This is a Shana Tova card illustrated with a Tu B’Shvat scene, created in New York by Jacob Keller in 1910. The scene depicts children collecting carob fruit from a tree in the centre of the picture. The boy on the left is wearing a brown shirt and brown trousers and is lifting a stick in the direction of the tree, presumably trying make more carobs fall from the tree; the other children are collecting the fallen fruit. On the left-hand side sits a boy on a wooden crate who is sorting through carobs and pomegranates. At the top of the picture is the text: “May you be written for a good year” ( (לשנה טובה תכתבוin Hebrew and “Happy New Year” in English. At the bottom of the picture is written in Hebrew: חמשה עשר בשבט בקאלאניע ראשון לציון –15th of Shvat in the Rishon LeZion colony. This refers to the Tu B’Shvat traditions that were followed in the moshava (farming village) of Rishon LeZion, founded in 1882. It is interesting to note that the word “colony” has been transliterated as “koloniya” and not written in the common Hebrew word moshava. It is possible that the word had not yet been introduced at that time.
It is customary to eat fruit on Tu B’Shvat and carob, because of its dry texture, was often sent to the Diaspora so that Jews around the world could eat fruit from the Land of Israel.
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Tu B’Shvat - TuB’Shvat, the 15th day of the month of Shvat, is first mentioned in the Mishnah as one of the Jewish New Years, the date that marked the beginning of the tax year for fruits and trees. At the time of the Temple, this meant taking a portion of one’s crops and giving it to the Levites. This special day evolved into the New Year for trees, fruit, and nature that we know today. The tradition of planting trees slowly developed, not as a halachic ritual, but as a Zionist, nationalistic one. In 1884 the pioneers of the village of YesudHama’alah planted 1,500 fruit trees on TuB’Shvat, and in 1890 Rabbi Ze’ev Yaavitz planted seeds with his students in Zichron Yaakov. By doing this, Yaavitz and the YesudHama’alah farmers gave a Zionist interpretation to this mishnaic date by planting trees to make the Land of Israel flourish. In 1908, the teachers union in Jerusalem adopted this new tradition and made TuB’Shvat the “Festival of Planting” that was later adopted by the JNF-KKL and has since been celebrated by planting trees and promoting environmental concerns. Another traditional way of celebrating TuB’Shvat is conducting a TuB’Shvat Seder, a ritual first conducted in Tzfat (Safed) in the seventeenth century. This includes eating fruit of the Land of Israel and reading special passages that relate to fruit and the Land of Israel.
Rishon LeZion - Rishon LeZion, located south of Tel Aviv near the Mediterranean Sea, was founded in 1882 by Russian immigrants, most of who left Russia after a series of anti-Semitic riots. The name Rishon LeZion means “First in Zion,” although it was actually the second moshava (farm settlement), established after Petach Tikva. The founders faced many difficulties upon their arrival in Palestine due to their lack of resources, knowledge, and experience of the conditions in their new home. Baron Edmund de Rothschild, a philanthropist and strong believer in Zionism, supported the pioneers, established vineyards and wineries, and funded a project to provide water for citrus groves. These initiatives helped the Jews of Rishon LeZion establish the economic foundation for the new moshava. Today, Rishon LeZion is Israel’s fourth largest city. The wine industry remains an important part of its economy alongside various high-tech companies.
Shana Tova Cards - The earliest instance of a written “shana tova” greeting is a fourteenth-century letter written by the Ashkenazi rabbi known as the Maharil (Jacob ben Moses Moelin). This letter affirms the existence of this custom in German Jewish communities at the time. In the eighteenth century, the custom began spreading beyond the German-speaking realm to other large concentrations of Jews in Eastern Europe, especially Poland. By the end of the century, Shana Tova cards began to take on distinct characteristics, such as special writing paper, with the custom spreading throughout the entire Ashkenazi world during the nineteenth century. The postal service emerged around this time, and in the 1880s, Jewish entrepreneurs began to print commercial greeting Shana Tova cards. By this time, Shana Tova cards constituted the main body of postcards sent by Jews, and this would remain so for around 100 years.
Between the end of the nineteenth century and the end of First World War, a time known as the “Golden Age of Postcards,” the vast majority of the mail sent by Jews in Europe and America consisted of Shana Tova cards. Today, in the digital era, cards sent by post have given way to text messages and emails.
