Jewish Community Council

Jewish children plunged shovels into a mound of dirt and dumped scoopfuls into the hole holding the new Amur corktree at Frontier Park.

They enthusiastically helped to bury the roots, tossing soil from small plastic shovels and big metal spades with long wooden handles and then topping it off with handfuls of mulch.

"They're having fun and they'll always remember this," Jan Mandel, education administrator for Temple Anshe Hesed, said. "They can come and visit their trees."

The corktree was one of three planted Sunday in the Lake Erie Arboretum at Frontier as part of the Erie Jewish community's Project Green and the celebration of the harvest festival of Sukkot.

The Jewish Community Council of Erie partnered with the Jewish National Fund to plant the three trees in the Erie park and another 100 in Israel.

Local Jewish children spent the past school year raising money to buy the trees.

"Everyone brings in tzadekah, which is charity money," Alex Kimmel, 16, a member of Anshe Hesed, said.

Members of Brith Sholom Congregation also contributed.

Out of every $18 collected, $13 stayed in Erie, said Anne Manasse, president of the Jewish Community Council of Erie.

She said the three ornamental trees at Frontier cost $500 each.

The first one planted Sunday was a Mount Fuji flowering cherry, set in the second line of trees along West Eighth Street, west of the Bayfront Parkway and across from Diver's World and Movie Exchange.

Next was the corktree, planted down the hill and a little to the west. The final tree, a fernleaf maple, went into the ground east of the corktree.

A plaque will be installed near each indicating the kind of tree, along with its sponsors and a quote. The plaque near the cherry has two lines from the Talmud: "I found a fruitful world, because my ancestors planted it for me. Likewise I am planting for my children."

Manasse said Project Green provided a good lesson for the Jewish youth, focusing on protecting the environment and saving species.

Mandel said that throughout the year, the students heard from various environmental speakers, including representatives of Earth Force.

Margarita Dangel, Earth Force's education director, was at the planting. Her nonprofit received $250 from the Jewish Community Council. The local organization also gave $5,000 to the Jewish National Fund.

Dangel spoke to the crowd of more than 60 about the importance of planting trees, saying trees can help prevent flooding by absorbing water.

"Even the city of Erie, where you are living, needs trees," she said.

Kathy Dahlkemper, director of the arboretum, told the crowd that more than 450 trees have been planted at Frontier in the past 10 years.

Kimmel said it's easy to take the trees and grass there for granted. She visited Israel over the summer and said it's a struggle to get green things to grow in some parts of that country.

"They have trees, they have beautiful parks and they have worked so hard," she said.

Manasse said the Jewish National Fund has been working for more than 100 years to purchase land and has planted more than 240 million trees in Israel.

"Israel is one of the only countries in the world to end the 20th century with more trees than it began (with)," she said.

DANA MASSING can be reached at 814-870-1729 or by e-mail.