About this artwork
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Joel Sternfeld
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Title
- Rabbi Chaim Adelman at Eratz HaChaim, Sunderland, Massachusetts
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Origin
- United States
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Date
- Made 2004
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Medium
- Chromogenic print, from the series "Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America"
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Inscriptions
- No markings recto or verso Eretz HaChaim (Hebrew for “the living land”) is a kosher, organic communal farm, founded in 2002 by Ultra-Orthodox Jews under the leadership of Rabbi Chaim Adelman. The commune, still in formation as of this writing, owns seventy acres of land. Following an early Jewish rule that presages modern sustainable farming practice, every seventh year they will let their land lie fallow. In accordance with the Torah, the “corners” of their fields will be left to the poor—if no poor show up to glean, the produce from the corners will be donated to charity. As Orthodox Jews they cannot milk cows on Saturdays, so gentiles will perform the task on that day. Their kosher organic chickens will not be fed grain during Passover. The community plans to be self-sufficient, with a synagogue, schools, a ritual bath and a swimming pool (the Talmud, a body of Torah interpretation, says that children must be taught to swim). Eretz HaChaim is part of a larger return to a Jewish farming tradition. Sweet Whisper Farm in Readsboro, Vermont, specializes in organic education and maple syrup harvested using horse-drawn wagons. Mitzva Farms in Waukon, Iowa, produces Yetta’s Chedda, A Bis’l Swiss’l and Mazel Rella. From the portfolio, Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America, 1982–2005
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Dimensions
- 26.5 × 33.2 cm (image); 27.9 × 35.6 cm (paper)
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Credit Line
- Gift of Ralph and Nancy Segall
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Reference Number
- 2008.748
Extended information about this artwork
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