Subject Guide: Holidays

Tu Bishvat (also spelled Tu Bi-Shevat or Tu B'Shevat) is named for the date of the holiday, the 15th of Shevat. It is also known as the "New Year for Trees" or "Birthday for Trees." Scholars think it an agricultural festival for farmers in ancient times, marking the emergence of spring. Kabbalists later added renewed religious significance for the holiday by creating a ritual similar to a Passover seder. 

Today, for many Jews Tu Bishvat has become a symbol of Zionist attachment to the land of Israel. The Jewish National Fund holds annual fundraisers and events for tree-planting in Israel for the holiday. For others it symbolizes an annual chance to renew commitment to the environment and ecological protections. To celebrate, people prepare seders, eat fruit from the Seven Species, plant trees or gardens, and/or give tzedakah to environmental organizations.

Jewish National Fund Records in the Hadassah Archives, I-578/RG 9

This record group within the Hadassah Archives reflects the association of Hadassah with the Jewish National Fund. It contains correspondence, memoranda, project files, and publications from the 1930s to the 2000s. The JNF is an organization founded in 1901 by Theodor Herzl to secure ownership of land in Palestine for the Jewish people from the Ottoman Empire. The Jewish National Fund’s original goal with this reclaimed land was to create collective worker’s communities that could sustain themselves through agricultural means. As the JNF’s funding grew, so did involvement in other areas, such as creating major city structures, financing Jewish scientists, and founding institutions of higher education. By partnering with Hadassah in the 1920s, both groups were able to provide additional services. Initiatives were created to assist displaced persons of war, to provide respite for children affected by war in the form of summer camps, to improve water conservation efforts through the creation of dams and artificial bodies of water, and to create forests.

Subsubseries F: Jewish National Fund, 1947-1949, RG 294.6 [Digitized]

Items are related to the Jewish National Fund's presence throughout DP camps in Germany, including some printed materials related to Tu B'shvat.

Gala Trails - Jewish National Fund advertising poster, 1950s-1960s. 1998.750 [Digitized]

Jewish National Fund charity container, ca. 1960s - 1970s. 2006.314 [Digitized]

Jewish National Fund charity stamps depicting map of Israel, 1940s. 2001.027 [Digitized]

Keren Kayemet Tu Bi-Shevat Poster, ca. 1960s. 1994.098 [Digitized]

Tree planting certificate Hapoel Hamizrachi Memorial Forest, ca. 1943. 2001.343 [Digitized]

Tu Bi-Shevat, 1962. 1998.728 [Digitized]

Research Guide for Environmental History available here