Narrating the Past-- "New Year of the Trees" Celebrations in Modern Israel

At the beginning of the 20th century, the secularly oriented Zionist movement adopted a marginal calendar event from the traditional Jewish cycle year ('Tu B'Shvat, the New Year of the Trees'), and turned it into the secular "Festival of Trees". Its celebration was marked by a new nation-wide ritual: planting young trees on barren lands. This ritual accurately fitted the Zionist Narrative of returning the degraded Land of Israel to its former flourishing glory as the Biblical 'Land of Milk and Honey', and was presented as such. In the 1970s, another ritual was introduced in addition to and often substituting for tree planting. The Seder Tu B'Shvat, a festive repast of fruits and wine accompanied by songs and readings, was a secular adaptation of a controversial mystical treatise from the 18th century based on Kabbalistic symbolism. This paper examines the nature and functions of the new narratives formulated in the past twenty-five years which accompany the expansion of this ritual amongst secular Jews.