Students Plant Tree for Tu B’shvat, Observe Silence for La Earthquake Victims

Fifteen Jewish students of the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation at the University of Maryland celebrated the holiday of Tu B’shvat by planting a holly tree in front of the university’s administration building. The students contributed and collected funds from other Jewish students at Maryland for purchases and planting 20 trees in Israel. The students also observed a moment of silence at the end of the ceremony for the victims of the disastrous earthquake recently in California. At the tree planting ceremony a student, Bernard Silverman of Baltimore, read a statement: “On the Jewish holiday let us take a brief pause from the human troubles around us, and take a few seconds to replenish the earth, plants and trees…”