During the five minutes of my childhood when I was a member of a synagogue, my mother purchased a certificate from our temple for a tree in my name. I placed it proudly on the wall above my bed. I had a tree. In Israel. In the Bar Kochba Forest. The forest’s namesake (he led a Jewish rebellion against the Romans in the second century) was depicted with nicely chiseled features and a neck as solid as a tree trunk.
I planned to visit the tree one day when I went off to travel the world. I’d picnic with wine under its lush branches and kiss my future boyfriend, who’d probably be Jewish and look a lot like Bar Kochba. He’d think it was very cool that I had a tree.
In the ground next to the tree’s trunk I pictured a plaque with my name. Jack Spiegelman and Dory Hyman’s trees and those belonging to my other Sunday school classmates would stand nearby. I imagined my scented pine watered and fertilized by Israeli botanists in yarmulkes. They’d take good care of my tree and make sure it would grow tall and full.
For a long time this scenario was my only connection to Israel. Oh, I have a tree there, I’d say, as if it gave me some stake, some tangible link to the land.
Decades later, I have yet to see Israel or kiss a Jewish boyfriend under evergreen. But perhaps I can track down this 30-year-old tree, so I’ll know where to find it if I ever go. Fortunately, I still have the source material. The certificate sits in one of my childhood scrapbooks, corners yellowing, but still official-looking on heavy cardstock. Mr. Bar Kochba, rendered in shadowy outline beyond a row of watercolor evergreens, as handsome as I remember with a strong jaw and broad muscular shoulders.
I find no reference for the forest on the Internet. An Israeli friend says she hasn’t heard of it either. Perhaps it’s been renamed to commemorate an Israeli prime minister in a grove now honoring Menachem Begin, David Ben-Gurion, or maybe Golda Meir. None of whom are anywhere near as good looking as Bar Kochba.
Where is my tree, I wonder? And is it really “mine”?
Printed in small type at the bottom of the certificate is a New York address for the Jewish National Fund. There’s a local branch here in San Francisco where I find Regional Director Sherri Morr. She cautions that “since there are over 240 million trees in Israel” mine might not be so easy to track down, but having the original certificate may make it easier. And forests don’t usually get renamed, she says.
Sure enough, the Bar Kochba Forest “is alive and well,” she learns from a call to Israel. It’s part of American Independence Park, outside of Jerusalem. I’m told that there are numerous forests within the area, including an AIDS Memorial, one in honor of the Challenger astronauts and a memorial forest for victims of Sept. 11. My tree stands in good company.
I notice that the certificate doesn’t say specifically that a tree has been planted in my name. I realize now that we’ve just sponsored one, or contributed to a general fund. No map exists with a grid of names. There is no plaque.
Disappointed? A little. Surprised? Not really. I repeat a mantra I used with students when I was a naturalist: Trees belong to the earth, not to us.
Tu B’Shevat, the New Year of the Trees, is almost upon us. (It’s Monday, Feb. 13.) Tu B’Shevat is not a holiday I recall from my childhood and one we’ve yet to celebrate in our home today, other than one heroic but futile attempt to sprout a seedling my daughter brought home from Hebrew school. So, making it a maternal tradition, like my mother did for me, take a guess what my daughter will receive in honor of Tu B’Shevat this year.
Yup. I can’t find a certificate similar to what I received, but at 8 she’s too young to lust after an ancient revolt leader anyway, so I choose one featuring a colorful patchwork quilt of children planting trees. Perhaps she’ll hang her Children’s Forest certificate over her bed like I did and dream about a tree.
But I have bigger hopes, of visiting Israel’s groves together, connecting to roots far deeper than any imagined tree in the Bar Kochba Forest.
Joanne Catz Hartman lives and writes in Oakland. She can be reached at [email protected].