Welcome ברוכים הבאים Jews have a special relationship with food. God requires us to eat ethically. In the Torah, God instructs us to be sensitive to our food sources. We allow the land to

lie fallow every seventh year. We don’t slaughter a mother cow and her calf on the same day. We value sensitivity and kindness – sustainability and stewardship.

This Food Summit is designed to help us integrate ancient wisdom into our contemporary context. As Conservative Jews, we honor our tradition by allowing

our Jewish values to influence our daily decisions. Eating is a religious practice. Let’s educate ourselves about the food manufacturing system. Let’s develop our

gardening and composting skills. Let’s choose our food mindfully.

Rabbi Ranon Teller

Congregation Brith Shalom

Welcome to Brith Shalom’s – and possibly Houston’s – first Jewish Food Summit. The idea for this event developed, well, organically, through numerous

conversations about how we could learn more about ethical, sustainable, and healthy eating as a community. Here’s our first attempt: a half day of learning and

activities planned to coincide with the celebration of Tu B’Shvat, Judaism’s “New Year of the Trees”.

Many thanks for the incredible volunteer and staff effort to put together an

educational, fun, and thought-provoking program.

Matt Stein

Food Summit Organizer

WHEN WHAT WHERE

9:00 – 12:45 Check-in / Registration Lobby

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

9:45 – 10:00 Welcome – Rabbi Ranon Teller Sanctuary

10:00 – 10:30 Keynote: Jewish Food Justice Sanctuary

– Yaira A. Robinson

11:15 – 11:25 Break

12:15 – 12:30 Tu B’Shvat Community Tree Planting

with Religious School Outdoors

12:30 – 1:30 Tu B’Shvat Seder Lunch (ticket required) Social Hall

Please see the following pages for session descriptions and bios.

10:30 – 11:15 (Choose one)

Food and the Environment – Dan Cohan Sanctuary

‘Food Deserts’: An Innovative New

Program for Inner City Schools Multipurpose

– Lisa Helfman

Composting Workshop

– Jeanie Dunnihoo Rooms 5+6

11:25 – 12:10 (Choose one)

What is the Local Foods Movement? Politics and Beyond Sanctuary – Judith McGeary

The Farmer and the Grocer:

Practical Advice on Eating Well Multipurpose

– Rabbi Samantha Bodner, Stacey Roussel, Gwen Manzano

Is it ‘Kosher’ to Eat Meat?

– Karen Bernstein

9:45 –

10:00 Location:

Sanctuary

10:00 –

10:30

Location:

Sanctuary

Opening and Welcome by Rabbi Teller

Keynote: Jewish Food Justice

We will explore how Jewish understandings of food connect us

to the earth, to each other, and to God. From kashrut to

kavanah and kedushah (kosher practice, intention, and holiness),

we’ll discuss how we can bring more justice and healing to the

world through our food choices.

Yaira A. Robinson is the Associate Director of Texas Interfaith Center for

Public Policy. She graduates this spring with a Master of Theological Studies

from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and she is an active member

of Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin. She lives with her husband and their

two boys who make her laugh every day.

THANK YOU to the following volunteers, staff, and presenters who contributed to making the Food Summit come together:

Lori Actor, Marian Bell, Karen Bernstein, Rabbi Samantha Safran Bodner, Dan Cohan,

Jeanie Dunnihoo, Larry Estes, Jess Faerman, Ellen Fiesinger, Troy Fiesinger, Lisa Helfman,

Monica Hoffman, Steve Kaplan, Wendy Lerman, Cantor Mark Levine, Lisa Lowenstein, Judith McGeary, Debi Mishael, Yaira A. Robinson, Stacey Roussel, Meredith Segal, Bettina

Siegel, Rhonda Sherman, Matt Stein, Renee Stern, Debbie Taylor, Rabbi Ranon Teller, Leah

Wolfthal, Manoj Yadav

These two short clips will play continuously in the Board Room all morning:

The Meatrix, an entertaining 10-minute animated video following Leo the pig as he exposes the problems of factory farming (themeatrix.com).

A Tale for Tu B’shvat, G-dcast’s 4-minute animation featuring Honi the Circle Maker’s tale of establishing a personal relationship with God and the Jewish birthday of the trees (g-dcast.com/tu-bshvat).

10:30 – 11:15

Location:

Sanctuary

S

10:30 – 11:15

Location:

Multipurpose Room

Room

S E S S I O N I Food and the Environment

How do our choices of what we eat affect the environment? How much can we reduce our carbon footprint by eating local, going vegan, or simply eating and wasting less food? How much energy and water does it take to grow and transport the food on our kitchen tables? These topics and more will be explored in an interactive discussion on food, energy and the environment.

Dan Cohan is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering at Rice

University. His research focuses on atmospheric modeling and air quality

management, and he teaches courses on Energy and the Environment and

Atmospheric Science. Dan is a recipient of a National Science Foundation

CAREER award and a member of the NASA Air Quality Applied Sciences Team.

At Brith Shalom, Dan helped lead a Green Task Force to reduce the synagogue’s

energy use and carbon footprint.

‘Food Deserts’: An Innovative New Program for Inner City Schools

How do we get kids to choose healthy alternatives to the usual

fast food? Ripe over wrapped. Just-picked over packaged. Food that hasn’t been fiddled with and as easy to find as it is to eat. This

session will focus on a new, Houston-grown initiative that empowers underserved families to choose fruits and vegetables

over processed foods by providing easy access to fresh produce, nutrition education, and a fun food experience.

Lisa Helfman is a board member at Recipe for Success (recipe4success.org), a

Houston-based non-profit “dedicated to combating childhood obesity by

changing the way our children understand, appreciate and eat their food, and by

educating and mobilizing the community to provide healthier diets for children.”

Lisa, a longtime Houstonian, is a graduate of the University of Houston Law

Center and works as director of real estate services for Texas Children's

Hospital.

10:30 –

11:25 – 12:10

Location:

Sanctuary

Composting Workshop

Fresh compost for your garden produces a more bountiful harvest

by improving plant health, revitalizing the soil’s nutrient base, retaining water during dry days and protecting your roots from

erosion and disease during rainy periods. Although you can buy good compost, it can be expensive and of questionable quality.

Come learn the best way is to make your own compost from the free materials you already have: garden waste, yard clippings and

other organic materials. *Adapted from urbanharvest.org/education/gardeningeducation/vegetables.html

Jeanie Dunnihoo grew up in Atlanta in a family of nature lovers with

herbs and flowers all around her and learned to love them at an early age.

Dunnihoo was recently chairperson of the Herb Fair of the South Texas

chapter of the Herb Society of America, has been a Harris County Master

Gardener for 23 years, and is a teaching member of Urban Harvest.

S E S S I O N I I

What is the Local Foods Movement ? Politics and Beyond

Many people use the terms "local foods movement" or "sustainable agriculture movement," but what does it really

mean? Judith McGeary will discuss the new paradigm of sustainable agriculture and the consequences for both our

society and individuals. The Texas Legislature will be voting on several bills that will impact the movement, and there are many

ways each person can help. Come learn what is happening, how it impacts you, and what you can do about it!

Judith McGeary, the founder and Executive Director of FARFA, is an attorney

and sustainable farmer. She has a B.S. in Biology from Stanford University and

her J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. After a clerkship with the Fifth

Circuit Court of Appeals, she practiced as an attorney in the areas

of administrative law, litigation, and appeals. She and her husband have a farm

in Central Texas with sheep, cattle, horses, chickens, and turkeys. After

seeing how government regulations benefit industrial agriculture at the expense

of family farms, she founded FARFA in 2006 to provide a voice for independent

agriculture.

10:30 – 11:15

Rooms 5+6

11:25 –

12:10

Location:

Multipurpose

The Farmer and the Grocer:

Practical Advice on Eating Well

Is it really better to eat locally grown, organic food? Stacey

Roussel, founder of All We Need Farm, will teach us about the

benefits of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs

and why they are so great for your health, for your farmer, and

for the environment. But what if you don’t have the time or the

money to participate in a CSA farm share? Healthy Eating

Specialist Gwen Marzano of Whole Foods will educate us about

making smart decisions in the grocery store. Rabbi Samantha

Safran Bodner, CSA member and Whole Foods enthusiast, will

facilitate.

Rabbi Samantha Safran Bodner is the Assistant Director of Jewish

Living & Learning at the Evelyn Rubinstein Jewish Community Center. She

moved to Houston last summer from Philadelphia, after graduating from

the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. In her spare time she enjoys

listening to live music, reading the New Yorker, watching classic movies,

spending time outdoors, and discussing the merits of healthy eating with

anyone who will listen.

Stacey Roussel was a CPA but her passion was always food and

growing veggies. In 2000, she quit her office job and started to focus on

local community gardens, quickly realizing that the food from those

gardens had better quality and taste than the store. In 2004, Stacey and

her husband bought a few acres in Needville and started to grow their

own food and sell produce in the form of a CSA. She grows without

chemicals or synthetic fertilizers or pesticides.

Gwen Marzano is a healthy eating specialist at Whole Foods and

certified vegan chef and raw food instructor. See Gwen on Houston

Culture Map talking about healthy eating and making a three-minute

vegan chocolate cake with cashew-vanilla frosting:

http://houston.culturemap.com/newsdetail/08-28-11-raw-vegan-chocolate-

cake-is-mmmm-good/.

*Photo courtesy of Joel Luks

11:25 – 12:10

Location:

Chapel

12:15 –12:30

Location:

Outside

12:30 – 1:30 pm

Location:

Social Hall

Is it ‘Kosher’ to Eat Meat? Join us in a discussion of the ethics of eating meat and what it

means when a beef cow is grass-fed – to you, the cow, the farmer, and the community. At the end of the session we'll taste a bite of

kosher grass-fed beef from Appalachia.

Karen Bernstein is a Brith Shalom member, a NASA engineer, a mom of two

3rd generation Houstonians and a former vegetarian who has been searching

for a kosher grass-fed beef provider for 10 years.

Tu B’Shvat Community Tree Planting

Immediately following the last morning Food Summit sessions, come plant a new tree with Brith Shalom’s K-7 Religious School classes.

Tu B’Shvat Seder Lunch

Join in as Rabbi Teller leads a fun and festive seder meal to celebrate the "New Year of the Trees" (ראש השנה לאילנות). The seder lunch will start immediately following the community Tu B'Shvat tree planting and the end of morning Religious School. So bring the whole family! The menu will include healthy dishes with fruits, grains, and nuts to keep with the spirit of the holiday.

$5/person until January 18

$8/person thereafter

Please register online:

www.brithshalom.org/foodsummit/register/