Tu B'Shvat hegeeya,
Chag Ha'Ilanot
Yup, it's Jewish holiday time again, and you know what that means...links galore on the Jewish web. This year, the Fifteenth day of the month of Shvat, the Jewish New Year for Trees, falls out on February 1st, 1999. The Jewish web contains a wealth of info about "Jewish Arbor Day," Tu B'Shvat. By far, the links winner this year is the Jewish Communications Network. It's got a bunch of high level links to every, ahem, branch of information on Tu B'S, as well as some fascinating stuff on Tu B'Shvat Seders (what a concept).
Virtual Jerusalem jumped on the bandwagon with their usual gargantuan Tu B'Shvat site. And VJ can help you flashback to yeshiva grade school days by showing you how to plant trees in Israel through Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (KKL) - Jewish National Fund. If your grade school flashacks include breaking your teeth on good-old "buxor," check out VJ's Big Fruit Quiz, which pretty much speaks for itself.
If you're really into the tree planting thing, the Orthodox Union has got a nice Tu B'Shvat page which also includes a form to fill out to plant trees in Israel, this time in the National Conference of Synagogue Youth's (NCSY) Mt. Cheres Youth Forest.
For those of you who would like to look at some Torah background to Tu B'Shvat, Ohr Somayach has some interesting essays and articles on their Tu B'Shvat page. Then get the latest Tu B'S divrei Torah by Rabbi Yehudah Prero from Project Genesis. For a profile of our own Rip Van Winkle, Choni HaMa'agal (huh?), take a look at some interesting stuff on the World Zionist Organization's site, or Dr. Nurit Reshef's (Talmud Torah School of Edmonton, Alberta) article on Choni. The Mining Company has got some "Jewish-American culture" links for Tu B'Shvat that are worth a look.
For fun stuff for the kiddies, check out Chabad of Maryland's Tu B'Shvat Page and play the Tu B'Shvat Web Game. Then there's the Torahtots Tu B'S page, and JCN's Java-based Holiday Word Search
As with all Jewish holidays, Tu B'Shvat is very focused on food. I found a date-nut bread recipe that looks good, but I can personally vouch for the Q recipe for a Tu B'Shvat goodie.
Finally, what would a holiday be without a Steve Hausman original? Since he sent me his latest Seussian Tu B'Shvat poem, my Q Tu is complete.



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