From:     ®

The Jewish holiday Tu B'Shevat, the New Year for Trees, celebrates the fruit tree, with special emphasis on wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates – the seven "fruits" of the Holy Land and symbols of the land's fertility.

Its history is tied to the tradition of fruit tithing – paying 10 percent of one's fruit harvest to the Temple in Jerusalem for consumption by the priests and the poor – and was recorded into Jewish tradition as part of the Mishnah around 200 C.E.  In the modern-day context, the holiday has become the equivalent of a Jewish Earth Day.  Planting trees and eating special fruits are popular pastimes connected to Tu B'Shevat, a holiday popular with Chabad-Lubavitch children.

In recognition of Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish Children's Museum (www.jcmonline.org) in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, houses an interactive Jewish holiday exhibit, which includes a talking tree that offers a lesson on Tu B'Shevat to museum visitors.  The creation of the Jewish Children's Museum, the first of its kind in the world, was inspired by Tzivos Hashem (www.tzivoshashem.org) an international children's organization founded under the guidance of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson.

— adapted from Sean O'Connor