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A New Year for trees, Israeli and Palestinian

Feeling discouraged about the current direction of Israeli politics, I was looking for another way of expressing my love for Israel when I hit on the idea of organizing a Tu B’Shevat Seder, the first I had ever conducted.
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January 27, 2015

Feeling discouraged about the current direction of Israeli politics, I was looking for another way of expressing my love for Israel when I hit on the idea of organizing a Tu B’Shevat Seder, the first I had ever conducted. 

I thought I could compile my own “Hagaddah” including some favorite songs and prayers expressing a love for the land, for the environment and for nature.

We would have four cups of different fruit juices and four questions; we’d include some traditional blessings and Bible readings, but also popular Israeli songs and some poetry that was especially meaningful to me. 

We’d start naturally with “Hinei Ma Tov” to express our happiness at being together, all brothers and sisters regardless of political outlook. Another natural prayer to be sung with a clear tree motif was “Tzaddick k’Tamar” from Psalm 92, the opening words of which say: “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon.” 

I had to include the Naomi Shemer song, “Sheleg al Iri” (Snow Over My City) which expresses the longing of a lover stuck abroad in the depths of winter longing for the warmth of the Land of Israel and her beloved. The first stanza reads:

Snow over my city, resting all the night.
My love has gone to the warm lands.
Snow over my city, and the night is cold.
From the warm countries he will bring me a date.

It turns out there are many songs about trees in Hebrew. One of the sweetest is “Etz HaRimon” (The Pomegranate Tree) with a lyric by Ya’akov Orland and a melody based on an old Bukharin folksong. Ofra Haza and Arik Lavi are among those who have recorded it. The song describes the sweet scent of the tree and concludes, 

What use are the army of thousand, or ten thousand?
My heart is dying of love
.”

Next, I wanted to include a lovely haunted song in Yiddish which I came to know from a beautiful recording by the peerless Chava Alberstein, Ikh shtey unter a bokserboym” (I Stand Under a Carob Tree) which actually mentions a fig and almond tree as well. As with many Yiddish lyrics written in an minor key, it has an indescribable sadness. We don’t know the troubles the narrator is facing – but we know how his world will end. 

“I stand beneath a carob tree, a carob tree;

I got there, but not easily, not easily.”

Next in my service, I placed the classic Tu B’Shevat anthem “Hashakediya Porachat,” (The Almond Tree is Blooming” followed by a quote from the Song of Songs: 

Birds wing in the low sky, dove and songbird singing in the open air above.
Earth nourishing tree and vine,
green fig and tender grape, green and tender fragrance.
Come with me, my love, come away.

And next, another lovely Naomi Shemer song, “Horshat HaEkilyptus” (The Eucalyptus Grove) . Finally, I thought we could end with a rousing canon to the simple words “Atzei Zeitim Omdim” (Olive Trees Stand.)

Next day, I read the following news item:

“A group of Israeli settlers on Sunday chopped down dozens of olive trees belonging to an elderly Palestinian man in the village of Sisiya south of Hebron. The settlers chopped down more than 30 olive trees planted four years ago. He said the trees belonged to a man named Khalil Najawaa. Settlers have been pressuring Najawaa to leave his land.” 

Uprooting Palestinian olive trees is commonplace in the West Bank. Only last month, Jerusalem consulate personnel were attacked when they tried to investigate a complaint by Palestinian farmers over vandalism of olive trees.  

State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said: “We can confirm a vehicle from the Consulate General was pelted with stones and confronted by a group of armed settlers today in the West Bank, near the Palestinian village of Turmus Ayya. Our personnel were in the area looking into reports that settlers had uprooted some 5,000 olive tree saplings in that area in recent days.”

“Atzei zeitim omdim,” We should not be uprooting them. 

Whoops. So much for my attempt to keep politics out of it.

Alan Elsner is Vice President of Communications for J Street

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