Tu Be’Shvat These Days: The (Re-Re)Greening of Israel

In a few days we will be celebrating Tu Be’Shvat – one of the minor holidays on the Jewish calendar. In Israel, though, it has lately taken on special resonance for a couple of reasons that indicate important, related trends in Israeli society.
For starters, many non-religious Israelis, and certainly those who consider themselves Masoratim (traditional, semi-observing Jews), have been searching for ways to “rediscover their cultural past” without taking upon themselves the full 613 commandments. One way to do this is to (re)create special and “new” meaning to ancient Jewish holidays. As a result, numerous Israelis have renewed and updated an obscure tradition: the Tu Be’Shvat Seder, a feast with prayers regarding Nature and its bounty – sort of combining “Thanksgiving” and “Earth Day.” This is not mere tree planting but a more serious event involving study of the Jewish sources regarding ecological precepts and the like.
There’s much to study here. More widely known are such biblical ecological-moral commandments as “bal tashkhis” (don’t unnecessarily destroy) “tzaar baalei chayim” (non-cruelty to animals), “aiver min hachai” (eating flesh from a live animal) and so on. Perhaps more telling are the stories we are all familiar with but usually don’t think of in a “Green” context. Suffice it to quickly note four examples:
1) Noah ensuring bio-diversity by bringing at least a couple of each animal species onto the Ark;
2) Abraham telling Lot to choose which land he wants for his pasturing herd, so that both of them could avoid overgrazing – a clear case of sustainable herding;
3) The Israelite women in the desert recycling their jewelry as the basis for building the Mishkan (Sanctuary);
4) The 7-year cycle (Shmitta) of the land lying fallow – an early example of sustainable agriculture.
Unfortunately, for all practical purposes, much of this ecological ethos was lost in exile as the Jewish people slowly were denied the profession of farming and owning land. After 2000 years, Jews would have to learn to be “green” all over again.
Many of the earliest Zionist thinkers (e.g., A.D. Gordon) and practitioners (religious kibbutz movement) called for a return to our original Jewish professional work ethic. The Bible had a strong agricultural bent; the “New Jew” would once again become the yeoman of yesteryear as a farmer “conquering” by working the land. We can call this the re-Greening of both the Land of Israel and the emergence of a new type of secular Judaism that was based on the bible’s arboreal descriptions: Land of Milk & Honey etc.
They accomplished this spectacularly. With large overseas donations to the Keren Kayemet (the blue & white charity boxes) and massive tree plantings in Israel over the course of the 20th century, the country tripled its rainfall and transformed (actually, terraformed) the landscape back to its biblical glory of less arid desert and more nutritious foodstuff dessert.
Early Zionism also stood for gainful employment and a modern economy. Numerous factories were established around the country. This manufacturing sector did succeed in putting the economy on a steady footing, but it also had a less positive outcome: massive pollution – air, land, and water. Some of Israel’s main rivers became unswimmable (e.g., the Kishon), industrial Haifa was close to unbreathable, and the massive garbage landfill outside of Tel Aviv became a monument (literally!) to environmental degradation.
We should note the irony here: the new Zionist economy had two mainstays – agriculture and industry – and the latter undermined the reGreening ethos of the former! This in turn led to a new movement to re-Re-green the Holy Land – not something unique to Israel. Throughout the Western world, once society becomes better educated and economically more comfortable, it creates a Green reaction to industrial depredation.
Today, ecological consciousness is running high in Israel. Major national projects and changes in public policy have occurred during the reign of governments left, right, and center. Here are several, showing the broad scope of this general re-re-Greening phenomenon:
1) The gigantic “Khiriyah” landfill was turned into the center of Israel’s largest new park right outside Tel Aviv (named after PM Sharon – quite fittingly, given his agricultural roots).
2) Glass and plastic bottle recycling has now become standard practice (with a deposit fee). So has paper recycling.
3) Legislation has outlawed any residential construction within 100 meters of the seacoast.
4) The light rail tram began working in Jerusalem a decade ago, and similarly in the Greater Tel Aviv metropolis more recently. Special bus lanes are being added to highways and cities to encourage greater public transportation usage.
5) The army is now taking into account animal life in planning its training exercises with live ammunition. Similarly, all new highways must have small underpasses to enable native animals to continue moving through their natural habitat.
6) To protect the aquifers and the Sea of Galilee, Israel has built five huge desalinization plants with additional ones coming onstream in the next few years – preventing water tables from dropping to dangerous levels.
7) The government levies differential taxation on cars based on their level of pollution.
Of course, this is not to say that everyone or everything in Israel is “Green.” For one, Israeli haredim have not joined the Green parade, in large part perceiving that in the secular Jewish State they are still in Galut (“Exile”). So while there is no physical, municipal dividing line between Ramat Gan and Bnei Brak, all you have to do is cross the street from one to the other and immediately see the difference.
The bottom line: in Israel, Tu Be’Shvat is now a holiday not just for the symbolic commemoration of the arboreal New Year but rather – or should I say, especially – for practical celebration of a country that has very strongly returned to its Biblical, environmental roots. And that pun is not only intentional, I think it’s also well warranted!