For foodies and oenophiles looking to indulge in a California wine country weekend getaway, you couldn’t pick a better place for a Jewish culinary retreat than the rolling hills and sprawling vineyards of Sonoma County.
This idyllic Bay Area setting is home to URJ Camp Newman in Santa Rosa, a 500-acre Jewish summer sleepaway camp and year-round luxury retreat center.
Its first-ever Jewish Food & Wine Retreat — featuring, among others, Shannon Sarna, founding editor of The Nosher and renowned cookbook author — will take place on September 13-15.
With a dynamic lineup of world-class vintners, chefs, food writers, rabbis and Jewish educators, the Jewish Food & Wine Retreat, organized in partnership with Congregation Beth Shalom of Napa, will be a mouthwatering celebration at the intersection of food, wine and Jewish culture.
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“Connections to food and wine are rich and legitimate ways to be Jewish,” noted Jordanna Flores, director of year-round programs for Camp Newman.
The retreat experience aims to nourish body, mind and soul. Each workshop, gathering and tasting will seek to underscore how participants are deeply connected to what sustains them, what inspires them and what grounds them.
Among the weekend’s headliners are Shannon Sarna; fromager Omer Seltzer of Mt. Eitan cheese; chef and dietician Micah Siva; Covenant Wines founder Jeff Morgan; San Francisco pickler Sam Paone; artisanal vintner Drew Neiman; food agriculture expert Arielle Dubowe; barbequer extraordinaire BJ Rasmussen; chef and entrepreneur Eliot Swartz; Hagafen Cellars owner and winemaker Ernie Weir, and others.
Weekend all-inclusive packages start at $675 per person, with special rates of $475 available for Camp Newman alumni under age 30. Participants who sign up early using the code Nosh50 can get a $50 discount off registration.
Kicking things off on Friday evening, Camp Newman chef Danny Robinow and Covenant Wines’ Morgan will host a Shabbat dinner with several Moroccan-influenced dishes, each paired with a different Covenant wine — from the salad course to dessert — followed by an après-dinner sipping of Covenant brandy.
If brandy is not your spirit of choice, don’t worry: There will also be a friendly mixology competition to create a signature Camp Newman cocktail — aptly named The Porter Creek for the road leading to camp.
“It will be a fun journey for the participants as we explore our dinner plates and wine glasses,” Morgan said. “Eating and drinking helps us understand where we come from and each other.”
Throughout the weekend, retreat participants will be able to choose from different gastronomic experiences designed to appeal to a variety of palates, including dairy lovers, meat eaters and vegetarians. They’ll also be able to enjoy a host of other activity options, including a foraging hike, planting lemon trees, creating a communal art project and participating in a service project to fight hunger.
On the dairy front, artisanal cheesemaker Omer Seltzer from Mt. Eitan Cheese will share his familial philosophy and technique for cheesemaking along with a tasting of some of his creations.
“My family heritage is cheesemaking,” said Seltzer, who is originally from Israel. “It’s my calling. I’m intrigued by the process of the milk becoming something so different while drawing out its unique flavors.”
Sarna, founding editor of The Nosher and author of “Modern Jewish Baker” and “Modern Jewish Comfort Food,” will be teaching a hands-on class in babka making.
“Right now, it’s so important to find joy in Jewishness,” Sarna said. “Dough is my passion. I love that it is so much more than its ingredients, and I love to share where food comes from, why it’s a Jewish food.”
A panel discussion on the origin stories of several well-known Bay Area Jewish delis will be moderated by food writer Alix Wall and will include some tastings from those menus.
For those seeking ideas for vegetarian High Holiday meals, recipe writer and chef Micah Siva will lead two classes highlighting trends in Jewish plant-based cooking straight from her new cookbook “Nosh.” Familiar Jewish holiday staples reimagined as mushroom-tofu brisket and vegetarian cabbage roll are some of Siva’s favorites.
“As a kid, I was a vegetarian and often felt left out at the Jewish holidays,” Siva said. “With all the innovations in plant-based cooking today, we can eat a little differently than our bubbes.”
An exclusive pre-weekend wine tasting at nearby Hagafen Cellars is also offered for an additional fee.
“As Jews, wine is one of our sacramental foods and has historic significance,” said Hagafen Cellars owner and winemaker Ernie Weir. “The Newman retreat participants will have an opportunity to taste exclusive, high-quality wines from Napa Valley that they have probably never tried before.”
The Jewish Food & Wine Retreat will also be something of a restart for Camp Newman, a much-loved institution established in 1947. It moved to its current location in 1997 but in 2017 was almost completely destroyed by the Tubbs Fire, which ravaged Santa Rosa. Reopened in 2021, Camp Newman was rebuilt with the intent of creating a woodsy, spiritual gathering place for the Jewish community replete with luxury hotel-like accommodations and amenities.
“Newman was rebuilt thoughtfully in this special, gorgeous location so we would be able to come together as a joyful Jewish community for a camp experience that is elevated and refined,” Flores said.
Whether they come for the food and wine, the gorgeous scenery or the luxurious accommodations, participants can expect to leave the retreat at Camp Newman wanting more.
“We hope people leave the Jewish Food & Wine Retreat with a sense of fulfilment — not only in their bodies but also in their neshama,” said Flores, using the Hebrew word for soul. “That they feel a sense of awareness that there is still work to be done in the world; that they not only learned something, but that it was mindful.”
Register for the retreat here.
This story was sponsored by and produced in partnership with URJ Camp Newman, California’s best Jewish summer camp and premier year-round retreat and conference center. This article was produced by Nosher’s native content team.
