Symbiosis of the environment and Israel during Tu B’Shvat

BENJI SHULMAN

PHOTOGRAPH BY ILAN OSSENDRYVER

Pictured: Amber Cummins, administrative director, Jewish National Fund of South Africa and Benji Shulman, JNF South Africa Deputy Director Local Projects, plant a tree during last Sunday’s Tu B’Shvat celebration at Huddle Park in Johannesburg.

Afterwards many enjoyed the contents of the beer tent, then delicious food on offer and even the chance to sit with an anaconda! The previous seven days had been marked with members of the community helping to bring about a bit more of a “green” environment in different ways.

In the Jewish primary schools the JNF worked with classes of children helping them to grow herbs in a specially-designed JNF cup. When the herbs are fully grown, they will be given away to those who are less fortunate. 

For the high schools, the same kind of cups were used to drink Fair Trade coffee from a roasting company. As well as learning about environmental advancements in Israel, the learners were able to literally taste first-hand how coffee can be grown in a more sustainable manner and how a simple act can make a big difference.

For many years now the JNF has joined forces with Sean Hide from Grow-a-Tree who assisted at many schools doing tree plantings and learning about the environment. Sean has a dream to plant one million trees before he dies and with the JNF having planting 160 million trees in the last 114 years, it is certainly an excellent partnership.

One special event he assisted with involved the wives of various ambassadors who came together to plant trees at the JNF Walter Sisulu Environmental Centre in Mamelodi near Pretoria. Ruth Lenk, wife of Israel’s Ambassador to South Africa Arthur Lenk, representing the State of Israel, explained the meaning of Tu B’Shvat, while the group got to experience first hand the good work that the JNF does for the youth of the area.

Other countries represented at the event included Canada, Croatia, Seychelles, New Zealand, Trinidad, Fuji, Slovakia Jordan, Georgia, Pakistan and Suriname. The group led by Sean then planted a variety of indigenous trees that will be used in a couple years time for the “Greening Mamelodi” programme, which will create a forest canopy for the area.

Although this year is a shmita year in Israel where nothing is being planted by the JNF, in the Diaspora such enthusiastic initiatives help bring the message of the environment and Zionism to communities across the spectrum.