive and community-building conference in monterey. we plan to build excitement around our campaign, learn what other communities have done, build relationships, and have a great time. aliza wasserman, an organizer and community leader at mh boston, will be doing a seminar around the farm bill and work done around the country to organize for more equitable distribution of funds away from conventional subsidies. and we'll come back pumped for our campaign and to the scores of amazing people that want to work on building our jewish community via this project.

while ive only officially resided in mh boston for a bit over three months, its been incredible to see how a community group like ourselves can really do exciting and engaging work in a way that a c3 non-profit tends not to--and i find the root of that in the relationship being built, the deeper motivations around wanting to build a community together and the respect we all share with each other. a much different experience than my day job, where community building, relationship building and a sense of belonging is much more sparse. here here to community.

sounding off.