Tu B'Shevat was originally a tax day. It was set aside to mark the legal age of fruit-bearing trees, for the collection of tithes on their fruit. In Israel, buds are just beginning to appear on the branches of the almond tree (shkedia). The almond season is spectacular but brief.

There are a few customs or observances related to this holiday, including eating a new fruit and planting trees. HAPPY TU B'SHEVAT!

Rabbi Michael Klayman and Rahel Musleah have written an excellent family-oriented environmentally-based Tu B'Shevat Seder. Click here to access it.

To learn about the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL), the leading Jewish environmental organization in the United States, click here.

To watch "Tu B'Shevat Rap" presented by the Jewish National Fund, click here.

The case concerned a large area in North Philadelphia that had long been declared as "blighted." With the approval of City Council, the Redevelopment Authority proposed to acquire 39 of the parcels for $860,250 and then convey them for a nominal consideration to Hope Partnership, an avowedly religious organization, for the construction of an admittedly "faith based" elementary school.

JSPAN submitted an amicus curiae brief, urging the Court to reject this form of financial aid to a religious entity. The Anti- Defamation League joined in our brief. Six Justices on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court approved the proposed condemnation and transfer because they saw no difference between this case and cases of indirect government aid, such as tuition grants awarded to students that the students decide to spend at a religious school.

In a strong dissenting opinion, Justice Max Baer sided with JSPAN's legal position, stating that any form of direct government aid to a religious school violates both the Pennsylvania and United States Constitutions.

"We were disappointed by the Court's decision," said Judah Labovitz, JSPAN Board member and principal author of the amicus brief. "By failing to recognize the distinction between direct and indirect support of religious organizations, the Court's decision may encourage other religious groups to seek direct government subsidies and thus create the kind of communal divisiveness that the Establishment Clause was designed to prevent."

On January 8, in anticipation of a further national debate about the appropriateness of granting retroactive immunity to the companies who may have violated the privacy rights of millions of Americans, members of the Board of JSPAN voted unanimously in support of the following resolution:

RESOLVED: that the right of all citizens and residents of the United States to be free of unreasonable search of their persons and property under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is a vital component of our civil rights,

NOW THEREFORE, JSPAN urges the Congress to protect that right and to reject efforts to bypass the requirement that a warrant be issued by a judicial officer to authorize a search, a vital element of that Fourth Amendment protection, and to reject efforts to grant immunity for past, present or future infringement of that right by telecommunication companies.

Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) is expected to introduce an emergency bill next week in Congress to offer funding to states who switch from unreliable touch-screen voting machines to paper ballots and audits in time for the presidential election. The details of the plan are still being finalized. The bill, H.R. 81, the "Confidence in Voting Act of 2008," would support the nationwide adoption of e-voting machines that produce paper trails.

JSPAN reported last spring that the House Administration Committee had approved the current legislation. However the bill has been stalled as supporters work to settle disputes about funding and whether to force the adoption of machines that are less accessible for disabled voters.

Rep. Holt's new proposal would authorize federal reimbursement for states that decide they want to offer paper-based options to voters next fall, as well as conduct random audits. He indicated that there is still enough time for these states to have new, secure systems in place before next November.

As the New York Times Magazine article reports, the winner of the 2008 presidential election could be decided by flawed electronic voting machines. The machines are so unreliable that "they fail unpredictably, and in extremely strange ways; voters report that their choices 'flip' from one candidate to another before their eyes; machines crash or begin to count backward; votes simply vanish."

"So what scares election observers is this: What happens if the next presidential election is extremely close and decided by a handful of votes cast on machines that crashed? Will voters accept a presidency decided by ballots that weren't backed up on paper and existed only on a computer drive? And what if they don't?"

To read the Times article in its entirety, click here.

The position on the executive committee had been given to Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, the founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, an American evangelical group that has been raising funds for Israel, at an average of over a million dollars each year, for more than a decade.

From the perspective of those who began the protest last month, "the idea of putting a representative of Christian donors on the executive committee looks a bit like giving the Central Bank of China a seat in the U.S. Senate."

Should seats on the executive committee of "a world-wide Jewish representative body, making decisions on the Jewish future in the name of Jews everywhere" be up for sale to the highest bidder? According to the Forward, "The truth is, the agency hasn't really functioned as a representative body in years. ..... The major institutions of Jewish life are no longer public trusts, but private property."

Click here to learn more.

Stephen P. Cohen, president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, and A. Lawrence Chickering, co-director of the Institute, writing in the Boston Globe on January 9, explain that the divisions within the Israeli and Palestinian societies "reflect low social trust and limited, and sometimes prohibited, communication across loyalties. .... Without simultaneously working to reduce internal conflicts, peace initiatives (will) mobiliz(e) the opponents of peace on both sides to intensify their opposition" to the peace efforts by the respective governments.

Drs. Cohen and Chickering urge the civil society organizations within both groups "to address these internal conflicts organically (by) engaging citizens in sustained, personal contact - the only effective communication across loyalties that has succeeded in all regions of the world. .... Increasing participation of local groups in defining the terms of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement will increase their ownership of the final agreement and their determination to implement it in good faith."

To read this article in its entirety, click here.

Please remember that JSPAN welcomes your donations to help us continue our important and effective work in Tikkun Olam. You may send gifts via PayPal on www.jspan.org. or to JSPAN, c/o Joel Beaver, Treasurer, 2033 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, 19103.