H eadlines
Review Continued from Page 1
JANUARY Gov. Tom Wolf Visits Israel
On Jan. 5, Gov. Tom Wolf
became the first sitting governor
of Pennsylvania since Tom Ridge
to visit Israel. Wolf was joined
by his wife, as well as leaders
of the Jewish communities of
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

He spent time visiting national
landmarks like Yad Vashem and
sites of collaboration between
Israelis and Pennsylvanians.

FEBRUARY advice on how to make a new
normal feel meaningful. Many
recommended paying extra atten-
tion to urchatz — washing hands
— during the festive meal.

APRIL Those We’ve Lost to COVID-19
As COVID-19 cases and
deaths rose across the country,
the Exponent started a series
called “Those We’ve Lost” to pay
tribute to victims of a virus that
threatened to overwhelm their
memory. Some of these people
died in Philadelphia, and others
died elsewhere, having counted
friends and family in the region.

DECEMBER 31, 2020
AUGUST Pandemic Pods on the Rise As
Parents, Teachers Face Tough
Choices As
the school
year approached, parents who wanted
to balance their children’s safety
with their ability to socialize
formed learning “pods”: small
groups of students and parents
MAY who split the cost of private
Medical Students Team Up to teachers.

Supply PPE to Philly Hospitals
Medical Students for Masks, a Hebrew Schools Prepare to
grassroots fundraising organiza- Reopen Safely
tion created by medical students
Religious schools planned
(many of whom are Jewish), to welcome students back with
raised $60,999 and bought more hybrid instruction models and
than 20,000 personal protective stringent classroom cleaning
equipment items — including protocols. Classes that met in
N95 masks, face shields, goggles person would be smaller in size
and gowns — for Philadelphia- and students would be discour-
aged from sharing classroom
area hospitals by May 3.

toys and materials.

Pennsylvania Civil Rights
Tour Inspires Debate on Risk
The American Jewish
Committee of Philadelphia/
Southern New Jersey and the
Dialogue Institute hosted a
follow-up to the Philadelphia
civil rights mission to the South,
a pilgrimage to sites where Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr. put his
brand of civil disobedience into
practice. Jewish participants
and congregants at Mother
Bethel African Methodist
Episcopal Church in Old City
gathered to discuss history, JUNE
advocacy and solidarity.

Local Jewish Community
Joins George Floyd Protests
MARCH When mass protests rose up
How the New Coronavirus in Philadelphia in response to the
Has Disrupted Life for Jewish killing of George Floyd in police
Philly custody, Jewish Philadelphians
Our first feature story joined the demonstrations and
about the pandemic focused organizations delivered state-
on Jewish schools, nonprofits ments decrying systemic racism.

and senior centers that closed Black Jewish Philadelphians
in response to local cases of spoke about their experiences
the novel coronavirus. We also with racism, particularly during
spoke with members of our encounters with the police.

community who were impacted
by travel quarantines, partic- JULY
ularly synagogue leaders who Jewish Retailers Navigate
had to cancel missions to Israel Revenue Loss, Reopening Issues
and students whose semesters
As Jewish
businesses abroad were cut short.

reopened during the Green
Phase, owners contended with
Philly’s Passover Plans Change new safety regulations and
in the Wake of COVID-19
uncertainty. BYOBs served
Passover was the first major limited numbers of customers
Jewish holiday that had to be at a time, and clothing retailers
observed in a socially distanced let people shop by appointment.

manner during the pandemic.

Families planned scaled-down or A Day in the Life of Summer
virtual seders while rabbis offered Camp During a Pandemic
8 Day camps like Camp Kef
at Kaiserman JCC strove to
provide kids with a semblance
of normalcy this summer with
plenty of sanitizing and social
distancing. Gaga and basket-
ball were out, but swimming
and soccer were in.

Bishop J. Louis Felton and Laura Frank, interim director of the JCRC of
the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, co-facilitated a roundtable on
race and anti-Semitism. 
Photo by ESM Productions
Rabbi Danielle Parmenter and her daughter Annabel create an art project
for the High Holidays.
Photo by Rachel Blum
SEPTEMBER High Holiday Kits Turn
Homes Into Sanctuaries
While some synagogues
opted for in-person High
Holidays services with masks
and social distancing this year,
others chose to help people
celebrate at home by distrib-
uting boxes and kits filled with
food, prayer books, candles,
recipes and more.

Black Clergy of Philadelphia,
Jewish Federation Convene
Discussion of Racism and
Anti-Semitism The Black Clergy of
Philadelphia and Jewish
Federation of Greater Philadelphia
organized a roundtable on racism
and anti-Semitism in response to
an anti-Semitic meme posted to
Facebook on July 23 by Minister
Rodney Muhammad, president of
the Philadelphia NAACP. Leaders
discussed the history of solidarity
among their communities
JEWISH EXPONENT
Volunteer Mike DeMarco drops off PPE at the Penn Presbyterian Medical
Center Emergency Department. 
Photo by Mike DeMarco
and ways to strengthen their mitzvahs and socially distanced
relationships in the future.

baby namings, but celebrations
continued in some form or
OCTOBER another. Families got creative to
Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, celebrate their special days, often
Simchas Continue — With beaming in loved ones on Zoom
Modifications for ceremonies and resched-
It was the year of microwed- uling parties for when it will be
dings, scaled-down
bar safe to gather in person again.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H eadlines
Farm Continued from Page 1
Mikki Rosenberg and his wife
Hannah celebrate their wedding
a bit differently from how they
planned. Photo by Rabbi Yaakov Hoffman
NOVEMBER Election Day Mixes New and
Familiar If they hadn’t already voted
by mail, Jewish voters got in
line to make their voices heard.

Polling places in Philadelphia
featured signs about social
distancing and lots of hand
sanitizer. Although there was
plenty of anxiety in the air,
there was levity as well: At the
Commodore John Barry Arts
and Cultural Center, one poll
worker convinced his family
that another poll worker, Rabbi
Alan LaPayover, was Bernie
Sanders. DECEMBER
There’s Still Plenty to Do
for Chanukah This Year in
Philadelphia Jewish
organizations celebrated the Festival of
Lights with virtual perfor-
mances, art installations, care
packages, cooking classes,
socially distanced candle
lighting ceremonies, magic
shows, trivia games and more.

Health Care Workers Receive
First Vaccine Doses
When the Pfizer-BioNTech
COVID-19 vaccine
was granted emergency use autho-
rization by the Food and Drug
Administration, Jewish health
care workers shared what it was
like to receive this protection
while working to save lives on
the front lines of the pandemic. l
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM in Wynnewood). The family
house had a garden, and
Glasman spent as much time
in it as he could. His first job
was to clean up a local garden,
where the time he spent
immersed in thoughtfully
planned agriculture nurtured
something in him.

He studied
sustain- able tourism and hospitality
in France and, for 10 years,
worked in sustainable tourism
and agro-tourism in South
America, France and Israel.

It was in Israel that he met
his wife, Rachel, a New Jersey
native. In 2016, the newly fused
Glasmans moved to California,
and Yitzchak Glasman got his
first experience as a garden
designer. After spending time in
Lancaster so Rachel Glasman
could more easily commute to
her job at Franklin & Marshall
College, they moved to
Wynnewood, where Yitzchak
worked as a freelance garden
designer, showing families how
to grow their own food, and as
a Jewish educator. When he
lost his teaching job due to the
pandemic, it left him with time
to fill and long-dormant ideas
to nurture.

He decided to follow his
dream: to build an organic
farm created with principles of
Jewish permaculture. Shalem
Farm would be the name.

Shalem means “complete”
in Hebrew, Glasman explained.

He feels that shalem captures
something about his project,
which melds permaculture and
Jewish principles of ecology.

By creating a diverse, self-sus-
taining organic farm, Glasman
believes that there are many
lessons to be taught to those
who are curious about the
undergirding principles of
such a project.

Glasman imagines that
Shalem Farm, a project for
which he seeks to raise $53,000
via the Jewish crowdfunding
platform Jewcer, will be a
pluralistic, welcoming environ-
ment for Jewish students and
a destination for field trips,
gardening workshops and
holiday retreats.

“It could be a place where
we can learn, work, practice,
relax, have fun and connect,”
Glasman said, comparing
his vision to the Pearlstone
Conference & Retreat Center
in Reisterstown, Maryland.

Pearlstone, similarly suffused
with Jewish principles, sits
on 180 acres. At the moment,
Glasman is looking to make
10 work.

“From a
commercial farming perspective, that’s
not huge,” said Nati Passow,
co-founder and executive
director of the now-defunct
Jewish Farm School. “But
from an educational farming
perspective, that’s a really nice
size.” Passow is excited to see
what Glasman can do with his
own site, a practice that Jewish
Farm School eschewed in its
work. Though the farm school
is no more, the educational
materials that they developed
were compiled and made freely
available to people interested in
learning or teaching. Glasman
has used those materials for
reference in the creation of
Shalem Farm’s educational
programs. “There’s a lot of potential
here,” Passow said.

In addition to the guidance
he’s received from Passow,
Glasman has gotten helpful
advice from Mark Lichty, who
owns land in Doylestown.

Though Lichty is not Jewish,
he is interested in land regen-
eration as a bulwark against
climate change, and when he
heard about Glasman’s project,
he was only happy to pitch in.

“He’s a passionate guy, and
he’s got a deep background in
this,” Lichty said. “He’s a very
committed person.”
Nice as it is to have that
kind of support in his corner,
Glasman’s project will not be
without difficulty. That’s true
for any venture that seeks to
JEWISH EXPONENT
The future site of Shalem Farm
Yitzchak Glasman wants Shalem
Farm to be a pluralistic, welcoming
environment for Jewish students.

Photos by Yitzchak Glasman
work the land, but Glasman’s
Shalem Farm has an added
hassle. Part of the idea for
Shalem Farm is that it will
be a land regeneration project,
converting land that was previ-
ously used for conventional
monoculture into the teeming
Jewish landscape he envisions.

The money he hopes to raise
through Jewcer will be used
to cover regeneration costs, as
well as materials, labor and the
creation of a nonprofit entity to
support the farm’s educational
activities. It won’t be easy, and
Glasman’s fundraiser has a
long way to go. But with his
journey to Doylestown taking
as long as it has, raising money
to do what he loves is just
another step. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
DECEMBER 31, 2020
9