Last Tu B’Shvat, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, located on Manhattan’s Battery Place, hosted a musical — “The Hatseller and the Monkeys” — and an arts and crafts event for children. This year, the museum has no nature-themed events on the docket to mark the Jewish new year’s celebration for trees, which begins on the…
From Tu B’Shvat (Jewish Arbor Day), we may develop a clearer understanding that the well being of trees is intimately connected to the well being of all creation. From the point of view of practical Jewish philosophy and everyday living, the “Tree of Life” symbolizes the wisdom of the Torah: “Man is like a tree…
The date palm is tall and majestic. The olive tree locks oil in its plentiful fruit that anoints kings. The bountiful orange trees were the crown jewels of early Zionism. Yet it is the humble almond tree that grabs our attention when we celebrate the new year of the trees, Tu B’Shvat. According to the…
It’s coming up on Tu B’Shvat, and for many, the holiday poses a dilemma. On the one hand, the kabbalistic roots of the holiday invite us to connect to the land of Israel through its food. Many of the symbolic foods at Tu B’Shvat seders are among the Seven Species of crops mentioned in Deuteronomy…
It was the pile of onions that made me cry. Not in the way you might think—I wasn’t standing over a cutting board, knife in hand, sobbing my way through an extended dicing activity. The onions that made me cry were whole, bagged and stacked about 5 feet high, in a small village in Western…
“This is not your average garden,” chuckles Yvette Parnell as we survey the former Hayes Valley parking lot that has been transformed into the Growing Home Community Garden on a stunningly clear January afternoon. Indeed, a full tour and history of the vibrantly decorated urban garden reveals the magic contained not only in its lush…
It was the first day where the temperature hadn’t risen above freezing, and I was seriously feeling January. Until I picked up my mail…and found a Johnny’s seed catalog. Pages and pages of beautiful vegetables leapt out at me, warming my heart if not my blistered hands. The night before, I had volunteered at my…
A few weeks ago, I suggested that those of us living outside the land of Israel (or in an otherwise distant place from wheat and barley cultivation) might use the Omer as a time to “count down” to the harvest of another more familiar crop that grows closer to home. What will you be looking…
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