Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Post-(Whatever) Tu B'Shvat

This came into my mail box:

Dear friends,

As part of the our Swords Into Ploughshares campaign, Jewish Voice for Peace has created a special Tu B' Shvat seder, designed as a political/cultural event (rather than the Kabbalistic or predominantly religious ritual usually used on this holiday). The seder will mark the launch of our Trees of Reconciliation project through which we will raise funds to plant 3,000 olive trees in the West Bank in 2008.

We have seders planned for the night of January 21st, 2008 in ten North American cities already, and are looking for more people who would like to host, particularly in the UK, Australia, Israel and Palestine. Your event could be large or small,in a rented hall or at your kitchen table with a few friends.

We've created a resource center complete with a backgounder on JVP's new take on the Tu B'Shvat tradition, a downloadable haggadah, leader's guide, shopping list, and even MP3 files of the songs so you can learn them if they're not familiar.

As we all know, talking about the issues of peace and justice in Palestine can be complicated and difficult, but hosting the event will be fun and easy. It could also be a way to bring interested people into the movement.

If you're interested in hosting, or know someone who might be, please contact us at trees@jvp.org. You can also go right to the resource center and register online.

Best,

Elliott Bat Tzedek(*) and Hannah Schwarzschild, JVP Philadelphia members and authors of JVP's new Trees of Reconciliation Tu B'Shvat Haggadah.


Gee, subverting the Jewish arbor day into support for something called "Palestine".

Some Jews are just so creative.

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(*) Bat Tzedek? Elliot's a girl? Or transgender? Or a homosexual? Really, isn;t this carrying things a bit too far?

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