FOUNDER + DIRECTOR

Jacob (he/him) has served as the Director of Jewish Life and Abundance Farm since 2013. Previously, he served as a rabbi and educator for a number of leading Jewish environmental organizations including the Teva Learning Alliance, Hazon, Adamah, the Jewish Farm School. A Wexner Graduate Fellow and former Rabbi and Assistant Director at Hillel at the University of Washington, Rabbi Jacob was ordained as a rabbi from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies where he also received a M.A. in Rabbinic Studies. He is also a graduate of Vassar College where he received a B.A. in environmental studies and religion.

DIRECTOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL + AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

Nili Simhai (she/her) serves as the Director of Outdoor Education for Abundance Farm. Nili served as the Director of Teva, a leading Jewish environmental education organization, for fourteen years. A recipient of the Covenant Award for excellence in Jewish education, Nili has been recognized for her leadership in training and counseling hundreds of educators in the tenets of Jewish environmental education. One of her current passions is outdoor classrooms in Jewish institutions.

FARM MANAGER

Nat (they/them) is the Farm Manager at Abundance Farm. They have grown food and taught students on a variety of community and educational farms both in the Connecticut River Valley and in Northern California. Having personally experienced the internally and externally transformative power of ecologically oriented agriculture, Nat is passionate about facilitating bountiful farm spaces where people of all ages can connect with farming, gardening, and the more-than-human world. When not at the farm, Nat can be found cooking, playing piano, and talking to trees and rocks.

FARM EDUCATOR

Matti (they/them) is a student of interconnectedness. Their love of multiplicity - conceptual, political, historical - manifests in the classroom through awe of the beautifully complex relationships between humans, land, and spirit. They are excited to create space for young people to explore the richness of these relationships and to begin building frameworks for a more nourishing and just future. In addition to farming and teaching, Matti bakes bread, plays trumpet and mothers a lineage of slime mold.

COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING

Miriam (she/her) is a vegetable farmer and art-maker, who also sits at the computer promoting the projects she believes in (like Abundance Farm and CBI!). She is grateful to bring her skills and energy to the Farm as an email writer, social media poster, and graphics creator. Come to Miriam to talk about your latest art project, or with any Farm-related events you'd like help promoting!

COMMERCIAL KITCHEN PROJECT MANAGER

Emily (she/her) is a Health-Supportive Chef who sees food as art and a means to connect. She had a career as an Interior & Architectural Photographer for 15 years prior to attending the Natural Gourmet Center at the Institute of Culinary Education. Emily not only likes to cook for people, she likes to cook with people. She is currently the Project Manager for the Communal Commercial Kitchen that Abundance Farm is building and she is excited to get everyone cooking alongside each other in the kitchen!

BAKER

BAKER

Sam (he/him) co-manages the Abundance Farm Bakery. Owner of Backyard Bread, Sam builds wood-fired ovens and teaches baking to people of all ages, toddlers through adults, with a special focus on Jewish Communities. He built his first oven as a teenager out of mud from the backyard and sold bread in the halls of his High School. Since then he has taught and built and baked throughout New England and the East Coast. He is at his happiest when there's kids running around the bakery and when building happens as a community.

Ben is a seasoned Jewish leader with a passion for alternative educational models. His experience in Jewish educational spaces ranges from summer camps and youth groups to supplementary schools and synagogues. In addition to his work in administration, Ben has written and taught courses designed for high school students and adult learners on topics ranging from biblical criticism to Jewish approaches to philanthropy. Ben, currently a real estate investor in Northampton, holds a Ph.D. from NYU in Education and Jewish Studies as well as an MA from Loyola University Chicago and a BA from Indiana University. Ben and his wife, Meredith, live in Northampton where their two sons attend Gan Keshet Preschool and Lander-Grinspoon Academy.

Jonathan has been working in the field of community sustainability for the past 10 years in a variety of capacities. He earned a Bachelors of Environmental Science from the University of Kansas, and received a Masters and PhD in Sustainability Science and Engineering from the University of Colorado.His research focuses on regional sustainability metrics development as well as community based participatory research. Jonathan believes that well designed communities where everyone's voice is heard leads to healthy people and a healthy planet. He is currently working as stay at home educator/dad and works part time in a supportive role for the Jewish Community Farming-Field Building Initiative.

Margaret is a psychologist in private practice where she specializes in treating children, adolescents and families. In her free time, she is the Chair of the Tzedek Tzedek (social justice) Committee at Beit Ahavah, is on the Board of the Northampton Survival Center, and is also a weekly volunteer there. She is committed to addressing social justice issues, focusing specifically on food justice. She believes in thinking globally but acting locally, and often working on local political causes and campaigns, particularly in support of children and education.

Martin is the retired founder of Wohl Family Dentistry in Northampton, as well as Vice President and Chair of Development of the Northampton Education Foundation (and general fellow about town).

Max grew up in Amherst and lives there, with his wife Eve Weinbaum and their three children, in the house he grew up in. He is Co-President of Congregation Bnai Israel and a Professor of Architecture and History and Director of the Historic Preservation Program at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He is also an activist on behalf of public education, as a founder of PHENOM, the Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts, as a former president of the Massachusetts Society of Professors, the faculty and librarian union at UMass Amherst), and as Vice President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the 110,000-member teachers union.

Rebecca is the Director of Development of the Hitchcock Center for the Environment, and the principal of Twenty-Six Letters, a book design studio that she founded more than 25 years ago. She is a long-time member of Congregation B'nai Israel and helped form its Darfur Action Group in 2006. Elsewhere in the community, she volunteered for a decade on the River Valley Co-op's Outreach Committee, which culminated in the co-op’s groundbreaking, and served for eight years on the Board of Directors of the Northampton Survival Center, including a term as President. She is particularly interested in food justice and environmental stewardship, and sees Abundance Farm as a unique opportunity to address both issues.

Robert is the Director of Marketing & Communications at Wilderness Torah. He holds an MBA from the Isenberg School of Management at UMass and a BA in English from Boston University. A native Texan, Robert's passion for Jewish agriculture began at the Adamah Fellowship where he oversaw the livestock program. After a goat dairy apprenticeship in Israel, he served as Board Chair of the Jewish Farm School. Today Robert is the founder and owner of Robariah Farms, specializing in locally grown, pasture-raised, kosher-certified meat for families, co-ops, and institutions in the Pioneer Valley and across New England. He and his wife Shemariah, along with their three children, reside in Deerfield, MA.

Rabbi Justin (he/him/his) has served as the Rabbi of Congregation B'nai Israel for 18 years. Before moving to Northampton, he was the Assistant Rabbi at Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, DC, after having been ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Rabbi David is proud to lead a community that is spiritually vibrant, intellectually alive, morally engaged, and devoted to raising the next generation of compassionate Jews. He is especially proud of CBI's dedication to support those who are most vulnerable as well as our dedication to the poetry of traditional prayer and our commitment to ongoing study.

Matthew Roth-Katz is a longtime educator who has worked in Arkansas, California, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts and New York. He is a public historian whose work is focused on slavery, freedom and mobility in the North, and whose aim is to expand access to archival materials of use to African American family history researchers. He is a musician and songwriter and a student of languages and language history. Matthew lives with his family in Northampton.