Beginning on the day that marks the New Year for Trees, Tuesday, February 3 is the Jewish holiday of Tu B’shvat, which honors the sacred miracle of trees. In many Jewish traditions, trees are celebrated as one of the most central symbols of life, and in Jewish law, there are strict prohibitions against destroying trees.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, leaders of the religious Zionist movement began a custom of planting trees in Jewish colonies in Palestine as part of a celebration of Tu B’shvat. In 1901, this tradition was then adopted by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) for its “Plant a Tree in Israel” Campaign. Since then, the JNF has shamelessly exploited Tu B’shvat as an opportunity to raise international funds and support for its tree plantings, which function to greenwash Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine.