Seeking Out New Spring Buds on Tu Bishvat

“Like a tree which sprouts its new green leaves after a long winter, I’ve never grown more as a Jew than when I lived in Jerusalem,” writes Sarah Livschitz, a 2024-25 Elissa Froman Social Justice Fellow and 4th-year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College, in an essay for the New Israel Fund.

“Every day of my first year of rabbinical school, I would traipse to the campus near the Old City and learn Modern Hebrew and Torah, Israel Studies and archaeology in a whirl of old and new together. In the mornings and before Shabbat, I would ride my bicycle through the Jerusalem mountains and stare in wonder at their beauty. It never failed to amaze me how the first spring leaves appeared at Tu Bishvat, the almond trees blossomed with flowers just before Pesach, and the OId City was dusted in white snow for Chanukah. One could walk down any given street on Shabbat and hear wisps of melodies coming out of shuls and see bored children playing ball. It felt like a cornucopia of Jewish life.

But over the last year, I have—counterintuitively—begun worrying less about Israel’s body and started worrying more about her soul.”

Read Sarah’s entire essay on the New Israel Fund website.