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SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
E li Silins makes wine, but he shies away from the title
“winemaker.” Instead, he jokes, he prefers “wine steward” or “microbial
community organizer.”
“I’m not the one making the wine,” Silins said. “I’m trying to facil-
itate conditions where yeast can make wine.”
Whatever his title, Silins, 37, is the boss and brain behind Camuna
Cellars, a Northeast Philadelphia-based winery that sources grapes,
apples, pears and honey from within 300 miles. The natural wine,
cider and mead that Silins produces also happens to be kosher and is
supervised by the West Philadelphia-based Green Mountain Kosher.

Since finding its home in 2019, Camuna Cellars has put its libations
on the shelves of bottle shops in Philadelphia and New York and on
menus at Zahav, Laser Wolf, Vernick and Martha.

Silins, who is Jewish, is aware of the stereotype around kosher
wines — that they are either saccharine and one-note or near-vine-
gar. Instead of focusing on the hechsher, he’s mostly concerned with
10 OCTOBER 6, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
just trying to create a good product,
and one that comes from sustainable
and regenerative practices. He’s guided
by the Jewish practice of stewarding
the land.

“It’s very clear that we are here as
partners in creation — to till and to
tend, l’avdah uloshomrah — that if you
[screw] it up, nobody’s going to be here
to clean up your mess after you,” Silins
said, using stronger language.

Silins sources his grapes from South
Jersey; his apples, pears and honey are
from Chester and Lehigh counties, and
all have been farmed without insec-
ticides or pesticides. Camuna Cellars
avoids using additives like commercial
yeast to stabilize the wine or alter the
flavor of the ingredients.

As a result, Silins can’t always guar-
antee how his product will turn out or
if he’ll be able to bottle
the fruits of his labor
for commercial con-
sumption. Silins’ Jewish
principles of being a
facilitator, not a creator,
in the winemaking pro-
cess, guide the more lais-
sez-faire mindset.

“The grapes might
turn into wine without
me, or they might turn
into vinegar,” he said.

The philosophy Silins
takes means he remains
humble in his role in the
winemaking process,
but his extensive train-
ing in the industry sug-
gests greater prowess.

Catching the winemaking bug
from a stint at a biodynamic winery
in Australia in 2004, Silins — who
always had a love for agriculture —
later found himself as the intern for
the kosher Covenant Wines in Napa
Valley, California, in 2013. Silins went
on to become the winery’s cellar master
a year later, a position he stayed in until
his move to Philadelphia.

If anything, Silins considers his
experience in Australia an outlier, with
his true path to winemaking much
more meandering.

Growing up in a Conversative Jewish
family outside of Chicago, Silins had a
strong Jewish upbringing and educa-
tion but a dissonance with his Jewish
identity. His time at the “hippy-dippy”
Prescott College in Arizona, where stu-
dents practiced Buddhism and spent
time at the nearby Hopi reservation,
didn’t leave Silins with his spiritual itch
scratched, either.

He moved back to Chicago and
lived in — what Silins best describes
as — a commune, sharing a home
with young Jews who kept kosher and
observed Shabbat. In the early days of
the resurgence of the Jewish farming
movement, one resident learned that
their grandmother had bought land
in California in the 1960s, prompting
some members of the group to move
to the West Coast.

After over six years at Covenant,
where Silins learned the ins and outs
of kosher winemaking, the financial
burden of living in California began to
take its toll. Silins and his partner relo-
cated to Philadelphia, where his part-
ner was from, to raise a family and take
stock of the diverse Jewish community
Philadelphia had to offer.

Silins previously started Camuna
Cellars in 2018 in Berkeley but had to
start the project from scratch upon
moving to Philadelphia. His in-laws
own a warehouse in Northeast
Philadelphia, where Silins began mak-
ing wine in a 240-square-foot room.

Buying equipment, finding suppliers
and working with Pennsylvania pro-
duce proved a slow process.

“I have experience making wine, but
then I moved here and thought I knew
what I was doing,” Silins said. “It’s
a totally different thing on the East
Coast, but I’m figuring it out.”
As Silins navigates the changing cli-
mate and ingredients that shape the
wine he’s helping to create, the foun-
dation of his work remains the same.

Silins gave up on trying to control his
environment and end product years
ago when he began the winemaking
journey. All that remains is his com-
mitment to the process, which he finds
nothing short of sacred.

“I have said Camuna kind of became
my spiritual practice,” Silins said, “in a
way of trying to embody my values in
something physical.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of Eli Silins
Eli Silins



nation / world
Jewish Woman to be Knighted for
Helping Sephardic Jews Gain Spanish
Citizenship Doreen Alhadeff was the fi rst American Jew granted
Spanish citizenship under Spain’s 2015 law to repa-
triate Sephardic Jews from around the world. Now
she is going to be knighted by Spain’s monarchy for
helping others obtain that same citizenship, JTA
reported. Alhadeff , a 72-year-old real estate agent from Seattle,
will be knighted under the order of Queen Isabella the
Catholic in October, the Seattle Times reported.

Since earning Spanish citizenship in 2016, Alhadeff
has helped guide people around the world, from Greece
to Hong Kong, through the application process.

Alongside synagogue leadership and the Spanish
Jewish community federation, or FCJE, she also
helped members of Seattle’s Congregation Ezra
Bessaroth, an Orthodox Sephardic congregation that
“holds fast to the traditions of the Island of Rhodes,”
certify their heritage research.

Brazilian Jews and Arabs Hold Hummus
Championship Brazilian Jews, Christians and Muslims celebrated
their peaceful coexistence in Latin America’s largest
nation with a competition centered on one of the
Middle East’s signature foods, JTA reported.

Th e Hebraica Jewish club in Sao Paulo orga-
nized and hosted an inaugural Abrahamic Hummus
Championship on Sept. 21, timed to the United
Nations’ International Day of Peace. Around 150
people attended the event, and yarmulkes shared the
room with keffi yehs and other types of Arab scarves.

Ariel Krok, one of the event’s organizers, compared
the contest to a “soccer-friendly match.” Brazil is
home to nearly 10 million people of Arab descent, the
largest such population in the Americas, while more
than 100,000 Jews call Brazil home, including around
60,000 in Sao Paulo.

Team Sahtein, composed of three Christian Arab
women, was declared winners by the technical jury.

Kandinsky Painting Returned to Jewish Family
as Netherlands Shifts Approach to Looted Art
A Dutch committee charged with assessing and act-
ing on claims about artwork stolen from Jews before
and during the Holocaust has determined that a
painting by Wassily Kandinsky should be returned
to the family of the Jewish woman who likely owned
it before the Holocaust, JTA reported.

Th e family of Johanna Margarethe Stern-Lippmann,
who was murdered in 1944 at Auschwitz, should
regain possession of “Blick auf Murnau mit Kirche,”
or “View of Murnau with Church,” an abstract work
that the Dutch city of Eindhoven has owned since
1951 and has displayed at its art museum, according
to the Dutch Restitutions Committee.

Yom Kippur Student Absences Could Cost
Michigan Schools State Funding
Th e holiest day of the Jewish calendar couldn’t come
at a worse time for Michigan public schools this year,
JTA reported
Yom Kippur fell on Oct. 5 — which is also the
state’s “student count day,” the one day a year when
the number of students who attend school deter-
mines how much that district will receive in state
funds the following year.

By Michigan law, count day is on the fi rst
Wednesday of October, and superintendents typi-
cally go to great lengths to entice students to attend.

Districts have coaxed students to attend on the days
using raffl es, basketball tickets and zoo trips. Th is
helps them ensure at least $9,150 in state funding per
student, according to Chalkbeat Detroit.

Some public school districts in the state that enroll
many Jewish students close their schools for Yom
Kippur, allowing them to apply for waivers to move
their count days; fi ve districts have done so this year.

But other districts with signifi cant numbers of Jews are
staying open, meaning that their student tallies could
be depressed on the day that counts for state aid. JE
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
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