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Tree Time

After a long wintery break the Jewish calendar decided that the new year for the trees falls right in the middle of January. After weeks of beautiful weather, the temperatures are starting to drop here in Germany ( this weekend was -14 Celsius!). So even though in Germany the timing of Tu Bishvat doesn't seem to make perfect sense there has been no lack of festivities.

The celebrations started for me in Duisburg at the Jewish Kindergarten where I joined in for the children's Tu Bishvat party. After planting "Blumen" (flowers) I led an activity where we learned about the blessings for fruits and vegetables. As a bit of a personal triumph I led the whole lesson in German! Then we had the children make fruit salad faces. I was pretty impressed with the ingenuity of these 3-5 year olds face recognition abilities! 




Across Germany the idea of a "Tu Bishvat Seder" seems to be pretty popular. This concept was brand new to me, and basically its a twist on the Passover seder but retrofitted to celebrate trees, plants and especially eating fruit. 

I went to my very first Tu Bishvat Seder here in Berlin with a group called LSD and Jung und Judisch (apparently they aren't as careful here with their acronyms). There was copious amounts of fruits, nuts singing and true to its seder name, 4 cups of wine. 





In Friedrichshain we've been celebrating all month long. Our weekly Shabbat playgroups have centered around learning about and celebrating Tu Bishvat (and I'm rather proud of our cute little programing). First we planted herbs, then there was a children's seder and lastly we made bird feeders and labels for our growing urban garden. Just for fun too I decided to make apple raisin cinnamon swirl challah this week.



We also planned one larger scale event where we had a puppet theater perform for us. The show was centered around a tree in the changing seasons. All the small children were totally engrossed in the show shouting out comments and encouragement the entire performance. Followed by wonderful muffins baked by Anja (which seemed suspiciously like unfrosted cupcakes to me).  We ended the cozy afternoon in the homey family center with a full crowd and happy chocolate filled children.





After this holiday there is a bit of a lull in the Jewish calendar until Purim so I'm looking forward to gearing up for a very busy spring!


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