Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Culture

Forward 50 | Adam Berman: The urban farmer

Adam Berman made made his first foray into community organizing as a teenager, by starting an environmental club at school. Years later, while directing a Jewish retreat center in Connecticut, he started a program around green living and called it Adamah, the Hebrew word for “earth.” In 2010, he moved to Berkeley and opened Urban Adamah, a community farm, which began as a collection of raised beds surrounded by tents for volunteers, and now boasts an aquaponics greenhouse, a herd of goats, a yurt, and a solar-power system that generates 100% of its electricity.

Berman, who is 48 and was nominated by a reader, told Jewish News of Northern California that his unconventional approach to Jewish life allows him to reach people who don’t feel at home in synagogue. Urban Adamah now runs youth groups and summer camps for more than 15,000 young people, hosts celebrations for Jewish holidays, offers fellowships to young adults, and donates 90% of its produce to the local community through its weekly “free farm stand.”

Adam Berman

Adam Berman

Breakfast: A bowl with any of the following: greens, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, onions, beans, sauerkraut, carrots and olives.

What’s the last thing you listened to on your phone? “Eye of the Tiger,” by Survivor

Earliest Jewish memory: Hanukkah at my grandparents

Hero: Lisa Simpson

Favorite 2019 memory: Election Night – when Dems took Virginia.

What is your favorite thing about being Jewish? 1) Shabbat; 2) Ruggeleh from Marzipan in Jerusalem 3) How our holidays all connect to agriculture and/or natural cycles/events (not necessarily in that order)

What app can you not live without? NYT

Weekend ritual: Reading to my kids on Shabbat morning.

Read more A Forward article about Urban Adamah from 2011

And one about the “animal-liberation” protests against the farm’s kosher-slaughtering workshops.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.