Tu BiShvat

• A new year for trees. The Mishnah (Rosh Hashanah 1:1) lists the 15th of Shevat as the new year for trees. The Bible forbids eating a tree's fruit in its first three years (Leviticus 19:23 to 25), so farmers needed a fixed “birthday” to count from. The date was chosen because trees in the Land of Israel begin to flower after it, once most of the winter rain has fallen.
• The Kabbalists of Safed. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Jewish mystics in Safed, a hilltop town in the Galilee, taught that eating fruit with blessings and study could carry deep spiritual meaning.
• Pri Etz Hadar. Their ideas grew into a seder modeled on the Passover seder. A booklet called Pri Etz Hadar, “Fruit of the Goodly Tree,” set out the readings and the order of fruits and wine. It was printed in the 1700s (the Fitzwilliam Museum dates the first printing to Venice, 1728) and spread across the Sephardic world, while remaining largely unknown among Ashkenazi Jews until modern times.
• Today. In modern Israel, Tu BiShvat became a day for planting trees. Around the world, many people now see it as a Jewish celebration of ecology and care for the earth.

The seder, step by step

Four cups. Wine or grape juice moves from white to red, cup by cup. Rabbi Marc Angel lists the colors as white, golden, rose, and deep red; the Fitzwilliam Museum links them to the season, from winter snow and almond blossom to red spring flowers.

Three kinds of fruit. Fruits with a hard outer shell, such as pomegranates and nuts; fruits with a pit inside, such as olives and dates; and fruits eaten whole, such as figs and grapes.

Many fruits. Sephardic tables often held at least twelve fruits. Moroccan Jews ate at least fifteen, and Iraqi Jews set out as many as one hundred kinds of fruits, nuts, and vegetables.

Ottoman Sephardic (Turkey, Greece, the Balkans)

Ladino speakers called the day Las Frutas or Frutas, “the fruits,” and the home seder Frutikas, “little fruits.” In Salonica, children received embroidered bags of fruit, frutas bolsas, and young people performed Ladino plays dressed as trees. In Smyrna (Izmir), each member of the family, down to the babies, had a fruit or food to bless. Tables included biscochos and almond marochinos.

Morocco

Moroccan Jews customarily ate at least fifteen kinds of fruit. Wealthy families hosted feasts with as many as one hundred kinds, and children went from relative to relative filling their sacks with fruit. In Judeo Arabic and Haketia, the day was called Tubisbat.

Iraq

Iraqi Jews were known for especially abundant tables, with as many as one hundred kinds of fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Readings from the Bible, the Zohar, and rabbinic writings came first, followed by a festive meal. In Calcutta, a 1951 seder plan written by Lady Rachel Ezra, of an Iraqi Jewish family, assigned each blessing to a family member and listed kaka (caraway cookies) and loozina (candied fruit).

Syria (Aleppo)

On the eve of the holiday, the Ten Commandments were read aloud in Arabic in the synagogue. Each commandment was “sold” to a member of the congregation, who read it before going home to the festive dinner.

Kurdistan

In Jewish Neo Aramaic, Kurdish Jews called the day Mzdane 'Ilane, “gifts of the trees.” Families placed raisins and other sweet fruits in rings around trees and prayed for a plentiful season. Some women who hoped for children prayed beside the trees.

Iran

In a playful custom, Persian Jews lowered empty baskets down the chimneys of neighbors' homes from the roof, and the baskets came back up full of fruit. Children wore little bags of fruit around their necks.

Bukhara and Georgia

Jews of Bukhara and Kurdistan called the holiday “the day of eating the seven species,” though they actually ate around thirty kinds of fruit. Georgian Jews named it Shbídi Pherobá, “the seven species.”

India

Indian Jews counted fifty fruits. Bene Israel families hold a malida ceremony on Tu BiShvat, and a Bene Israel legend says their ancestors first arrived in India on this day.

Tu BiShvat is closely tied to the climate of the eastern Mediterranean. Winter there is the rainy season, and by the middle of Shevat most of the year's rain has fallen. The almond tree, the first to bloom, is the flower most associated with the day in Israel. The seven species of Deuteronomy 8:8 (wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates) are the crops that sustained ancient farmers, and many families still eat them on Tu BiShvat.

That link to the land helps explain why the holiday flourished in the warm, fruit growing lands of the Middle East and North Africa. In modern times, communities have also given it new meanings: celebrating Israeli agriculture, replanting forests, and, for many people today, reflecting on how to care for the natural world.

Why a pomegranate?

In the public school classroom

• Connect to science: compare when trees bloom in the Land of Israel with your region, and explore how the end of the rainy season shapes farming.
• Study the three fruit categories as botany: shells, pits, and fruits eaten whole. Sort fruits by seed type and structure.
• Map the names for the day across Jewish languages, and discuss what each name emphasizes.
• Plant a tree or start a school garden as an ecology project tied to many cultures' tree traditions.
• Teach about the seder and its blessings; do not have students recite blessings or perform a seder. Follow allergy rules for nuts and sesame.

In Jewish schools and communities

• Hold a Frutikas seder using the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood booklet, with Ladino readings and biscochos.
• Challenge classes to gather fifteen, thirty, or even one hundred kinds of fruit, Iraqi style.
• Pour the four cups from white to red and discuss the seasons they represent.
• Fill embroidered frutas bolsas for younger children, as in Salonica.

At home and with family

• Ask relatives: Did our family celebrate Tu BiShvat? What did they call it, and which fruits were on the table?
• Read Thank You, Trees! with toddlers, then visit a tree in your neighborhood.
• Try a playful Persian custom: surprise a neighbor with a basket of fruit.
• Record an elder's holiday memories for JIMENA's oral history project.