Students celebrated Tu B’shvat, a Jewish holiday that celebrates the new year for calculating the age of trees for tithing, tonight in Phillips Room in Muller Chapel hosted by Hillel.

Fruit from trees in Israel cannot be picked until the tree is five years old according to custom.

Junior Rachel Berger, Hillel’s communications intern, helped to organize the event for students. 

“We have dried dates and fruits for people to eat,” she said.  “We will be planting seeds pots and decorating them.  Hopefully, we will raise enough money to plant a couple of trees in Israel.”

At the event, 12 students came to celebrate the holiday.   They had the opportunity to decorate pots with several different colors with paint.  Seeds were also provided for different flowers and vegetables.  

When everyone introduced themselves, some people had some facts about trees in Israel for members to share.  Others also talked about their experiences like a concert in Israel that was powered by people riding bikes.

Sophomore Andrew Cohen, president of Ithaca College’s Hillel chapter, was pleased with how the event turned out.

“It was fun to be able to come and hang out and eat different species,” he said.

Part of Tu B’shvat is to eat specific dried fruits and almonds to celebrate the new year of the trees.  Some of these were included like grapes, dried apricots, almonds and dates.

Though the actual holiday was last Friday, Hillel was not able to celebrate the event properly because it was Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.

Junior Molly Wernick, programming intern of Hillel, played a large role in planning the event.

“This is first time that we’ve actually planted anything,” she said.  “In the past, we had a cooking show and a Tu B’shvat seder last year.  This year, we decided to go out of the box.”

Wernick planted a cactus in the pot that she decorated.

“Cactuses are great because they don’t require tons of maintenance,” she said.  “They don’t need a lot of water and they stay really strong, which is a good metaphor for the strength of Jewish life on campus.”

During the event, Wernick also talked about some of the organizations environmental organizations that support Israel like the Jewish Farm School, Mazon and the Jewish National Fund.

Hillel will be having its next event on Monday Feb. 22 called “Jews, Schmooze and Chinese Food” in Muller Chapel.