KKL-JNF designated an accessible planting area for Tu Bishvat this year in the fire-damaged Zaglambia section of Ben Shemen Forest. Among the planters we met were family, friends and colleagues commemorating the late Neta Rothman Z”L of Access Israel, as well as families with the Akim organization for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Feb. 10, 2020: A cloudy gray sky and drizzling rain did not deter some 2,000 people from taking part in Tu Bishvat tree planting activities at the new KKL-JNF planting area in the Zaglambia section of Ben Shemen Forest. Among the celebrants were a group of friends, family and work colleagues of Neta Rothman Z”L, the late accessibility consulting head of Access Israel. Rothman died in a tragic accident last year when a construction crane collapsed on her car.
The planting center stands outside the fire-ravaged Mevo Modi’im moshav. In May of 2019,
wildfires in Ben Shemen Forest destroyed hundreds of acres of woodland and burnt down two-thirds of the houses on the adjacent moshav.
Those who loved, worked with, and knew Neta came to Ben Shemen Forest to celebrate her life and her Tu Bishvat birthday. Even more significantly, they came to help replant the forest that Neta had helped nurture through accessible planting events with KKL-JNF in 2011.
“Neta was my friend and my right hand,” said Access Israel CEO
Michal Rimon. “After the fire here last year we saw that the beautiful forest Neta helped create had burned down. What better way to remember Neta than to replant the forest here? I remember how much she loved this place.”
Rimon said Access Israel worked with KKL-JNF to plan the ceremony and to provide an accessible planting area.
She thanked KKL-JNF’s national accessibility advisor
Meirav Davidian for her help. “KKL-JNF is a great example of a partnership and I hope people in Israel know how much they do beyond just forests,” declared Rimon. “They help open nature to everybody.”
Rimon noted that KKL-JNF was the first organization in Israel to hold accessible tree-planting events.
“Planting a tree is a mitzvah of the holiday and people with disabilities did not have a chance to do that before,” said Rimon. “Access Israel believes in making life for all people with disabilities accessible, so they can go out and do what you and I do.”
KKL-JNF Co-Chairman
Hai Adiv noted that KKL-JNF has planted
one-quarter of a billion trees since its founding
over 100 years ago, and that today, every person would need to plant 200 trees to counter the air pollution damage to the environment.
He also spoke about KKL-JNF’s efforts to
make nature accessible to people of all abilities, noting that KKL-JNF so far has 300 nature sites that the organization has made accessible for all. “Still more are needed”, he said.
“Accessibility is not just a slogan for us. It is of paramount importance.”
“Here, we are showing what can be done to improve accessibility in all areas,” said
Avremi Torem, the Justice Ministry’s Commissioner for Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities. “Families of people with disabilities can go out and do activities in nature in KKL-JNF parks like all other families. KKL-JNF started doing this even before making places accessible became law.”
Neta’s mother
Nechama Rothman read a poem in her daughter’s memory, and recalled her birthday on Tu Bishvat.
Addressing her beloved daughter, she said; “Your spirit, your being, will accompany these saplings planted here today and they will bloom and grow, and in time children will play and laugh among the trees and the wind will whisper, Neta, Neta, and you will smile from above, and the trees will say ‘Neta is here, among us’.”
Another group that planted at the site on Tu Bishvat were parents and children from Akim, the national organization caring for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Israel.
Ines Cirtuk of Rishon L’Tzion came with her daughter Yafit. “I am very happy that I was able to take her to a place to plant a tree like I did when I was young,” she said. “She loved planting the tree.”