Our Olive Tree!

Last week we had Sarah, mother of Ron in our class, in to talk to us about a Jewish holiday. She also planted a beautiful Olive tree with us here at school to celebrate this festivity. Read the spiel below that Sarah has written, explaining this celebration.
Thank you Sarah!!

Tu Bishvat is a Jewish Holiday that occurs on the 15th of the Jewish month of Shvat (this year that was on the 11th Feb). It used to be minor date on the Hebrew calendar, relating to trees, that was commemorated in Europe by eating dried fruit that had come from Israel (considering it's the height of winter there at the time), but in the past century and a half - was picked up and turned into a national Tree Day in Israel, to encourage the planting of trees, and among other things, to help regenerate the native forestry. The original holiday emphasised fruit trees, but nowadays all sorts of trees are planted. In Israel, classes are often taken on an outing on this day for tree planting (where each person plants a tree, not one for the whole class :)), and the importance of trees and the connection they bring to the land and place are talked about.

The Almond is the staple tree of the holiday. Israel being too warm in most parts for growing cherry trees - this other member of the Prunus genus, which is native to Israel, comes into full bloom just around the time of this holiday, to hail Spring which is just around the corner, and that sight is welcomed by all. This is why I have chosen an Almond tree for planting with Room 12, and I was going to get two of them, but as I explained to the class - when buying a fruit tree to plant by your house, it is important to find out whether the variety you have picked is self-fruiting (or self-pollinating) or not. The all-in-one Almond variety is indeed self-fruiting, and this being a bit out of season planting here in NZ - I could only find one last almond plant in the nurseries now. So I picked another very typical fruit tree to Israel, to plant with Room 3: the Olive tree. It is very characteristic of the Israeli landscape, being able to grow in dry and sometimes poor soil and produce olives for eating and oil-making. Here, too, I have chosen a self-fruiting variety (I think it was a Greek one - close enough to Israel climate-wise and landscape-wise). They are notoriously slow-growing trees, but I hope that eventually Ilam school kids will be able to learn about picking olives and their preparation (pickling or oil making).

As planting a tree is a special bond with a place for years to come - I have encouraged the children to stand besides the newly planted trees and see how tall they were now compared to the trees (they were all taller than the olive), and then revisit the place in years and decades to come and try that again. Thank you Room 3 for planting with me. I really like planting trees!

Sarah