By Zoe Weil
Yom HaShoah | Holocaust Remembrance Day
Thursday, April 24, 3 pm (RSVP)
Volunteer gardeners needed 8 am-2 pm
Earlier this year for the Tu B’Shvat “New Year of the Trees” holiday, The J hosted a presentation about the benefits of native plants and the need to have more of them. In short, native plants typically host an exponentially higher number of insect species than non-native — if not outright invasive — plants.
So while a native oak might host 500 species of caterpillars (good bird food!), for example, a non-native ginkgo will welcome only five. A healthy and varied insect population benefits everyone up the food chain, and native plants conserve water and are generally low maintenance. And they can be quite beautiful.
We all felt newly empowered here at The J and began looking for ways to promote native plants on our campus. We started with a volunteer day that mitigated a non-native plant that is toxic to birds, nandina, from around our building and hiking trails.
Then we turned our attention to the butterfly garden at the entrance to The J.
Memorial butterflies
The butterfly garden was created in 2016 to honor the memory of six million Jewish men, women, and children, and millions of other innocent victims of the Holocaust.
It was in part inspired by Pavel Friedman’s poem The Butterfly, which the young Jewish boy wrote while imprisoned in the Theresienstadt Nazi ghetto-camp in Czechoslovakia. The Butterfly is etched in stone within the garden — a lasting tribute to his words and memory. Pavel was one of 15,000 children interned at Theresienstadt; only 100 survived.
But over the past decade the garden has faded, and few if any pollinators still visit. Here was a great opportunity: We could bring more beauty to an important Holocaust memorial while at the same time improving the environment.
To bring more significance to the project, we decided to replant and rededicate the garden on Yom HaShoah | Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday, April 24. (Read more about this and other Jewish holidays.)
After gardening all day (8 a.m. to 2 p.m.) we will host a dedication ceremony at 3 p.m. to reflect on Pavel’s poem and explore the words of other children imprisoned in Theresienstadt. A display of their poems along our outdoor track will offer a window into their dreams, fears, and hopes.
We are grateful to Repair the World and the Cy Steiner Community Education Fund of the Birmingham Jewish Foundation for financial support for this endeavor.
Zoe is director of special projects within the Office of Jewish Life at The J.
