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Deluxe Buckwheat Almond Cake with Raspberry Filling

This dessert pairs a delicate nut flavor with raspberry preserve filling.

Vegetarian Mushroom Barley Soup

Recipe by

Tina Wasserman

One favorite dish of the Ashkenazim that survived the move from the shtetl to North America was the hearty mushroom-potato-barley soup called krupnick.

Putting Down Roots: Why Our Jewish Family Needs a Yard Full of Trees

Leanna Cossman

We celebrated the holiday of Tu BiShvat – the “Jewish Arbor Day” – way back in February, and we won’t celebrate it again until January. But no matter: I need to talk about the trees now.

Snow covered road surrounded by trees -- and white lights in the foreground

How I Teach My Kids That Being Jewish is Awesome and Awe-Filled

Dr. Emily Aronoff

Last year, my pre-school-aged daughter was acutely aware that her friends and their families would be celebrating Christmas and that she wasn’t going to be a part of it.

Arbaah minim

Hebrew Spelling

אַרְבַּעַת הַמִּינִים

Literally, “four species.” The Torah specifies four species to bring together on Sukkot. The four species are: lulav (branches of palm trees), etrog (citron), hadasim (myrtle branches), and aravot (willows) (Leviticus 23:40).

Sukkot, Diversity, and Unity: How Each of Us Is Like the Four Species

It’s Hard to be a Jew at Christmas, But Even Harder on Tu BiSh’vat

Kelly Hershberg

It is a truth universally acknowledged that it can be difficult to be Jewish at Christmas time. It has seeped into North American cultural consciousness so thoroughly that South Park even wrote a song about it, complete with trademark expletives.

Tu BiShvat: Customs and Rituals

The Jewish mystics of the 17th century, the Kabbalists, created a special ritual—modeled after the Passover seder—to celebrate God's presence in nature. Today in modern Israel, Tu BiShvat has become a national holiday, a tree planting festivaTu BiShvat is not mentioned in the Torah. Scholars believe the holiday was originally an agricultural festival, corresponding to the beginning of spring in Israel. But a critical historical event helped Tu BiShvat evolve from a simple celebration of spring to a commemoration of our connection to the land of Israel. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. and the exile that followed, many of the exiled Jews felt a need to bind themselves symbolically to their former homeland. Tu BiShvat served in part to fill that spiritual need. Jews used this time each year to eat a variety of fruits and nuts that could be obtained from Israel. The practice, a sort of physical association with the land, continued for many centuries.l for both Israelis and Jews throughout the world

Tu BiShvat: History

Although the celebration of Tu BiShvat has a long and varied history, the theme most commonly ascribed to the holiday today is the environment.

Tu BiShvat: Judaism and the Environment

During Tu BiShvat, we focus our attention towards the environment and environmental issues.