A letter from the founders
Shayndel Plotkin
Rabbi Baruch Plotkin
Founders
Built with love. Built for our people.
Liumi is a dream that Baruch and I are building together.
It comes from our love for our people, our love for Jewish life, our love for Israel, and our belief that every person deserves to have a place where they feel that they truly belong.
We wanted to create more than a place to visit.We wanted to create a community.
A place where you can walk through the gate and feel welcomed. Where you can feel safe to be yourself. Where you can laugh, learn, pray, eat, celebrate, grow, and connect.
A place where Torah meets the garden, Shabbat meets the table, and community feels like family.
Through The Kibbutz @Liumi, our gardens and orchards, Shabbat dinners, Jewish learning, Israel experiences, women’s gatherings, programs for children and teens, and moments shared around a table, we are building a place where Jewish life can grow—and where people can grow too.
Because we believe that the future of our Jewish people will not only be built through institutions or buildings.
It will be built through love.
Through knowing one another. Caring for one another. Showing up for one another.
So we are planting seeds—in the earth, in our community, in our children, and in each other.
And now, we invite you to join us.
Come walk with us.Come grow with us.Come celebrate with us.Come bring your ideas, your dreams, your family, your heart, and your love.
Help us build something beautiful.
A place where you feel safe.A place where you belong.A place where you are loved.A place where, together, we can grow.
This is our dream.This is our love.This is Liumi.
And there is a place here for you
Here today
Community starts with people who care.
You'll meet all of them within a gathering or two. That's rather the point.
Shayndel Plotkin
Executive Director
As a teacher, writer, and facilitator of educational seminars and curriculum, Shayndel is passionate about working with women, children, and families to help them grow and develop, spiritually and personally. Her background in the Jewish community, Jewish education, and Israel began in South Florida more than twenty years ago as a writer for the Jewish press, and then as Israel Experience Director for the Commission for Jewish Education. She has recently been certified as a female farmer in the state of Florida.
Shayndel is a writer of novels and children's stories, a professional memoirist, and a writer for several international magazines. She holds a Master of Arts in Jewish Education from the Pardes Institute and Hebrew College, and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Communications from Florida State University. She is a graduate of Midreshet Rachel Seminary in Jerusalem, where she studied Jewish texts and philosophy for three years.
Rabbi Baruch Plotkin
Founder & Co-Executive Director
For over 25 years, Rabbi Plotkin has been building a sense of Jewish community in South Florida. Described as a Jewish muse, maggid, mentor, and friend, he is a master teacher whose knowledge and love for Torah, Israel and community are contagious. He previously served as Rabbi in Residence at Donna Klein Jewish Academy and as Rabbi for the University of Miami Hillel and the Hillel of Broward & Palm Beach.
He received a Bachelor of Science in Business Communications from Emerson College and a Master of Arts in Jewish Education from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and did his rabbinic training at the David Shappel College of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, receiving ordination in coordination with Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg (z'l), Chaver Beit Din of Jerusalem. He was a Community Kollel Fellow and a Senior Educator Fellow at the Hebrew University (2009), received the Targum Shlishi Award (2010) for Educational Excellence and Creativity, and was named one of America's 36 most inspiring rabbis (2013).
Kim Plotkin
Director of Special Projects
Kim has an extensive background in marketing research. She was managing director for Boston Field and Focus for more than twenty years, and went on to start her own marketing research firm, Infield Research. She is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, and has three wonderful children.
Pam Levine
Development & Special Events Director
A principal in the Levine Group, a premier real estate firm in Palm Beach County. Pam met Shayndel on her JWRP trip in 2016 and brings her talent for bringing people together to Liumi. She and her husband Jeff live in Boca Raton with their four children.
Our corporate sponsors
Businesses who put their name behind the year: the gatherings, the garden and the long table.
Our partners
Schools, synagogues, camps, army units and kibbutzim who use the land, teach here, travel with us, or send us their people.
Here in South Florida
Organizations that use the land, teach here, or send their people to us.
In Israel, and nationally
Who we travel with, learn from, and stand beside.
Come as you are. Belong as you are.
No pressure. No religious prerequisites. No need to know anyone before you arrive.