Getting dirty for a good cause

More than a dozen people from Tacoma’s Temple Beth El, Annie Wright School and the University of Puget Sound planted trees to reclaim part of Garfield Gulch and celebrate Tu BiSh’vat, a Jewish holiday marked by tree planting.

Shovels, pickaxes and activism

It was the intersection of religious celebration and community activism.

More than a dozen people from Tacoma’s Temple Beth El, Annie Wright School and the University of Puget Sound planted trees Sunday afternoon to reclaim part of Garfield Gulch and celebrate Tu BiSh’vat, a Jewish holiday marked by tree planting.

“This is a nice coming together,” said Betsy Kirkpatrick, who attends the synagogue, teaches biology at the North End university and helped organize the event. “It’s like all the stars are lined up.”

The group worked on a 35-foot by 100-foot shelf in the gulch, which is located behind Annie Wright in the North End. Kirkpatrick placed the trees and plants, sketched out a half-circle path on the ground with caution tape and gave the group instructions: Dig the holes about as deep as the soil in the pots and about twice as wide.

The potted trees came from the Pierce County Native Plant Salvage program, she said.

Rabbi Bruce Kadden, who arrived from an earlier fig tree-planting ceremony at the Tacoma synagogue, talked briefly about Tu BiSh’vat before digging in and getting his hands dirty.

“This is a time of year when we begin to think about spring, warmer weather and the rebirth,” he told the volunteers.

Later he elaborated on the history of the holiday, which he said officially was Saturday.

It’s not mentioned in the Bible, but Jews once used Tu BiSh’vat as a day to measure the age of a tree in order to determine what to do with the fruit it bore: Give it to the temple, or keep it, Kadden said.

A seder, or ceremonial meal, was added to the holiday sometime in the 1500s.

When Jews began to move back to Israel in the late 1800s, the day was used to plant trees in an effort to reforest the area, he said.

As environmental concerns entered into the public’s conscience in the past few decades, tree planting and reclamation projects like Sunday’s have become more prevalent, Kadden said.

Alex Weymiller, 12, wielded a pickax to dig holes to make room for the trees and plants.

“It sounded like a good idea,” said Weymiller, who attends the synagogue. “Just giving back a little bit.”

Eighteen-year-old Michelle Harvey, a senior at Annie Wright, helped out Sunday after hearing about the project from Marian Schwartz, a teacher at the school who also attends Temple Beth El.

She didn’t know about Sunday’s religious aspect, but said the holiday was “pretty cool.”

“I think it’s important to have a place like this,” she said, looking toward the gulch. “I think it’s important that we don’t build over everything.”