Chaptzem Blog!      

Tu B'Shvat is an all year long celebration when you're working farmland, as Hasidic Jew Yisroel Bass does at the Yiddish Farm in Upstate New York. The farm was founded in order to "expand the role of the Yiddish language, serve as a bridge between Yiddish speakers of various backgrounds, and to promote environmental stewardship through organic farming."

Bass was born in Queens and grew up on Long Island in a Conservative Jewish home. When he was a child and explored his family history at school, he found that he wanted to connect more to his heritage. He relates, "One of the stories my mother told me which had a huge effect on me was that her mother, her sister and her aunts arrived at Auschwitz with her grandmother. When they were separated on the line, my great-grandmother gave one of her gloves to her granddaughters and said [they should keep it to remember] 'If you survive the war, you should remain Jewish daughters.'" Bass started thinking about what that meant. As the youngest of many cousins, he saw that Jewish engagement wasn't prioritized. Years later, around the time of his bar mitzvah, he went to get supplies in Queens. He picked up a Yiddish textbook then and was fascinated by it. That led to keeping kosher and taking other steps towards becoming religious. "It started by looking back at my family's history and became an active part of my identity."

It was Yiddish which drew Bass towards Chassidus. "[Yiddish speakers] have a way of communicating and a worldview that today's secular, assimilated Jew would never be able to have." Bass realized there was a lot to uncover. By the time he was eighteen, he was starting to keep Shabbos and looking for more guidance. "There was a learning curve getting from YIVO Yiddish to what is actually spoken today." He started taking Yiddish classes with a Holocaust survivor in Los Angeles and then moved to New York, looking for a community. He is mostly self-taught in Judaism but learns with mentors and chavrusas.

Bass studied philosophy at City College of New York. The farm opportunity came around as Bass tired of living in the city. He met a group of Yiddish-speaking people and realized that he wanted to find a way that "Yiddish was a means rather than an end to itself." Bass also discovered that he loved farming. He spent two summers farming with others before trying it on his own. "It was great to be busy, employing Jewish workers and doing something that not too many other people are doing [in our community]." Founded in 2012, the farm provided a place for students to learn Yiddish in an immersion environment and spend time working the land.

https://jewinthecity.com/2025/02/this-organic-farm-is-run-by-yiddish-speaking-hasidic-jews-in-upstate-new-york/