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Home > News > Archive 2008 > January > Redbridge JCC goes green for Tu B'Shevat

Date:  23 January 2008

Members of the Redbridge Community Centre mark Tu B'Shevat with model tree

A three foot high tree made out of wire and coloured paper went on display at Jewish Care’s Redbridge Community Centre to mark the Jewish New Year for Trees. The model was made by day centre members under the direction of art teachers Susan Steiner, Ruth Adams and Jason Rose. They also made a number of smaller models, one for each table in the dining room.

Tu B’Shevat is a minor Jewish festival and customs include eating 15 different types of fruit grown on trees and planting trees and bulbs. Tu means 15 and Shevat is the Hebrew name of the month and so Tu B’Shevat is the Hebrew for the 15th of Shevat.

This year the festival fell on Tuesday 22nd January when centre members enjoyed a fruit seder in which blessings were made before they ate the plates of fruit. This began with a short talk by Alex Carson, the centre’s Jewish programmes coordinator.

The New Year for Trees was discussed by the Rabbis in the Talmud which was written about two thousand years ago. A new year was needed for tithing purposes and because Jews should not eat from trees less than three years old. The date of 15th Shevat was chosen because the rainy season had finished in Israel, so all fruit and blossom after that date was “new”.

The festival has inspired the centre’s programmes coordinator Derek Fisher to set up his own recycling project. A keen environmentalist, he has been encouraging day centre members to bring in their newspapers on a daily basis and he is taking the papers to the local recycling centre.

Derek Fisher said: “I think that everyone should do their bit for the planet – the centre already had recycling bins for white paper and I thought that we should do even more. The more paper is saved, the less trees are cut down, and recycling also saves energy.

“Tu B’Shevat is great festival as it encourages everyone to be green – our members thoroughly enjoyed the fruit seder and they have had a lot of satisfaction from making the model trees.”