Tu B’Shevat marks the 15th of Shevat on the Jewish calendar. This year we celebrated on Monday 17th January. The day signifies the beginning of a “new year” for trees and the season in which the earliest-blooming trees in the Land of Israel emerge from their winter sleep and begin a new fruit-bearing cycle.
The 15th of Shevat is often celebrated by eating fruit, particularly from the kinds that are mentioned by the Torah in its praise of the bounty of the Holy Land: grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. On this day it is also remembered that “man is a tree of the field” (Deuteronomy 20:19).
In school we had the chance to try lots of fruits that we may not have tried before such as persimmons, apricots, pomegranates, passion fruit , avocados and prunes.
A few days earlier, Mrs Chitty took our head boy and head girl (Ali and Adryel) and Mr Stanton to a local garden centre to buy some fruit trees.
In the week of Tu B’Shevat, School Council representatives from each class planted the trees in our meadow area.
