The Jerusalem Municipality recently finished an intensive
planting effort in preparation for the Shmittah year,
following a tree-planting effort last month. The annuals the
Municipality typically plants twice a year were taken out to
make room for over 80,000 perennials planted in divider
strips, traffic circles, public parks and various municipal
projects.
Mayor Rabbi Uri Lupoliansky initiated the Shmittah
preparation program, instructing municipal workers on how to
preserve the city's appearance while upholding the laws of
Shmittah. Rabbonim from Beis Hamedrash Lehalacha Behisyashvus
held courses for professional staff members at the Department
of Urban Improvement, municipal subsidiary companies,
contractors and the light-rail project.
Employees received overviews of Shmittah issues such as
watering gardens, hoeing and pruning and permitted ways to
preserve shrubs and trees planted in the sixth year. Based on
a recommendation by the Agricultural Ministry, it was decided
to replicate the European model by planting perennials rather
than annuals, which must be replanted a few times a year.
Attractive and of better quality, these plants are able to
continue flowering throughout the seventh year and do not
require care that is forbidden during Shmittah. Perennials
are also chosen in many European countries because they
require less water.
Mayor Lupoliansky also led a plan to implement Shmittah in
other cities throughout the country, enlisting the help of
the Center for Local Government, which assisted in the
publication of a Shmittah gardening booklet distributed to
local authority employees around the country.
The team the Mayor set up to prepare local authorities for
Shmittah includes HaRav Shaul Reichenberg and HaRav Moshe
Efrati of Beis Hamedrash Lehalacha Behisyashvus, Dr. Moshe
Zacks, a scientist at the Institute for Torah-Based
Agriculture, members of the Jerusalem Municipality's
Department of Urban Improvement, the director of the
Department for Plant Engineering at the Agricultural
Ministry, Mr. Yisrael Galon and various professionals. In
recent months the team has been touring different cities that
are about to keep Shmittah for the first time.
Rabbi Lupoliansky said, "The information campaigns and
extensive efforts that have been invested in the program have
turned Jerusalem into the nationwide center for guidance and
practical instruction on the issue of Shmittah and for the
first time succeeded in bringing about an understanding at
local authorities that Shmittah can be upheld in accordance
with halochoh without detracting from a city's pleasing
aesthetics."
