[From the archives] Where heaven meets Earth: Vancouver’s Jewish community now grows fresh fruit and veggies on the rooftop

The Jewish festival of Tu b'Shevat begins this Sunday. The new year for trees. Some people feel it's the Jewish version of Earth Day: a day to care for the environment. While much of Canada is still in the deep freeze of winter, the people who run Vancouver’s Jewish Community Garden are itching to get their rubber boots on soon, and go up to the rooftop of the two-storey parking structure located between Congregation Beth Israel synagogue and the VTT, The Vancouver Talmud Torah, where the garden is located..

This spring, the garden will begin its third season of growing food and flowers for programs at the shul, and school, as well as for clients of Vancouver's Jewish Family Services, and hosting dozens of volunteers–all the while teaching environmentalism and food security through a Jewish lens.

When the garden was officially opened in the spring of 2023, we interviewed the team behind the idea, likely the highest Jewish community garden in Canada. The episode originally aired May 31, 2023.

The Vancouver Jewish Community Garden had its official ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 28, 2023, a fitting debut for the $200,000 initiative. On North Star (formerly The CJN Daily), we’re joined by the organizers: Congregation Beth Israel’s Rabbi Jonathan Infeld; Emily Greenberg, head of school at VTT; and Tanja Demajo, executive director of Jewish Family Services in Vancouver.

Related links

• Watch a video of the construction of the Vancouver Jewish Community Garden

on You Tube

• https://youtu.be/oUQJ9yKCd_o

In Toronto, the Shoresh farming agency ran a community garden in peoples’ backyards, in

The CJN

Read more about environmental programming gaining popularity in B.C. in

The CJN

Credits

• Host and writer:

Ellin Bessner [e-mail]

• Production team:

Zachary Judah Kauffman (senior producer),

Michael Fraiman (executive producer)

Alicia Richler (editorial director)

• Music:

Bret Higgins

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