Hazon Food Conference Update

Today was the start of the Hazon Food Conference.  About 100 people, many from Boulder (and Denver), were here a day early for pre-conference training.  There was an educators track, attended by Josh and Froma Fallik of Bonai Shalom, and Raj Seymour, a local Jewish educator, involved with the Adventure Rabbi, CAJE Hebrew High and Soul Food. There was a CSA (community supported agriculture) leadership track, which I attended as the site coordinator for Boulder Tuv Ha’Aretz, the Hazon CSA in Boulder, along with Rabbi Marc Soloway of Bonai Shalom.  We are all here to bring the ideas about food and programming back to Boulder.

The conference is being held in the Asilomar Conference Center in California.  The weather is a bit cool, by California standards, but picture perfect and utterly beautiful – no snow or ice anywhere.  Asilomar is located on the California coast and has a beach with tide-pools, bike and running paths, and stunning scenery.

The Food Conference is the epicenter of the new Jewish food movement.  About 50 people (almost 10 percent of the conference participants) are here from Colorado.

In the next few days, there will be sessions in which people talk about food policy in the US or do text study or argue about kashrut, and other sessions where you can learn to make mozzarella or your own pickles.  There are talks about veganism and being gluten-free.  Joan Nathan will talk about French Jewish cooking.  There is everything from yoga to an Orthodox Minyan.  Rabbi Marc will be leading Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat with a Seattle Rabbi, Jacob Fine.

I will send updates over the next several days with what is happening and with pictures.

Hazon works to create a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community, and a healthier and more sustainable world for all. Hazon received grants from the Rose Community Foundation and the Oreg Foundation to promote a new Jewish food movement in Denver/Boulder, including mobilizing volunteers interested in the intersection of Judaism, sustainability and food, creating Jewish community-supported-agriculture groups (CSAs), and sending volunteers to the Hazon Food Conference.