Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) Tu BiShvat and the Jewish New Year for Trees

As always when the two old guys had began to argue I woke up made coffee and opened my computer and came to the Facebook prompt; "What is on my mind? 

So as a historian and retired teacher of English literature what was "On my mind" from the argument in this old guys head, was memory of a recent post by a "Lover of Balestine" in their abysmal attempt to belittle the "People of Israel" regarding the lack by Jews / Zionists in our non observance of the New Year as proof that Jesus was indeed a Balestinian.

As indigeneity is defined by whose calendar matches the land’s seasons, the Symbolism of Tu BiShvat to the "People of Israel" means that we ARE the true indigenous inhabitants of the land of "Eretz Yirael" and Zion. 

The "secular" calendar doesn't know when the rains of Israel start or when the almond blossoms; the Hebrew calendar does. This is the ultimate proof of who is truly "native."

For those of us in Israel today we note that we are entering the Hebrew month of Tevet, the contrast is particularly sharp. 

While the secular world is focused on the "New Year" and mid-winter, the Hebrew calendar is moving toward Tu BiShvat (the Jewish New Year for Trees) which is the exact time those early returnees / Halutzim would have been preparing for tree-planting ceremonies, reaffirming that the land was no longer "forsaken" but "remembered."

Our celebration of our Hebrew / Jewish calender highlights the difference between a calendar based on a human-made starting point and one based on the natural and spiritual cycles of the Land of Israel.

So for the record while the Christian and secular world is focused on the "New Year" and mid-winter, we the indigenous inhabitants of "Eretz Yisrael" the "Land of Israel" -aka "Eretz HaKadosh" the Holyland-  recognise the Hebrew calendar which is moving toward Tu BiShvat (the Jewish New Year for Trees) in just a few weeks. 

As such when the first Jews returned to Israel one of the first thing these Jewish returnees did was to plant trees.

To reinforce my story I refer you to one of the most stark and famous descriptions of the Land of Israel in modern literature, the description given by Samuel Longhorn Clemmens of the country side of the Holyland.

While reading this blog entry note how we the "Native inhabitants" go from Twain’s "ghosts of trees" to the millions of trees planted by the pioneers, which is one of the most significant environmental "translations" in history.

I of course am referring you to some of the most famous and stark descriptions of the Land of Israel in modern literature, given by Samuel Longhorn Clemmens of the "bleak and barren" country side of the Holyland that he and his compatriots encountered.

When Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) visited in 1867, he recorded his observations in newspaper articles which he later made into a book entitled simply, The Innocents Abroad. In his work, his prose painted a picture of absolute desolation that serves as a powerful "before" to the Zionist "after."

Twain’s description is often cited by historians as the proverbial "Sackcloth and Ashes" story because he had no political agenda; he was simply a cynical, sharp-eyed traveler. 

Clemens (Mark Twain) famously wrote:

"Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color... The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent."

Most specifically regarding the absence of trees, he described the land as "blistering" and "naked". In Chapter 46 of The Innocents Abroad, page numbers vary depending on the edition (for example, in the original 1869 American Publishing Company edition, this begins around page 485), the chapter is the most reliable way to locate it. 

In this passage he describes the journey from the Sea of Galilee toward Mount Tabor and the surrounding plains:

"We traversed some miles of desolate country whose very rocks intended for blistering nakedness; we passed the traditional spot where the five thousand were miraculously fed... There was not a single foot of shade, and the sun beat down with a power that was almost insupportable."

Twain's specific choice of "blistering nakedness"is fascinating in that he isn't just describing a lack of plants; he is personifying the land as something exposed and suffering.

Later in the same chapter, he reinforces this "unshaded" theme:

"The desertion of the country was complete... we never saw a human being on the whole route. We moved blindly on, through the blistering heat."

There is, "A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action... there was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country."

Here Twain uses "fast" in the archaic/literary sense of "firm" or "loyal" (like a "fast friend" or "color-fast"). He is marveling that even plants known for being indestructible and loyal to the poorest dirt have "given up" on this land.

It is worth noting that while Twain saw the "pallid" cactus as a "friend of a worthless soil," the Halutzim saw the "Sabra" as symbol of the "People of Israel" proving once again that the land was only waiting for those who knew how to speak its language.

In Chapter 52 of "The Innocents Abroad" on their journey from Samaria toward Jerusalem, note his rhythmic use of "mournful" and "desolation"as he builds a prose of despair that makes the absence of life feel almost intentional.

"The narrow canyon in which Nablous, or Shechem, is situated, is green and fertile—happily we call it so, for it is one of the very few spots in a dismal territory that is entitled to the epithet—but beyond it we came again upon the side-hills of Zion, with their sear and barren terraces.

It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land. Small shreds and patches of it must be very fertile, but there is no help for it—it is only a rocky desert after all. The olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country, and the trees were few and far between and had no majestic size about them. They were only the ghosts of trees—pallid and discouraged."

Clemens (Mark Twain) describes the Sea of Galilee as a place of terrible "solitude" and Jerusalem as "mournful," reinforcing the idea that the "Prince" of dismal scenery was a land stripped of its former glory. For it' s indigenous inhabitants the "People of Israel" have been exiled. 

Clemens (Mark Twain) concluded by stating that the land sat in "sackcloth and ashes," which is famously cited in the final chapter of Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad (1869)—specifically Chapter 61. By using "sackcloth and ashes" (traditionally symbols of Jewish mourning and repentance found in the books of Esther, Job, and Daniel). Clemens (Mark Twain) is reinforcing to his readers a true view that the appearence of the Holyland without the "People of Israel" that the land itself appeared to be under a spell as though in a state of grieving or mourning in a divine punishment that had withered its fields.

When the first wave of early pioneers (Halutzim), the Biluim- "Bilu" is a Hebrew acronym for the biblical verse Beit Ya'akov Lekhu Venelkha ("House of Jacob, let us go [up]" those first returnees to Zion, who arrived shortly after Twain's visit. They didn't just see the desolation he described; they saw a mandate for reversing the desolation in restoration since the planting trees was not just an agricultural necessity—it was a foundational act of reclaiming the land.

Yet another of one of the most famous early efforts by these early returnees was the planting of Eucalyptus trees (often called "the Jewish tree" by locals at the time) specifically to drain the malaria-ridden swamps in places like Hadera and the Hula Valley.

In 1908, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) or Keren Kayemeth LeYisrael (KKL), is a Zionist organization founded in 1901 to buy land and develop infrastructure for Jewish settlement in historic Palestine, playing a crucial role in land acquisition and reforestation for the future state of Israel. The JNF / KKL  planted its first forest at Ben Shemen. 

This began a movement that transformed the "verdureless" hills Twain saw into the green landscape of modern Israel.

It is a profound irony of history that a man as famous for his wit and skepticism as Mark Twain provided the very "baseline" of despair that makes the subsequent greening of the land look like a literal fulfillment of prophecy.