Community Contact Information:
Congregation Emanu El
San Bernardino, CA
www.emanuelsb.org

Goals:

• Save threatened citrus trees from destruction; join orange conservancy
• Provide tons of oranges for the hungry
• Teach about gleaners, harvesters and relations between workers

Overview:
Upon learning that local orange trees were being destroyed for housing and strip mall development, the synagogue partnered with Inland Orange Conservancy to protect existing trees, educate the community about the plight of local farm workers and teach the Jewish value of modern-day gleaning. Today, Emanu El continues to build invaluable alliances with community ecological organizations.

Preparation:
The rabbi met with the director of the conservancy, explaining the significance of Tu B’Shvat and suggesting that instead of planting trees, the congregation help the Conservancy to preserve existing ones. On Tu B’Shvat, the religious school children and their parents went to a grove, studied Jewish texts on gleaning (Leviticus and Ruth), and gleaned the trees after the pickers had gone through. The program was scheduled for Tu B’Shvat. The organizers coordinated with a grove owner, arranged for the Conservancy Director to meet them, distributed maps and directions to the orange grove, and packed snack food and first aid supplies. Religious school children studied gleaning texts the week before, and came ready to act out the book of Ruth amid the orange trees.
The program received local press coverage thanks to outreach by congregants.

Project Implementation:
The Conservancy Director taught about the vulnerability of the trees and the need to keep groves active and grove-owners fulfilled (or else the groves will be sold to developers and destroyed). They said a blessing for picking, distributed hundreds of bushel bags, and sent the participants into the grove. Trees were pre-flagged by the grove owner as picked and ready to be gleaned, and everyone was busy for an hour. They transported the fruit in congregants’ trucks to a local hunger pantry where they distributed it to the needy that day. They partnered with the hunger pantry where they donated their Yom Kippur food collection, because they distribute food on Sunday, and would add to their distribution.

Results:
This program fulfills several concomitant needs: saving trees, validating grove owners who stand up to developers, teaching children about the land, our valley’s history, the food supply system, and, the needs of the hungry, as well as providing them fresh fruit, too. Moreover, it demonstrates often overlooked Jewish teachings. Rarely can we actually fulfill the mitzvah of pe’ah, leaving the corners for the hungry, as we live in a mechanized world. Yet, this is a central Jewish ethic (eilu devarim…) which now is made real for our congregation and the community every Tu B’Shvat. The congregation overcame the standard momentum to plant trees on Tu B’Shvat. We can reconnect Jews to the agricultural mitzvoth, learn to respect farmworkers and impoverished gleaners and feed people, too.

The program helped demonstrate the freshness of even the most ancient of Jewish practices. When congregants became gleaners, they realized that they stood in the line of Ruth, Boaz and King David.

Many congregants became members of the Orange Conservancy, which has benefited from the exposure and the support of the Jewish community. Congregants were made aware of the economic pressures on grove owners to sell to developers, which erodes both the land and the history in our valley. By linking the synagogue with the Conservancy and the food pantry, a strong partnership of mutual support was created.

This program received a Fain Award in 2009.