This colourful poster was produced by the JNF-KKL in honour of Shavuot. In the foreground a group of children are holding produce – fruit, flowers, a dove, and a kid. Most of the children are wearing white clothes with floral crowns on their heads. One of the children is wearing a tembel hat, and the girl at the head of the line is waving an Israeli flag. Two of the children are carrying a bunch of grapes, imitating the biblical image of the spies sent by Moses to scout out the Promised Land. This large bunch of grapes is a symbol of the richness of the produce of Israel. The boy on the far right is pushing a wheelbarrow filled with flowers. The background is an agricultural setting with open fields and a few scattered houses. The children appear to be walking towards an arch decorated with flowers and blue and white streamers where a crowd awaits them. Above the arch is the symbol for the JNF-KKL. It is likely that this scene is an illustration of the celebration for the first fruits of the season (bikkurim) that became common in agricultural settlements throughout Israel from the beginning of the twentieth century. At the bottom of the poster there is a quote from a children’s Shavuot song written in 1933 by Yitzhak Shenhar and named “A Song of Thanks”:
Bikkurim, the fruit of our thanksgiving We have brought a gift, a gift to the people.
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The Song - The song “Shir Toda” (A Song of Thanks), written by Yitzhak Shenhar and quoted in part on the poster, expresses thanks to the land and the farmers and contains prayers for a bountiful harvest. The words reflect the socialist Zionist ideology of the time:
Bikkurim, the fruit of our thanksgiving
We have brought a gift, a gift to the people.
From the valley and its Carmel
From the north and the sea.
Give thanks, the soil of our homeland
Give thanks, all of the toil.
In the vineyards of the Sharon and the Negev
And the fields of Yizrael….
Shavuot - Shavuot, the festival mentioned in the article – also known as the Festival of Weeks – is celebrated on the sixth of Sivan. Shavuot, one of the three biblical pilgrim festivals, commemorates many different things: it marks the day that the Israelites received the Torah on Mount Sinai; it celebrates the wheat harvest in Israel; and it signifies the end of the Counting of the Omer. It is celebrated with many colourful and festive traditions such as holding bikkurim ceremonies, eating dairy food, decorating the synagogue with flowers and greenery, reading the Book of Ruth, and studying the Torah all through the night (Tikkun Leil Shavuot).
Bikkurim - One of the names of Shavuot in the Torah is the festival of the first fruits. These first fruits are traditionally of the “seven species” that were special agricultural products of the Land of Israel: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates (Deuteronomy 8:8). According to Jewish tradition, the first fruits, Bikkurim, were brought to the priests in the Temple in Jerusalem, as described in the Torah: “The first, the crowns of your land, you shall come, the house of the Lord your God” (Exodus 26:26).
Bikkurim Celebrations in Modern Israel - The early settlements in modern Israel transformed the traditional Bikkurim ceremony into a secular agricultural celebration – first fruit ceremonies to rejoice the end of the harvest festival (another term for Shavuot). The first fruits in the kibbutzim, in contrast to the time of the Temple, are not only the seven species but all kinds of fruits, vegetables, livestock, and even the babies born in the past year. The ceremonies feature colourful performances of songs and dances and processions of decorated agricultural tools and machinery, farm produce, and young children.
The Symbol of the Grapes - The picture of two people holding a large cluster of grapes has become a well-known symbol of Israel and is also the symbol of both the Israeli Ministry of Tourism and the Carmel Winery.
Jewish National Fund- The Jewish National Fund (JNF) was founded in 1901 in order to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine for Jewish settlement. In the ensuing years, both during the British Mandate and after the establishment of the State of Israel, the JNF planted millions of trees, built dams and reservoirs, and developed more than 250,000 acres of land for settlement. The JNF was founded by the Zionist movement, and its campaigns aimed at attracting the support of Diaspora Jews. The blue JNF collection box symbolized the partnership between Israel and the Diaspora and was once found in many Jewish homes and organizations.
