Special to WJW

Tifereth Israel is big on green. With the aid of a grant from Hazon, a Jewish environmental organization in New York, the Washington, D.C., Conservative synagogue is offering a number of environmental activities for the community this year.

These include an organic produce-buying program, last Sunday's Washington Jewish History Bike Ride, a 23-mile historic bicycle tour of D.C., and a Jewish Environmental Shabbaton later this month.

"We're very excited about it all," said the synagogue's executive director, David Zinner. "It's a great set of actions that will help raise environmental consciousness in the area."

As part of its earthy outreach, the synagogue has paired up with the Community Supported Agriculture project, or CSA, for the second year to bring community members Tuv Ha'aretz, Tuv TI: Good for the Land, Good for Tifereth Israel -- a program that weekly trucks fresh, seasonal vegetables and free-range eggs from grain-fed hens to the synagogue. The program annually begins in April and ends in November.

"Last year, one of the congregants said, 'Why doesn't the synagogue have a relationship with the CSA and have a [produce and egg] drop-off at Tifereth Israel?' " remembered Zinner, who liked the idea and helped put it into action.

Now, produce and accompanying recipe ideas are made available for pickup by, or are delivered straight to the doors of, the program's prepaid members, who fork over about $520 per season. The project, states the press release, supports "sustainable agriculture by securing income for local organic farmers and receiving delicious vegetables in return."

The local organic farm with which Tifereth Israel is working is Mike Klein's Good Fortune Farm in Brandywine.

Esther Kimelman-Block, 6 and a student at the Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation's Capital, and her 3-year-old brother, Natan, are just two of the Good Fortune Farm's customers through the program at Tifereth Israel.

"The eggs are really yummy," said Esther, who, along with the bike tour's 28 other participants, stopped for lunch Sunday at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in the District. "We eat lots of them."

The children's parents, Devora and Rabbi Jason Kimelman-Block, who shepherded their children on their bicycles, were involved in spearheading Tuv Ha'aretz, Tuv TI.

"We live in a very environmental cohousing condo building" in Silver Spring, Devora Kimelman-Block said. "People there were starting to get CSAs [drop-offs] lined up, and Jason said, 'We should get into the whole Hazon idea.' I ran with it. I found a local, organic, Jewish CSA farmer looking to expand his business and do this full time."

"Part of the idea behind it is to think about Jewish involvement on all sorts of levels," her husband interjected. "Being Jewish isn't just about where you pray or what synagogue you belong to. It should permeate every aspect of your life, including how you eat. This is food that's locally grown, has less of an impact environmentally and tastes better."

Silver Spring's Mark Verschell and his wife, Elizabeth Leff, participated in Tuv Ha'aretz last year and are taking part again this year.

"It does need a little bit of adjustment, because you don't get to plan ahead what you're cooking -- you have a basic idea of what the farmer's planted, [but] you're getting delivered what he happens to have fresh that day. It's been very satisfying to the appetite and in an ethical sense. Knowing that a large proportion of our food could be pinned down to a specific location was definitely worth it to us."

Unlike the produce-buying program, the other environmental initiatives are first-timers this year. Tifereth Israel's Rabbi Ethan Seidel, who uses his recumbent bike in lieu of a car and puts about 30 miles a week on it, said, "Last year, we did an eight-mile bike-a-thon through Rock Creek Park and I thought, 'Wouldn't it be neat to go downtown and see the old synagogues?' "

Others thought so, too, and this year, the synagogue decided to extend its bike-a-thon by 15 miles and follow the path the late photographer and former Tifereth Israel member, Jeremy Goldberg, took when he bicycled through the city in 1998, photographing original and current synagogues and other Jewish sites. (Goldberg's photos appear in the current exhibit, Through the Lens: Jeremy Goldberg's Washington, of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington.)

More than 50 community donors helped make possible both the cycling tour and the photo exhibit of Goldberg's work at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.

Seidel, who bikes about 1,300 miles annually, has been a "bicycle commuter" ever since he joined the rabbinate 18 years ago.

"There are so many good reasons to bicycle," he said. "It's good for the environment, your health and the pocketbook. And also it's good for me because I don't have to go to as many meetings -- people are always rushing by car from place to place, but the core of my rabbinate is study and teaching; it's not about going from one meeting to another."

Jeremy Manela thinks the programs his organization has helped Tifereth Israel create blend Jewish learning with ecological awareness.

"There's a historical element to the bike ride," said Hazon's environmental program coordinator, who lives in Takoma Park. "It's part of a larger environmental theme that Tifereth Israel is embracing. This is one arm of the program, and it focuses on transportation -- with it, we're learning about our history in a way that's healthy to our minds and our bodies. It's really a one-of-a-kind thing."

The bike ride took its participants to 18 historic Jewish sites, beginning with Washington Hebrew Congregation on Macomb Street and ending with the Historic Southeast Cemeteries on Alabama Avenue.

"I decided to participate in the bike ride because I am an avid bike rider," said D.C.'s Ronni Davis, a Tifereth Israel congregant and an auditor for the Department of Defense. "I thought it would be a good opener to the summer to check out the historical sites and break up the monotony [of the weekend]."

"The ride was very interesting," added Vershell's son, Ben, 9, the youngest member of the group to ride his own bike. "But I paid more attention [to] staying on" the bicycle.

In honor of Earth Day on Sunday, Tifereth Israel's religious school classes will focus on the environment through various educational games and vegetable, seed, herb and tree planting.

Lynn Golub-Rofrano, director of the synaogue's lifelong learning programs, thinks the time is ripe to involve the congregation's children in ecological awareness.

"It seems that the importance of Earth Day has fallen off in recent years," she said. "Our children need to understand the importance of environmental stewardship from both a Jewish and human perspective."

In addition to the celebration of Earth Day, the synagogue will hold its Jewish Environmental Shabbaton April 27-29. That Thursday, a cooking group from Tifereth Israel will prepare Shabbat's kiddush lunch using veggies from the Good Fortune Farm.

The following day, Seidel will incorporate environmental themes into his noon text-study class, and that evening's kabbalat Shabbat service will be held partly outdoors near the shul. Dinner will be available to those who will have made reservations.

At dinner, Rabbi Daniel Swartz plans to give a sermon titled, "The Greening of Our Synagogues." Swartz is director of Greater Washington Area Interfaith Power and Light, a nonprofit organization in D.C. "that helps congregations, religious institutions and others in the Washington, D.C., area work for a more just, sustainable and healthy creation by reducing the threat of global warming."

On Saturday, after morning services and Kiddush, Manela will take those on the retreat for an educational hike through Rock Creek Park.