Ben Novak, 23, a metal sculpture artist, works at Shemesh Farms twice a week.

On workdays, the Farm Fellows at Shemesh Farms in Southern California check in with their supervisor to talk about their roles and goals for the day: which plants they’ll be working with and what jobs need to be done — from harvesting and drying herbs to mixing, jarring and packaging the artisanal salt blends they sell on their website, in local specialty stores and at farmers’ markets. The Farm Fellows program, which engages young adults with what Shemesh Farms describes as a range of “special needs and diverse abilities,” is “human-centered and takes the varying needs of the fellows into account,” said Michelle Cait, the farm’s outgoing director. This means, she added, encouraging their talents and challenging them to grow, to “explore various work modalities in order to find what is meaningful,” she told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Esther D. Kustanowitz.

A temporary home: Shemesh Farms is part of the Shalom Institute, an experiential Jewish educational organization that also runs Camp JCA Shalom in Malibu, a residential summer camp for kids that used to house the farm. The Shalom Institute also runs the nearby Camp Gesher, an overnight camp on the West Coast for campers from Russian-speaking Jewish families. After the November 2018 Woolsey Fire incinerated nearly 100,000 acres in Los Angeles and Ventura counties — including the campuses of JCA Shalom and two other Jewish camps — Shemesh Farms moved to its current temporary home at the Malibu Jewish Center, off of California’s Pacific Coast Highway, which — on the day of eJP’s visit — provided a subtle, constant hum of background audio for the small farm’s agricultural work.

‘Truly made for him’: Parents of the fellows say the farm provides a rare comfortable space for their children to learn and grow. Jennifer Novak’s 23-year-old son Ben is a neurodiverse artist who works in metal sculpture and has been working at Shemesh Farms intermittently since it started in 2014. Since the end of May 2021, Ben has been going twice a week. “Shemesh Farms is the high point of his week…Shemesh is the one place in Los Angeles that was truly made for him and his peers,” Novak said.

A focus on sustainability: The Shalom Institute’s executive director, Bill Kaplan, said that sustainably rebuilding the institute and a continued focus on disability inclusion are priorities moving forward. “It’s unbelievable that [sustainability is] still not on the up there on the agenda for many institutions,” he said. “When it comes to sustainability and inclusion,” he added, Shemesh Farms is “actually the integration of the two. It’s super important, and it’s a natural fit.”

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“For decades, the Conservative movement has shamed Jews who dated or married those of other faith or cultural backgrounds and created a stigma for the Jewish partners and their families. It has not worked. It is time for a different approach,” write Rabbi Charles Arian, Rabbi Chaya Bender, Rabbi Steven Henkin and Rabbi Ben Herman in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy, which is also endorsed by a number of other Conservative rabbis.

Eschewing binary thinking: “Either/or thinking has often been at the core of the discussion about interfaith marriage. Either we accept or we do not, either we officiate or do not, either the Jewish-adjacent partner converts or does not, either we consider the children Jewish or do not, either we are welcoming or are not. The ones who are hurt by this approach are not just the families themselves, but also the movement that takes these hardline positions. Such binary thinking ignores the personal narratives of the families. Many Jewish-adjacent partners lead the charge in raising Jewish children by taking them to religious school, day school, and/or Jewish summer camp (and paying the associated tuitions); learning how to maintain a kosher kitchen, bake challah and fry latkes; learning Jewish history and practices to help their children with religious school homework. It ignores the consequences of decades of guilt and ‘bad Jew syndrome’ we have instilled in those who marry out of the faith. Either/or thinking ignores the complexity of the issue and turns away from the humanity of it.”

Inclusive innovation helps everyone: “When we seek to make Judaism more inclusive, it helps every Jew along the way. When we teach and explain our tradition, it helps educate Jews who may not have learned those pieces of the tradition. When we transliterate Hebrew in our communities, it helps those Jews who never learned Hebrew. Every innovation and change to make tradition more accessible helps both Jews and those who are Jewish-adjacent.”

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“Ask any therapist treating young adults, and they will tell you the same thing: Their phones are ringing nonstop, waiting lists are building, parents are worrying and our youth are suffering. The statistics are well-documented (see the American Psychological Association, CDC and National Institute of Mental Health, to name a few) and reflect what we all see to be true: rates of mental illness, anxiety and depression in particular, are on the rise among teens and young adults,” Dr. Debra Alper, a licensed clinical psychologist on staff at the Yeshiva University counseling center and the founder of Kadima Psychotherapy, writes in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.

How can they keep up?: “We are asking more of our young people than ever before. We demand academic rigor and social perfection. Students today balance ever more challenging course work with the pressure of one day stepping up into their parents’ financial shoes to support families of their own. Our students see futures of houses and babies and yeshiva tuition and Pesach programs, and how can they not wonder how they will ever keep up?”

Modeling imperfection: “This cannot be the community we intended to create. The barriers to entry are too high and the price of inclusion is too steep. Human weakness must be OK. We must be allowed to be imperfect, and we must model to our children that we accept differences. Struggles are a part of life, and to deny that is to lie about the most basic truth of our humanity.”

Lessen the pressure: “And so, what I am suggesting is less. Less pressure, fewer demands, less judgment and less comparison. Let’s find ways to opt out, instead of creating more and more to which we must opt in. Let’s lessen the pressure to check every box, and do so on a timetable that can’t possibly work for everyone. Let’s erase the need to maintain the illusion of perfection.”

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