Green Jews

The other day we were invited round to lunch by a Jewish couple who had recently moved to our neighbourhood. As it was a lovely day, one of those rare English summer days when you have to take advantage of every minute of sunshine, we spent some time in their garden. My wife and I could only gaze in awe and wonderment at the sight. Lush greenery, exotic flowers and plants, bushes and trees, reminiscent of the Brazilian rain forest, or possibly more accurately of the tamed naturalness of a Capability Brown. Not, I thought unkindly, your typical Jewish garden. The hostess - the gardener in question - kindly offered us some cuttings.. "Cuttings, noch", I thought, echoing the Manchester writer Howard Jacobson's Yiddish self putdown.

And yet, and yet. The Jews' ancient history depicts them as agriculturists extraordinaire, well ahead of their time with respect to ecological questions. The Torah itself is strong on sustainable agriculture, ordaining every seventh year (Shmitah year) as an annual rest for the land. The Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus, writing around 100 C.E., rather scathingly refers to this practise among the Jews as due to their love of indolence[1]! He otherwise notes the fertility and cultivation of the soil; as does the Romano-Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus, who wrote in 75 C.E., referring to the Jews of the Galilee, “their soil is universally rich and fruitful, and full of the plantations of trees of all sorts, insomuch that it invites the most slothful to take pains in its cultivation, by its fruitfulness; accordingly, it is all cultivated by its inhabitants, and no part of it lies idle.“ and of Samaria, “They have abundance of trees, and are full of autumnal fruit, both that which grows wild, and that which is the effect of cultivation"[2].

Perhaps the destruction of Jerusalem and the subsequent dispersal, depriving Jews of their own country, and involving centuries of persecution and moving from one temporary host country to another, militated against the traditional Jewish love of land and cultivation.

But the more recent history of the Jews shows that since their return to their homeland they have once again become world leaders in cultivation and fruit and vegetable production. Due to the ever-present problem of water resources, agriculture has become a less important element of the GDP, but now Israel is discovering innovative techniques for growing more produce with less water[3].

And continuing the ancient Jewish ecological tradition.

[1] Tacitus, The Histories, Volume V, 5.4.
[2] Flavius Josephus: The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem, Chapter 3.2 and 3.4.
[3] See the excellent Wikipedia article , Agriculture in Israel.