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Yesterday was the last day in the Hebrew month of Shvat, in which the holiday of\\xa0Tu B\'Shvat - the Jewish new year for trees - is celebrated. So today, host Marcela Sulak reads an excerpt from Ruth Almog\\u2019s story, \\u201cAfter Arbor Day,\\u201d which is set during Tu B\'Shvat.

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"I saw boys and girls all over the mountainside with spades in their hands, planting saplings in basins of loose soil. When I planted my own little sapling and tightened the soil around it, black earth stuck to my fingers. \\u201cWill my sapling live?\\u201d I asked myself. An inexplicable dread suddenly took hold of me."

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Ruth Almog was born in 1936 in Petah Tikva, Mandate Palestine, to parents who immigrated from Hamburg in 1933. She has\\xa0been deputy editor of the literary section of the daily Haaretz, and writer-in-residence at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is married to the poet Aaron Almog, who will be featured on next week\\u2019s podcast.

Texts:
Ruth Almog, \\u201cAfter Arbor Day,\\u201d translated by Dalya Bilu. 50 Stories from Israel: An Anthology. Ed. Zisi Stavi.

Music:
Chava Alberstein - Etz HaKochavim
Shir HaIlan - Music by Mordechai Ze\'ira, lyrics by Raphael Saporta
HaAchayot Shemer - BeGani Neta\'aticha