You may remember the name Jeremy “JD” Krones from a story in last year’s L’Chaim® magazine about Jewish life in Grand County. Yes, there is Jewish life there. According to Krones, records of Jewish residents go back to the late 1800s, with shopkeepers in Granby and Kremmling. Krones, 35, hasn’t been there quite that long. He moved to Grand County from Flagstaff, Ariz. seven years ago to run the local land trust, Colorado Headwaters Land Trust.
In February, 2020, he moved into a new home. On Oct. 21, 2020, it was consumed by the East Troublesome Fire, and Krones became an itinerant, moving 10 times, he shared in a recent piece for Sky-Hi News on the fifth anniversary of the fire.
Krones chose to rebuild, and last November, just over four years to the day, he and his 11-year-old husky mutt Cauliflower were back home.
Living in a rural location is natural for Krones, who grew up on a farm in Frederick County, Md.
“It was a 10-acre little farm. We had goats and chickens, a vineyard, an orchard, a vegetable garden. That’s awesome. It was very special,” he says.
Aside from briefs stints in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, cities haven’t been his home. “Doing what I do and living the life I want to live requires me to live out in the sticks.”
IJN: What is site conservation?
Owning real estate comes with a selection of rights, or allowances the landowner has on or with the property, like air rights, water rights and mineral rights.
Two of those rights are development and subdivision: the right to build on the property, and the right to break up the property. A land trust, which is a nonprofit committed to private land conservation, focuses on those two rights and works with the landowner to transfer those rights to the land trust, in exchange for cash or tax credits.
The property can be protected for any reason, like education, outdoor recreation, wildlife habitat, agriculture, historical significance and scenic open space.
The agreement is called a conservation easement. The landowner promises not to build on or use the land in ways they promised they wouldn’t; the land trust makes sure the landowner upholds their promises by monitoring the property once a year and works with the landowner to resolve issues that might arise.
The result is a protected landscape.
A conservation easement stays with the property in perpetuity, which means it is in place regardless of the owner, so if you grant a conservation easement on your property today, your children will have to follow that agreement when they inherit the land.
When your descendants sell the land in 100 years, the buyer will also have to follow the agreement.
IJN: Is there a conservation project you are particularly proud of?
I am proud of all my projects, each for their own unique reasons. My final project at the land trust was conserving over 740 acres of open space owned by the Town of Granby, including two miles of the Colorado River.
This project began around the time I started at the land trust, so I was pleased to be able to complete it before I left. It was my largest project, and our most unique project because of the diversity of interests involved.
Approximately 300 acres of the property is preserved for wildlife habitat; the remaining area can have up to ten miles of non-motorized trails, and the river has fishing access provided by the town.
IJN: What would you do if it weren’t land conservation?
Krones jokes that some of his family might answer rabbinical school because he enjoys activating people’s Jewish lives.
In Flagstaff, he started up a Friday night Shabbat poltuck chavurah that rotated among the participants’ homes. He attended Chabad on campus and others the Reform temple, but the dinners spoke to people who were not necessarily attracted to formal Jewish institutions.
“The rule was, whoever was hosting would decide kind of what flavor of Judaism it was going to be,” he says. Raised in a Conservative home, by an “academic-focused” father, Krones’ Shabbat dinners were “a little more traditional [with] a little more davening and then maybe a dvar Torah.”
In the summer of 2021, when Grand County’s Jewish chavurah founders, Claude and Claudia Diamond, were out of state attending to family, “a couple of bubbies in the community volunteered” him organize meetups, which had been on hold since Covid. At High Holiday services, he realized that most of the people in the room were full-time residents.
Until then, the chavurah was only active during summers. That winter, Krones and another chavurah member started hosting winter onegs. This year he built a sukkah.
“I would be doing this regardless of whether anyone joined me, because it’s something that I need in my life, even though I live alone in Grand Lake. If people want to join me, that’s fantastic,” he says.
When asked what is meaningful to him about being Jewish, Krones answers:
“This is like asking what is meaningful to me about being alive. Being Jewish is part of my core identity. It is my heritage, my culture, my family. It helps inform how I view current events, how I interact with others, how I structure my life.”
At University of Maryland, Krones studied ecological anthropology, which he defines as the relationship between culture and natural resources. For American Jews, he says, that relationship somewhat differs depending on a person’s denomination — though he notes overlap.
For Orthodox and Conservative Jews, what Krones terms academic Judaism, much of the connection comes through Jewish practice, “because so many of our holidays are associated with the cycles of nature,” he says, “whether agriculture, like with Sukkot, or trees, like with Tu b’Shevat.
“We find meaning and purpose in the Torah and G-d’s word, but there is also the practical side; we can’t escape that Sukkot was also a harvest holiday.”
Liberal denominations and unaffiliated Jews, he says, align with Conservative Jews on tikkun olam — caring for the earth and repairing the world.
With his background as a Conservative Jew and his work as a conservationist, Krones can navigate and meld both approaches. Not to mention, growing up on a farm and his aunt and uncle founding a kibbutz in Israel.
“There are a lot of us in my age cohort who are coming back to Judaism or rediscovering parts of Judaism through our relationship with the natural world,” he says.
Last year, when his governing board at the land trust decided it was time to merge with a larger organization, Colorado Open Lands, Krones used the opportunity to take his exit, which happened last January. After “four years of pretty intense struggles,” dealing with the destruction of his home and the impact of the fire on the local community, combined with global issues, including the coronavirus pandemic and events in the Middle East, he needed a break.
After Oct. 7, he felt he was in a position to help friends, neighbors and community members navigate their reactions to events in Israel and around the world.
“While I was still processing a personal trauma unrelated to the attacks,” he says, referring to the fire, “I also had to be there for others who needed a safe and respectful audience to hear their own concerns and fears.
“It strengthened my identity within my local community, and put into relief the importance of being committed to a strong Jewish community. The fact that we are all Jews by simple definition was enough to come together for mourning, for comfort and eventually, for joy — as a community.”
For now, he’s working at an auto body shop, while also doing some grant writing and consulting. “I have a lot of gigs,” he says. And he has no plans to leave Grand County, where he serves on a number of boards. He also has plans for the chavurah, including creating a Hebrew school and giving Bar and Bat Mitzvah lessons.
“The big question,” he poses, one that resonates with many Coloradans, “is will I be able to afford it? I think I will.”
Six quickfire questions for JD Krones:
Who has been an inspiring figure in your life?
My eldest sister, Sarah. She has helped shape my identity and passions as a community member, an environmental conservationist, and a Jew.
What book are you currently reading?
Stone Yard Devotional, by Charlotte Wood.
What do you do in your free time?
Read, write, spend time on trails (walking, hiking, backpacking, snowshoeing), play music (flute), listen to music, craft and restore, play board games and adventure games with friends, and sit with my dog and watch the meadow off my back deck.
Guilty pleasure?
Doomscrolling: not so much a pleasure, but it’s certainly guilt-inducing!
What is something you miss about the East Coast?
The East Coast has changed a lot since I left in 2014, but what I do miss is how close I was to family.
Favorite spot in Colorado?
Anywhere I can enjoy the serenity of nature and the beauty of the world. Where I live in Grand County is pretty great!
© IJN 2025