Every year, in midwinter, synagogue bulletins and Jewish Community Center emails are filled with announcements of organic Sabbath lunches, environmental lectures, and recycling drives. The impetus for this annual unveiling of the green—which, somewhat unusually, takes place across Reform, Conservative, and Modern Orthodox institutions alike—is the commemoration on the Jewish calendar of Tu B’Shvat, classically known as the New Year for Trees.
In 2015, Tu B’Shvat begins on February 3 and continues through the day of February 4. In recent decades, it has moved from the periphery of special Jewish days to much closer to the center. It serves as a kind of Jewish Earth Day—a rallying point for the marriage between Green sensibilities and Jewish identity. Indeed, the takeover of Tu B’Shvat by the environmental movement is now so all-encompassing that it threatens to become the only thing for which this special day—which has existed for two millennia—is known.
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