Moshava Ba’ir NJ- Sowing the Seeds of GrowTorah

In this monthly feature, we showcase one of our Anafim Partners - this month features Moshava Ba’ir NJ.

In 2014, MBNJ hired Yosef Gillers to create a garden as part of the Amir project, bringing educational gardens to summer camps. With the success of that program, throughout the 2014-2015 school year, Yosef piloted the very first (yet to be called) GrowTorah school garden program at Yeshivat Frisch. This would then launch GrowTorah officially in March of 2016. So, you could say that MBNJ is the garden that started it all!

Since 2014, Yosef trained others to run the program, laying the groundwork for what is now the Anafim Program. Farmer Menuchah has been teaching in the MBNJ garden and will be returning again this summer! At MBNJ we teach the general GrowTorah curriculum based on the weekly parsha in addition to weaving in Moshava’s summer chinuch themes. These themes explore different eras of Jewish History, such as the period of the Tannaim or the era of the modern state of Israel.

We can’t wait to see our Moshava Ba’ir Farmily in a few months for our NINTH summer!

In addition to our Shorashim, GrowTorah thrives off of our relationship with our Anafim partners! As one of our Anafim partners, we advise and train school/camp staff to run successful educational garden programs at their organization. Among them is Moshava Ba’ir NJ, a K-7 day-camp committed to lifelong values of Moshava and Bnei Akiva, serving the Greater NJ/NY area.

The Anafim initiative was launched with help from a Covenant Foundation Ignition Grant.