Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig: Israel: Blue and White (plus lots of Green)
Tu Be’Shvat is celebrated this week – one of the Jewish calendar’s minor holidays. In Israel, it has taken on special resonance for a couple of reasons that indicate some positive, related trends in Israeli society.
First, many non-religious Israelis – certainly those who consider themselves traditional – have been searching for ways to “rediscover their cultural past” without taking upon themselves all 613 commandments. One way is to pour “new” meaning into ancient Jewish holidays. Thus, numerous Israelis are renewing and updating an obscure tradition: the Tu Be’Shvat Seder, a feast with prayers regarding Nature and its bounty, akin to combining “Thanksgiving” and “Earth Day.” This is not simply tree planting but a more serious event involving studying Jewish sources regarding ecological precepts and the like.
And there’s a lot to study here. More widely known are such biblical-ecological-moral commandments as “bal tashkhis” (don’t unnecessarily destroy) “tzaar baalei chayim” (non-cruelty to animals), “aiver min hachai” (eating flesh from a live animal) and so on. Even more telling are stories we all know but usually don’t think of them in a “Green” context. Here are four examples:
1) Noah ensuring bio-diversity by bringing at least a couple of each animal species onto the Ark;
2) Abraham telling his cousin Lot to select the land he wants for his pasturing herd, so that both of them could avoid overgrazing – a clear case of sustainable herding;
3) The Israelite women in the desert recycling their jewelry to build the Mishkan (Holy Sanctuary);
4) The 7th year of the agricultural cycle (Shmitta) in which the land lies fallow – an early example of sustainable agriculture.
Unfortunately, much of this ecological ethos was lost in exile as the Jews were denied the ability to farm and own land legally. In the modern age, after two millennia, Jews would have to learn to be “green” all over again.
Many of the earliest Zionist thinkers (e.g., A.D. Gordon) and practitioners (religious kibbutz movement) called for a return to Judaism’s original, professional work ethic. The Bible had a strong agricultural bent; “New Jews” would once again become the yeo(wo)men of yesteryear as farmers “conquering” the land through hard work. This can be called the re-Greening of both the Land of Israel and the emergence of a new type of secular Judaism based on the bible’s arboreal descriptions: Land of Milk & Honey etc.
These Zionist pioneers succeeded spectacularly. With large overseas donations to the Keren Kayemet (through the blue & white charity boxes) and massive tree plantings in Israel over the course of the 20th century, the country’s rainfall tripled and the landscape was transformed (actually, terraformed) back to its biblical glory: less arid desert and more nutritious foodstuff dessert.
But there was a caveat: early Zionism also stood for gainful employment and a modern economy, with numerous factories being established around the country. This manufacturing sector did succeed in putting the economy on a sound footing, but it also had a less positive outcome: massive pollution – air, land, and water. Some of Israel’s main rivers became seriously polluted (e.g., the Kishon), industrial Haifa was close to unbreathable, and the massive garbage landfill outside of Tel Aviv became a monument (literally!) to environmental degradation.
The irony here: the new Zionist economy had two mainstays – agriculture and industry – and the latter undermined the reGreening ethos of the former! Eventually, this led to a new movement to re–Re-green the Holy Land (not something unique to Israel). Throughout the Western world, once society becomes better educated and economically more comfortable, it creates a Green-policy reaction to industrial depredation.
Today, ecological consciousness is running high in Israel. Major national projects and changes in public policy have occurred during the reign of governments left, right, and center. Here are several, showing the broad scope of this general re-re-Greening phenomenon:
1) The gigantic “Khiriyah” landfill was turned into the center of Israel’s largest new park right outside Tel Aviv (named after PM Sharon – quite fittingly, given his agricultural roots).
2) Glass and plastic bottle recycling has now become standard practice (with a deposit fee). So has paper recycling.
3) Legislation has outlawed any residential construction within 100 meters of the seacoast.
4) The light rail tram began working in Jerusalem a decade ago, and similarly in the Greater Tel Aviv metropolis more recently. Special bus lanes are being added to highways and cities to encourage greater public transportation usage.
5) The army now takes into account animal life in planning its training exercises with live ammunition. Similarly, all new highways must have small underpasses to enable native animals to continue moving through their natural habitat.
6) To protect the aquifers and the Sea of Galilee, Israel has built five huge desalination plants; additional ones will be coming onstream in the next few years – preventing water tables from dropping to dangerous levels.
7) The government levies differential taxation on cars based on their level of pollution.
Of course, this is not to say that everyone or everything in Israel is “Green.” For one, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox have not joined the Green parade, in large part perceiving that in the secular Jewish State they are still in Galut. Although there is no physical, municipal dividing line between Ramat Gan and Bnei Brak, all you have to do is cross the street from one to the other and immediately see the difference.
To sum up: in Israel, Tu Be’Shvat is now a holiday not just for the symbolic commemoration of the arboreal New Year but rather – or should I say, especially – for practical celebration of a country that has very strongly returned to its Biblical, environmental roots. That pun is not only intentional; it’s well warranted!
