Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual
teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law.
He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their
search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money,
and spiritual engagement.
In 2022, the "birthday of the trees" begins at sundown on Sunday, Jan. 16 and ends at sundown on Monday, Jan. 17.
Tu
B’Shevat or the “birthday” of all fruit trees, is a minor festival. The
name is Hebrew for the 15th of the Hebrew month of Shevat.
In
ancient times, Tu B’Shevat was merely a date on the calendar that helped
Jewish farmers establish exactly when they should bring their
fourth-year produce of fruit from recently planted trees to the Temple
as first-fruit offerings
The Tu B’Shevat Seder
In the 16th
century, the Kabbalists (mystics) of Tzfat (the city of Safed) in the
Land of Israel created a new ritual to celebrate Tu B’Shevat called the
Feast of Fruits. Modeled on the Passover seder, participants would read
selections from the Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic literature, and would eat
fruits and nuts traditionally associated with the land of Israel. The
Kabbalists also gave a prominent place to almonds in the Tu B’Shevat seder
, since the almond trees were believed to be the first of all trees in
Israel to blossom. Carob, also known as bokser or St. John’s bread,
became another popular fruit to eat on Tu B’Shevat, since it could
survive the long trip from Israel to Jewish communities in Europe.
Participants in the kabbalistic seder would also drink four cups of
wine: white wine (to symbolize winter), white with some red (a harbinger
of the coming of spring); red with some white (early spring) and
finally all red (spring and summer).
Complete with biblical and rabbinic readings, these kabbalists produced a Tu B’Shevat Haggadah in 1753 called “Pri Etz Hadar” or “Fruit of the Goodly Tree.”
Celebrating Tu B’Shevat in a camp for new immigrants in Rosh Ayin, Israel in the late 1940s or early ’50s. (Israeli GPO)
The early Zionists seized upon Tu B’Shevat as an opportunity to celebrate their tree-planting efforts
to restore the ecology of ancient Israel and as a symbol of renewed
growth and flowering of the Jewish people returning to their ancestral
homeland.
In modern times, Tu B’Shevat continues to be an
opportunity for planting trees — in Israel and elsewhere, wherever Jews
live. Many American and European Jews observe Tu B’Shevat by
contributing money to the Jewish National Fund, an organization devoted
to reforesting Israel (the purchase of trees in JNF forests is also
customary to commemorate a celebration such as a Bar or Bat-Mitzvah).
For
environmentalists, Tu B’Shevat is an ancient and authentic Jewish
connection to contemporary ecological issues. The holiday is viewed as
an appropriate occasion to educate Jews about their tradition’s advocacy
of responsible stewardship of God’s creation, manifested in ecological
activism. Tu B’Shevat is an opportunity to raise awareness about and to
care for the environment through the teaching of Jewish sources
celebrating nature. It is also a day to focus on the environmental
sensitivity of the Jewish tradition by planting trees wherever Jews may
live.
The Tu B’Shevat seder has increased in popularity in recent
years. Celebrated as a congregational event, the modern Tu B’Shevat
seder is multi-purpose. While retaining some kabbalistic elements – and
still very much a ritual that connects participant to the land of Israel
– the seder today is often imbued with an ecological message as well.
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
Palestinians Attempt to Burn Down Joseph’s Tomb, Blast PA for ‘Serving as Guards for Jewish Settlers’
Dec 28, 2021
Palestinian Authority giving 24-hour protection to the holy site following two attempted attacks in the past week.
By Pesach Benson, United With Israel
Palestinian security forces have thwarted two attempts to burn down
Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus in recent days, a PA official confirmed to the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
The official told the Post that the attempts to torch the
holy site came on Friday and Sunday nights. He also said the PA has been
heavily criticized for “serving as guards for Jewish settlers” and for
being unable to to defend Palestinians from what he called “settlers’
aggression.” PA security forces, the official said, have “clear and
firm” orders to prevent any damage to the holy site.
According to the Post, some 50 Palestinians, many carrying
firebombs, marched towards the tomb. PA security forces using tear gas
and batons prevented the Palestinians from reaching the site.
A second attempt to torch the site was made on Sunday with 200
Palestinians from the nearby Balata refugee camp seeking to storm
Joseph’s Tomb. Again, they were blocked by PA security from reaching the
holy site.
In lieu of the two attempts, the PA is now giving Joseph’s Tomb
24-hour protection, according to a Palestinian media report cited by the
Post.
The holy site is revered as the resting place of Joseph, the son of
the Biblical Patriarch Jacob as described in the Book of Joshua (24:32).
Several rabbinic commentaries say Joseph wanted to be buried in Nablus
(also known as Shechem) because that was area where his brothers sold
him into slavery.
Palestinians have claimed that the tomb is the burial place of medieval Sheikh Yusef Al-Dwaik.
Jewish pilgrims visiting Joseph’s Tomb must do so with IDF protection. Palestinians have sometimes fired shots on convoys escorting Jewish worshippers in armored busses to the holy site. Nablus
Palestinians ransacked and burnt down the holy site in 2000 and in 2015.
Interestingly enough, the current “Palestine flag” is an exact copy of the Kingdom of Hejaz flag (now Saudi Arabia), used from 1920–1926.
In 1934, the only flag of Palestine was this:
What is now considered the “Palestinian flag” has undergone a number of metamorphoses, not all of which had anything to do with “Palestine or Palestinians:
Note that the flag presently projected as the “Palestinian flag” was first raised in 1964.
There were several flag designs proposed by Arabs during the Mandate years’ but none were ever official.
One flag for Palestine during the Mandate years that was used on certain official occasions was this:
Steve Sattler
Ireland: Still No Room at the Inn – for Jews
The Irish Parliament, on the night of May 25, 2021, staged a "legal
Kristallnacht" against the nation of Israel. (Jean Housen/Wikimedia
Commons)
Ireland: Still No Room at the Inn – for Jews
Dec 27, 2021
‘Most shocking was that fully a third of Irish members of parliament of voted to expel Israeli diplomats from Ireland.
The Irish Parliament, on the night of May 25, 2021, staged a “legal
Kristallnacht” against the nation of Israel. Following an avalanche of
vituperative anti-Israel and anti-Semitic diatribes by members of the
Dáil Éireann (lower house of Parliament), its members voted unanimously to
discuss a motion on whether or not Ireland should support BDS (Boycott,
Divestment, and Sanctions) legislation to try to strangle Israel
economically.
Ostensibly, the BDS movement’s goal is to shift world opinion to
declare that Jewish settlements in the historically named areas of Judea
and Samaria are supposedly illegal seizures of Palestinian Arab land.
In truth, the principal and outspoken objective of Palestinian
organizers of the BDS movement is the destruction of Israel.
Disturbingly, the May 25 motion was fully supported by at least two
of Ireland’s leading NGOs sponsored by the Irish Catholic Church: Sadaka
and Trócaire. Pro-BDS Sadaka,
in particular, makes no pretense about being bitterly opposed to
Israel. Even more shocking was that fully a third of Irish members of
parliament of voted to expel Israeli diplomats from Ireland.
Sein Fein (“Ourselves Alone”), a democratic socialist party and that
won the most votes in Ireland’s 2020 parliamentary elections, has been
spearheading the increasingly anti-Israel orientation of Ireland’s
foreign policy.
Ireland, by virtue that it stands alone in its official state-to-state condemnatory initiatives against Israel’s policies “in the territories,” is, according to Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney,
perceived as supposedly the most anti-Israeli state in the European
Union. Other EU states may often be critical of Israel’s policies toward
the Palestinians — for instance Sweden, Belgium,
and Luxembourg. When Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn
hosted a convocation of several EU states who were considering granting diplomatic recognition to
a supposed “state of Palestine,” Sweden, Belgium, and Ireland were a
few of the states that sent representatives to this meeting.
Unfortunately, there has been virtually no push-back from Ireland’s
general public or civil society institutions. This lack of support for
Israel is distressing, as much of the pro-Palestinian rhetoric and
criticism of Israel is not only unjust but has been morphed into blatant
anti-Semitism by some political and cultural Irish public figures.
One legislator, Catherine Connolly, raised the anti-Semitic theme of “Jewish Supremacy” analogous to the world Jewish conspiracy trope found in the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic document. The chairman of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, Maurice Cohen, pointed out that Connolly’s performance strayed into classic anti-Semitic language.
There is understandably some sympathetic sentiment among the Irish
people for the plight of Palestinians, as there is also among Israelis,
saddened to see people suffer unnecessarily under a brutal and corrupt Palestinian leadership, which has full autonomy over much the territory under dispute. The Palestinians long ago agreed, in the Oslo Accords of 1993, to settle those disputes by direct negotiation, not by external fiat.
One Palestinian shopkeeper in Dublin suggests that there is a shared feeling with the Irish of having fought against colonialism and oppression.
Yet there is little evidence that the bulk of the Irish citizenry
support this prejudicial assault on Israel, much less, the poisonous
anti-Jewish rhetoric.
Palestinians or Arab Israelis?
All Israelis — about 20% of whom are Muslims, along with Christians
and Druze — have identical rights under the law. Israeli Arabs can vote,
have political parties and prominent job opportunities, and are members
of Israel’s parliament.
Confusion likely arises because the people known as Palestinians are
not Israelis. They are Arabs who fled what is now Israel when armies of
five Arab countries — Egypt, Syria, Trans-Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq — attacked
Israel on May 15, 1948, the day the British Mandate over Palestine
ended. These countries were hoping to destroy the new State of Israel in
its crib.
When, after Israel’s unexpected victory, the Arabs who had fled
wished to return, they were refused as fifth-columnists: people who had
shown sympathy or support for the enemy. The Arabs who had fled suddenly
found themselves without a home, displaced. These are the people who later
called themselves Palestinians. The Arabs who stayed in Israel during
the war are full-fledged Israeli citizens and have exactly the same rights and legal protection as Jews, although there is always room for improvement in everyone’s standard of living.
The one exception is that Arabs are not required to serve in the
Israeli military; in the event of possible conflicts with Arab states,
Israelis did not want brother fighting brother. Many Israeli Arabs have
nevertheless been voluntarily joining the military in record numbers, often despite harsh criticism from other Arabs.
In Ireland, Jew-hatred does not well up from the general public but
seems clearly driven from the top down. These Goebbels-like attacks on
Israel include salvos from several Sinn Fein members of parliament. One
of them, Martin Browne, represents Tipperary and claims, falsely, that
Israel created ISIS. Another, Matt Carthy representing Cavan-Monahan, has stated that Israel is the worst human rights offender on earth — presumably dwarfing China, North Korea, Venezuela and Iran.
Others include People Before Profit Party members Gino Kenny and Brid
Smith, representing districts in Dublin, who have called for the
expulsion from Ireland of Israel’s Ambassador. Leading Irish novelist Sally Rooney refused an offer by Israeli publisher Modan to translate her latest book into Hebrew, expressing support for the BDS movement.
The behind-the-scenes launch pad for much of this anti-Semitic
rhetoric might be the outsized influence enjoyed by Ireland’s Muslim
Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic Cultural Centre (ICC) The ICC is the religious, political, and financial wellspring of Islam in Ireland.
The Campus Scene
Another impetus for the appearance of Jew-hate in the Irish
parliament is the full-time activism of pro-Palestinian propagandists on
Ireland’s college campuses. This campus activism is spearheaded by
Palestinian students who have granted scholarships to study in Ireland.
These students and sympathetic teachers recruit Irish natives to form
chapters of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) that
operate on and off college grounds. The chairwoman of the IPSC is Fatin al Tamimi, a
Palestinian who emigrated to Ireland three decades ago. There are IPSC
chapters in most of Ireland’s large cities. Then there are the
faculty-assisted Students for Justice in Palestine
(SJP) chapters on the campus of several universities. SJP university
chapters are in Dublin’s Trinity College, the National University of
Ireland (NUI) of Maynooth in County Kildare, and County Galway’s NUI
chapter in Galway City, all of which support the BDS movement, as does
the Union of Students in Ireland.
There also exists an apparent tacit alliance of convenience between
pro-Palestinian politicians, academics and Sinn Fein leftists with right
wing, racist Holocaust deniers and proponents of anti-Semitic tropes
such as Rothschild financial manipulators and Christ-killers.
There are about 2,500 Jews in Ireland, with census reports indicating that from 2011 to 2016, the Jewish population rose
by nearly 30%. Although the number of Irish Jews may be on the rise,
the political influence of Irish Jewry is waning. The last elected Jew
in Ireland, the former Irish Attorney General Alan Shatter,
was drummed out of office in 2014 following the Irish media’s broadcast
of unsubstantiated charges of political corruption against him.
Although Shatter has been subsequently exonerated, his case lends
evidence that anti-Semitism is alive and well in Ireland. The exhaustive
examination of the just-released report compiled by David Collier, titled “Ireland Antisemitism Report,”
details classic examples of widespread Jew-hatred among politicians,
academics and Palestinian students on the grounds of several Irish
universities.
Under the rubric of developing a “social justice” foreign policy
profile for Ireland, some of Ireland’s anti-Israel critics may have
helped ignite a vicious anti-Semitic campaign that is poisoning what was
once a most welcoming Irish society for Jews.
Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary
of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army
and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve.
Israeli Discovery May Cut Cost of Cultivated Meat in Half
Weizmann Institute researchers stumbled upon
a way to dramatically speed up muscle regeneration for producing meat
from cultivated animal cells.
In the future, the ideal steak will be sizzling, charbroiled – and
probably made from cultivated meat. However, companies that produce
cell-based meat are challenged to make production affordable.
Tamar Eigler, a post-doctorate fellow in Prof. Eldad Tzahor’s
molecular cell biology lab, was experimenting with cultured muscle stem
cells.
When Tzahor looked into Eigler’s microscope, he was surprised to see
that the cells had begun fusing into tiny fibers that thickened quickly.
Within hours, large muscle fibers had formed that looked like a slice
of steak.
The phenomenon was explained by Weizmann biomolecular scientist Ori Avinoam as the process of muscle regeneration.
In an article published in Developmental Cell, Avinoam
explains that when muscle stem cells called myoblasts are exposed to a
small molecule that blocks the enzyme ERK, the cells start
differentiating and fusing into tiny fibers. This leads to the
activation of another enzyme that begins muscle regeneration.
Follow-up experiments showed that the same process works in several species of farm animals, including chickens, cows and sheep.
“Since all muscles in our bodies and those of other animals,
including cattle, are produced by the same biological processes, our
findings may be applicable both to the study of muscle regeneration and
to the production of cultivated meat,” Tzahor said.
The three researchers have formed ProFuse Technology, a company set
to slash the cost of cultivated meat by accelerating muscle fiber
growth, the process that Eigler serendipitously discovered. It’s based
in the Fresh Start food tech incubator in northern Israel.
Yeda Research and Development, the Weizmann Institute’s technology
transfer company, granted ProFuse exclusive rights to the technology and
to the patent covering this research.
