How the ancient Jewish 'new year for trees' became an Israeli celebration of nature

Labor Zionists’ veneration of nature shocked their religious contemporaries, who saw their practices as verging on paganism. But these young activists hardly spent all of their time worshipping the country’s soil and flora and fauna. They were engaged in state-building and helped recast Tu BiShvat as a national holiday that highlighted nature

After the State of Israel was established as an independent state in 1948, the holiday was added to the country’s official calendar and marked with huge tree-planting initiatives and hikes for schoolchildren. Amid the early state’s conflicts with its Arab neighbors, one of the holiday’s implicit lessons was that Israelis should love the land enough to be willing to fight for it.

But Tu BiShvat remained centered on love for nature. When Israel’s environmental movement was born in the early 1960s, it organized hikes on Tu BiShvat to raise public awareness of ecologically sensitive areas and to protest state plans for large-scale construction there. Participants viewed hiking not merely as a recreational activity, but as a means of raising environmental awareness.

Many Jewish communities around the world, including in the United States, continue to observe Tu BiShvat in traditional ways. But the holiday’s nationalist lessons handed down by early Zionists still resonate with generations of Israelis, including the hundreds of thousands of hikers who use Israel’s 10,000-kilometer (6,200-mile) trail system to walk the length and breadth of their country.

Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli scholar who grew up organizing youth hikes and planting trees on Tu BiShvat, wrote that even after he became disillusioned with Zionism, its lessons still defined his relationship with nature. “This land is part of me and I am part of it,” he wrote. “My American friends laugh when I tell them that the flowering trees in Central Park seem fake to me.” His deep connection to land in his home country made him feel that Israel was the only place worth living in, or living for.

This sense that some Israelis have of a unique, almost mystical relationship with the land is important to understand in the context of ongoing struggles between Israelis and Palestinians. The West Bank is part of what many Israelis view as the biblical land of Israel. But it is also the homeland of millions of Palestinians who love their land as well and whose presence there is deeply rooted. When the land is endowed with such significance, the stakes in the conflict can only be high.

Yet the use of Tu BiShvat to promote nature preservation also creates space for discussing more universal concerns. Each year, Jewish communities hold events addressing global issues like climate change.

Many Jews embrace a traditional concept called “tikkun olam,” which calls on people to help God “repair the world.” Tu BiShvat has become a day to do this in the most literal sense.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Shay Rabineau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.