On Friday afternoon, about 30 Rosh Pina residents gathered in the Rosh Pina community forest for a ceremony in solidarity with the Jewish community of Pittsburgh, which is still reeling from the aftermath of the gun massacre perpetrated on October 27 at the Tree of Life synagogue where 11 congregants were murdered during Sabbath morning prayers.
The massacre shocked Jews in the United States, Israel, and around the world.
“My wife Judith suggested holding a planting ceremony,” Prof. Anthony Luder, a member of the Rosh Pina pluralist community said at the ceremony. “The suggestion was embraced by our rabbi and community, and even outside of it in Rosh Pina in general. We decided to mark this loss of life through the planting of new life, 11 living trees for the Tree of Life community. Rabbi Gabi Shimol suggested that they be olive trees, as a fitting memorial for Israel and the Galilee region, to mark the memory, protest and communal statement of – never again.”
Wednesday, December 05, 2018 2:28 PM
Ceremony participants included representatives of local communities in Rosh Pina: The Pluralist Jewish community, the Eli Cohen Synagogue, the bilingual kindergarten, the Beit HaYekev Club, the youth club house, and the green committee at the local Vilkometz School. The representatives spoke in memory of the victims and their addresses were interspersed with musical interludes by local musicians from the Rosh Pina community –
Yasmin Shargil on the flute and
Ron Zvi Trotos on vocals and the guitar.
“The Tree of Life Synagogue serves as an example of the sort of life that should exist among Jews of all branches. In 2010 the synagogue became the Tree of Life Congregation, a traditional, egalitarian, and progressive community,” Professor Anthony Luder said in his speech. “To this day the world did not know about this place, but as of this day the world cannot forget what was committed in this place. Eleven people were murdered on this day and 6 were injured.”
“One of the wonderful mitzvahs in the Torah is planting trees, as it is written: Enter the land and plant all kinds of fruit trees,” elucidated Gabi Shimol, rabbi of the Eli Cohen Synagogue. “There is nothing more wonderful than planting a tree in Israel. There is a special mitzvah here. The tree symbolizes Man, his soul, his connection to the earth, and that is how we will remember him.”
Also participating in the ceremony were Jews who grew up in the United States and immigrated to Israel.
“I was born and grew up in the United States, part of my family still lives there. Diaspora Jews are not alien to me. I know and cherish our brothers from across the sea, and I feel their pain,” said
Dave Keyes, representative of the Beit HaYekev Club. “As a senior citizen I couldn’t help but notice that most of those murdered were senior citizens. The heart breaks to think that their lives ended so cruelly. The planting of Israeli olive trees in the soil of Rosh Pina is a symbol for the circle of life, from birth to death, and then replanting.”
After the speeches, 11 representatives from the different local communities each received an olive sapling, contributed by KKL-JNF as part of its joint activity with local residents in the community forest. A sign bearing the name of a victim was placed next to each sapling. Each sign has a QR code which visitors to the forest can scan with their smartphones to reach a website currently being established in memory of those who were murdered.
The town of Rosh Pina is made up of a diversity of communities. The
community forest is one of the ways the residents of the Oranim neighborhood have chosen to bring all of these communities closer together.
“The forest serves as a place of connection and community and it was only natural to hold the ceremony here, of all places,” says Ayala Dekel Steiner, one of the partners in founding the community forest and the organizer of the ceremony.
Shimona Sabag-Deri, Forest and Community Coordinator in KKL-JNF’s northern region, described the Rosh Pina Community Forest:
“The forest is located in the southern part of the town and is part of the Oranim neighborhood. Suitably for the neighborhood’s name, the forest is mainly a pine forest.”
“The initiative to develop a community forest came from the community itself, with a few devoted citizens who contacted KKL-JNF,” Sabag-Deri continued. “As part of its operation in developing community forests throughout the country, KKL-JNF was also happy to support the community activity at the Rosh Pina forest. The collaboration with the community began with the northern region Forest and Community Department, headed at the time by Yaron Levi. Together we are building the vision and goals for our activity in 2019, including planning and producing signage for the access road, the entrance to the forest, and the flowering cyclamen path.”
The Oranim neighborhood is the most recent neighborhood built in Rosh Pina and about 150 families reside there. It is the biggest neighborhood in the town and has a diverse population: veteran locals and recent residents who came to Rosh Pina mainly from Hatzor HaGlilit and Zefat, both religious and secular. Most of them are families with teenaged children or younger, and young adults just starting out.
“The forest serves as a place for consolidating the neighborhood. The neighborhood is very heterogeneous and includes religious as well as secular people, those native to Rosh Pina and outsiders,”
Ayala Dekel Steiner said of the project. “We started holding shared activities such as Shabbat dinners and activities for the children, social games. We also held a joint Tu Bishvat ceremony.
“So far we’ve carried out projects of preparing access routes, weeding, clearing away stones and arranging them by the side of the road. The neighborhood children have also participated in the various activities when they built gnome houses, helped establish the cyclamen path and the sensory path. Later on we are planning to make it a food-producing forest.
Liora, a neighborhood resident said: “The forest is a wonderful idea, we’ve participated in some activities. My partner Amit is here a lot and I walk around here a lot. We participated in building gnome houses and whenever we visit the forest we check up on them.”
Zohar, an elementary school student in Rosh Pina added: “the forest here is very nice, we come here a lot. We also organized the forest a little and created a cyclamen path.”
Ayala Dekel elaborated on the collaboration with KKL-JNF in the community forest: “Two weeks ago the district managers at KKL-JNF were here on tour and they were pleased with the activity we’ve done here. KKL-JNF gives us a cover for the things we do here in the forest. They plan to fix the fence and on Tu Bishvat, hold an activity for building benches together with the community.”
Through these olive trees, the 11 congregants murdered in the Tree of Life massacre are being commemorated, and their memory will continue to live on here in the hearts of the residents, as part of the rich fabric of life that they are creating and sustaining in the forest.