Israel’s Holiday of Trees Moves Indoors Tara Kavaler
Youth organizations, nonprofits help youth find creative ways to substitute for traditional tree planting
With Israel in a strict lockdown scheduled to end February 1, this Tu b’Shvat will be unlike any other as the distinctively outdoorsy Jewish holiday shifts indoors.
Tu b’Shvat, a minor Jewish holiday marking the “new year of the trees,” has long been celebrated by Israeli schoolchildren taking field trips to plant trees.
The arbor day of sorts that has taken on Earth Day-style activism occurs each year on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Shevat. This year, that coincides with January 28 (the holiday begins at sundown on January 27), less than a month before the one-year anniversary of the first coronavirus case in Israel in late February 2020.
Marvelous Miracles Occurred for Many in the Middle East This Year, Including Camels (with VIDEO) Tara Kavaler 12/14/2020
In the shadow of a global pandemic, we recount eight unusual events as Israel celebrates the Jewish festival of lights
The Hanukkah holiday, which Jews around the world are observing this week, celebrates two different miracles: the overthrow of Greco-Syrian control over Judea and the discovery in the Temple in Jerusalem of a sealed vial of oil that is said to have burned for eight days instead of one.
“In the Bible, when miracles happen, they happen for a reason,” Rabbi Yosef Ote, the community rabbi of the Orthodox Hazvi Yisrael synagogue in Jerusalem, told The Media Line. For example, he said: “The ten plagues in Egypt happened because of what was going on with slavery, and we needed to escape, so God split the sea.”