On a recent damp morning, a group of some 15 teens turned over a large grassy patch of earth, forming long mounds of raised beds on a plot of land tucked away behind the Gann Academy campus.
The arduous digging was part of their role as shomrei adamah (caretakers of the earth) at Gann Farm, where they are summer interns.
Later that morning, the second day of a two-week program, Gann’s farmer-educator Noah Weinberg led a Socratic-style discussion on how to use low-technology, hand-powered seed-planting tools. The interns then took turns planting rows of radish seeds.
Earlier, the group had gathered for a daily morning circle, where they went over the day’s schedule and sang Modeh Ani, the morning prayer of gratitude.
Welcome to Gann Farm, a unique year-round program created by Weinberg that connects sustainable farming with its little-known Jewish roots. Many of the farm’s plantings echo back to ancient biblical times—from Egyptian walking onions to purple basil.
Four years ago, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Weinberg and a team of other staff and students turned the plot of land once filled with broken slabs of concrete into a small productive farm, now a compost-rich veggie-herb-floral marvel.
Since then, Gann Farm has transformed the lives of local teens by offering them a welcoming, hands-on Jewish space to learn and build skills.
“My vision is that this can be a third space—it’s not home, work or the mall. This can be a place for celebrations, for gathering, for growing food, for ritual, for prayer,” Weinberg said in a conversation at the farm earlier this summer.
“It’s kind of a new institution for the 21st century of Judaism,” he said.
With a blend of humility and kvelling, Weinberg noted that two farm leaders have been summer interns for several years.
Itamar Leibowitz, who just graduated from Brookline High School, has been an intern since the program’s first year.
For the past two summers, he’s incorporated the farm into activities for young kids as a counselor at Camp Ramah’s day camp, based at Gann.
Gann Farm’s emphasis on collaboration appealed to Leibowitz, who was born in Be’er Sheva, Israel.
“A lot of it was self-accountability and responsibility to continue holding yourself to group standards,” he reflected.
When Gann student Kochav Ross was a freshman, she opted for the “farm block” to fulfill her physical education requirement. Ross, now a senior, has been a summer intern for three years, she told JewishBoston.
“It’s a great experience to connect with the earth,” Ross said during a break at the farm. “It made me more grateful to my local and international farmers who are providing my family with our food. And it’s great exercise,” she added with a laugh.
“As they build community each day, the interns are integrating Judaism with their values of justice while pickling cucumbers, weeding beds of zucchini and exploring their connections to this land,” said Chera Garlick, Gann alum and shomrei adamah staff and educator.
Weinberg, a Tufts University alum, grew up in Chicago in a family of Jewish educators.
In the fall of 2019, Weinberg approached Gann with a vision to create cross-disciplinary, farm-related courses that make Jewish studies more relevant for young people.
In addition to teaching classes on Jewish farming, Weinberg and the school’s chefs offer students Jewish cooking programs using a mobile teaching kitchen. Gann Farm also partners with a local food pantry.
During the COVID pandemic, the farm was the first place students could return to because it was outdoors. Students made the space their own, Weinberg recalled.
In early 2020, students planted a rainbow garden inspired by the Torah portion of Noah. Yellow marigolds, green horseradish and blueberry bushes radiate as a sign of hope, as a colorful symbol for LGBTQ+ Pride, where all are welcome, and as a stance against the perils of climate change.
The 14 students in this year’s cohort come from nine different towns—some from Gann and others from public schools including Newton, Swampscott and as far as Norfolk County Agricultural School in Walpole.
Weinberg’s Jewish back-to-the-earth journey began unexpectedly 11 years ago. As he recited a blessing before eating a freshly plucked snap pea from the Jewish farm where he was working, the Hebrew words he had recited all his life were no longer abstract and rote—they took on deeper meaning, he said.
Looking forward to the next five years, Weinberg hopes the farm will deepen its impact as a gathering space and producer of culturally relevant crops, he wrote in an email.
“The many apple, grapes and other trees we planted this spring will be abundantly fruiting, a new community-raised pavilion will be a center of community gatherings, and an ever more diverse set of community members will come for programs and make connections on this land,” he said.
