The Jews (and this newspaper) love trees

“Do you know, boys and girls, that on Saturday, tomorrow, throughout the European countries and the Americas, wherever there are Jews, the Jewish Arbor Day … is celebrated?” Dorothy Wilke-Weiss wrote in our paper in 1936.

Happy new year of the trees! On the Hebrew calendar, it’s the 15th of Shvat, or Tu Bishvat. This year the holiday falls begins on the evening of Jan. 24 and ends at sundown Jan. 25.

Tu Bishvat is actually one of four new years marked annually in Jewish life. There is also one for kings and festivals, another related to animals and, of course, Rosh Hashanah. In the days of yore, Tu Bishvat was the day when farmers were allowed to start harvesting fruit from trees. In modern times it’s become a green eco-holiday.

This publication has long referred to it as Jewish Arbor Day, even as far back as 1920. In 1939, here’s how our local community marked Tu Bishvat:

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