Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish Arbor Day, begins the evening of Tuesday, January 30. The holiday that celebrates trees, Tu B’Shevat is especially vibrant in Israel, where it falls in the spring, when the sap starts to flow in the trees and regrowth is all around. 

Here in New York City, in the middle of winter, it can seem harder to relate to Tu B’Shevat. Here are three small ways to bring it closer by reconnecting with the natural world:

1. Plant something indoors, such as a small seed pack of an herb. Or root an avocado seed by putting it in a cup of water and letting it grow into a houseplant.
2. Enjoy a new fruit or vegetable.
3. Make a terrarium, a miniature garden grown inside a covered glass or plastic container.

Many of us walk outside and are eager to identify new buds on trees. While it’s a little too early to see them, the early anticipation of spring brings optimism and the anticipation of rebirth. In a sense, Tu B’Shevat offers inspiration similar to the lights of Hanukkah. During the darkest time of the year, we cultivate light and a sense of hope. In the dead of winter our focus suddenly turns to regrowth and renewal. We are reminded that even when we can’t see it, regeneration is beginning.

Stephen Wise Free Synagogue has reached a resolution with Book Culture that allows the synagogue to move forward with the Early Childhood Center Book Fair scheduled to begin Thursday, December 7.

After a productive meeting at the synagogue with Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, Rabbi Diana Fersko, and Rabbi Samantha Natov on Monday, November 27, the owners of Book Culture — Chris Doeblin, Annie Hedrick, and Rick MacArthur — agreed to release this statement clarifying their view on the children’s book P is for Palestine by Golbarg Bashi:

1. We regret that we did not fully appreciate the political or communal ramifications of the children’s book P is for Palestine by Dr. Golbarg Bashi, nor did we anticipate the pain and distress it has caused in our community. We now understand these much better.
2. We oppose terrorism or other forms of violence perpetrated against Israeli civilians during the intifada or thereafter. Any impression from the book to the contrary is not our view.
3. We support Israel’s right to exist.
4. We do not endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS).

P is for Palestine is a children’s alphabet book geared towards toddlers and pre-readers. Book Culture helped to fund the book and hosted a reading with the author on November 18 at its Columbus Avenue location. The book caused a wave of criticism from Jews and non-Jews alike, primarily due to the entry for the letter “I”, which reads: “I is for Intifada, Intifada is Arabic for rising up for what is right, if you are a kid or a grownup!” The controversy became so heated that it caused the shutting down of a Facebook group of 27,000 people.

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch extended an offer on November 21 to meet with Book Culture’s co-owners to resolve matters so that the synagogue could host Book Culture as planned at its Early Childhood Center Book Fair in December.

“Since Dr. Bashi supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) and considers Israel to have apartheid policies, we sought clarification and assurance from Book Culture,” Stephen Wise Free Synagogue’s rabbis wrote in a letter to synagogue members today. 

“We object that children who are not yet able to read are being taught to associate the letter ‘i’ with ‘intifada’,” the letter continued. “It strikes us as an effort to extend to our shores the indoctrination of Palestinian children who are educated from the youngest age to hate Israelis and Jews, and are encouraged to glorify violence, murder, and ‘martyrdom.’ There was nothing romantic about the Intifada. It was not some grand uprising to usher in an era of human rights, tranquility, and peace. It was not freedom fighting. The Intifada was the purposeful targeting of men, women, children, and babies in schools, hospitals, restaurants, pubs, dance halls, buses, trains, theaters, and hotels hosting weddings, bar mitzvahs, and Passover seders — any place a crowd of Israelis gathered.”

The rabbis also wrote in their letter: “None of this diminishes our support for Palestinian national rights. We have always supported a Palestinian state, at peace, side by side with Israel.” 

View the rabbis’ letter in full.

Join us this Friday, December 1, at 6 p.m., when we will gather together for Shabbat services and then take part in a celebratory oneg honoring Scott DiSavino as Stephen Wise Free Synagogue’s Volunteer of the Year. To RSVP, email response@swfs.org. 

If you’ve ever volunteered with our Saturday morning Emergency Food Program, you’ve probably seen Scott DiSavino in front of the synagogue, offering a handshake and a warm smile to our guests as they line up for bags of donated food packages. Scott and his wife, Nancy Zinn, and their children, Jacob and Katherine, have been volunteering with the program since 2009.

An energy correspondent at Reuters, Scott has served as the Emergency Food Program’s coordinator since 2012, overseeing more than 250 volunteers throughout the year who prepare and distribute nearly 4,000 bags of food annually. On most Saturdays, Scott arrives early with our first volunteers to prepare hot chocolate and add whole grain bread and fresh fruit to bags of non-perishable food packages. “I never imagined how much this experience would frame my life, or how helping others would empower our children,” Scott says.

In an email today to the owners of local bookstore Book Culture on Columbus, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch demanded that they publicly rescind their support of P Is for Palestine, a book by Golbarg Bashi that glorifies the Palestinian intifada — or Stephen Wise will cancel its upcoming book fair featuring Book Culture scheduled to take place December 7, 8, and 10. 

Book Culture on Columbus hosted a reading by the author on November 18 and donated $650 to help fund the book. In an email to Book Culture co-owners Annie Hedrick, Chris Doeblin, and Rick MacArthur, Rabbi Hirsch wrote: 

Of particular concern to me is the glorification of the Palestinian intifada — a cruel, murderous, and terroristic campaign that purposely targeted innocent Israelis, including children, in restaurants, buses, hospitals, schools and shopping malls. The book states that “I is for Intifada, Arabic for rising up for what is right, if you are a kid or grownup!” The illustration shows a child on her father’s back in front of a barbed wire. The intifada was not “a rising up for what is right.” It was a mass descent into immorality. 

Our synagogue, Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, is scheduled to host a book fair featuring Book Culture on December 7, 8, and 10. Please clarify your views on Dr. Bashi’s book on your blog or in a public statement and share this with me. If you still stand by your sponsorship of P is for Palestine, we will be unable to accommodate your participation in the book fair.

I would be pleased to meet with you or speak by phone, whatever is most convenient for you. Since our book fair begins December 7, if I do not hear from you by Monday, November 27, I will assume that you stand by your endorsement of the book.

Six years ago, Sherri Miller made a promise to sleep over at the synagogue’s homeless shelter with one of her sons each December.

For more than thirty years, Stephen Wise volunteers have helped run the Next Step Men’s Shelter by preparing dinner or sleeping there overnight. Stephen Wise runs the on-site shelter in conjunction with the Grand Central Neighborhood Social Services Corporation, the Department of Homeless Services, and Columbia University, whose students serve as volunteers. During the holiday season, from December 11 to January 12, there is a critical need for Stephen Wise volunteers to sleep overnight at the shelter because Columbia students are on break.

“The synagogue needs our support to keep the shelter open,” Sherri says. “So we made it a family tradition.” Involved in social action activities at Stephen Wise since she and her family became members in 2001, Sherri was especially drawn to volunteering at the shelter with her sons, Justin and Aaron (pictured here). “It’s so important for kids to understand that there are many ways to make a difference besides giving money, and that paying attention to people in need through simple human interactions can be even more important.”

When Sherri’s older son, Justin, was a student at the synagogue’s Early Childhood Center, Sherri starting bringing him with her to help set up dinner for the men. Then, when he was nine years old, they would occasionally sleep over at the shelter. Sleepover volunteers arrive as the men are finishing their dinner and sleep in the adjacent Women’s Lounge. “After dinner is a nice time to hang out together with the men and chat or watch TV,” Sherri says. Justin befriended a man who helped him with his homework, and another who figured out how to fix his laptop.

Sherri brought her younger son, Aaron, with her to sleep over at the shelter soon after he turned twelve. “It’s always nice to talk to the guys and understand their situation,” says Aaron, who is now sixteen. “You realize that there’s nothing different between them and us except the amount of opportunities they have. So many people have a negative perception of homeless people, but it’s just an assumption — most of the guys I’ve met have or are in the process of trying to get jobs.”

Aaron was struck by the care the men took to maintain the shelter. “They each have a job to do like sweeping the floor and doing dishes, and they are all so on top of it,” he says. “Even with the little they have, they want to give you everything that they can.”

Aaron says that he hopes to pass on what he has learned from the shelter to his own kids one day. “This experience has helped me understand how important it is to help people, and that just because somebody needs your help doesn’t mean you should look at them differently.”

In December, for the first time, Justin (now eighteen) and Aaron will sleep over at the shelter on their own, without Sherri.

“I’m so glad I started this family tradition,” says Sherri. “The shelter is helping me teach my kids to be good humans.”

Volunteers are currently needed to sleep over at the shelter December 20–January 10. Sleepover volunteers arrive by 8 p.m. and leave at 6:15 a.m. Volunteers sleep in the Women’s Lounge, which has sleeper couches, available clean bedding, wifi, and a locked door. Please sign up here. To learn more, view instructions for sleepover volunteers or email shelter@swfs.org.