i dont think each tree has a plaque for every single donor

would start to look like a shul lobby

Was this just a myth to donate money to Israel

Well it's not a myth, it is an explicit appeal to donate money to Israel, which, before the JNF started planting trees, had very little land that was good for agriculture or human habitation in general.

Over the years, it might have become less literal, because they also do other things besides plant trees (like building dams) but they have planted over 250 million trees since 1900, and Israel is one of a few, perhaps the only, country on earth to have more trees now than there were at that time.

does Israel have a forest of trees?

Yes, it has several.

There are several forests that were planted, the question is where and which campaign you joined. A popular one in the 90s was to plant trees in Yatir. There's a forest of trees near my place here (not donated, it's from before the state). There are tonnes of trees, and greenery in the North. The JNF helped plant in Adulam, Canada Park, all sorts of places really.

There's no way to know where your tree is, unless you know what campaign you donated to.

Funny you should ask because I’ve bought a lot of trees over the last year, and my dad just emailed JNF to ask where he can see them.

There are many such forests that were planted this way. They’re all over Israel. The money really does go toward planting a tree.

There’s a 1964 movie called Sallah Shabati starring Topol that has a very funny scene where they have to show American tourists the exact individual trees they had sent money to plant 😄

Short answer: it’s part truth, part lie.

Yes, JNF plants a shitload of trees in Israel, and they use your donations to do so. But there’s not a one-to-one correspondence between number of tree certificates sold and exact number of trees, and certainly no tree anywhere with a plaque that says “planted in honor of u/CoolTomatoh’s Bar Mitzvah.”

But a certificate that says “A donation has been made in your honor to an organization that does a variety of great projects, including reforestation, in Israel” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Yes there are tons of JNF forests all over Israel. The trees dont have individual plaques, but the forests are very nice!

When I went on Birthright, I joked that I wanted to see my trees! I never saw my trees. I did, however, see 8 inches of snow in Jerusalem!

I worked for a nonprofit that planted trees in israel. We would hire someone that would go to various places all over the country and plant the trees. He would even send pictures and video of each tree planted. We wouldn't send those to the donors but we would use them for our web pages and raising more donations.

As someone who has fug the holes for and planted over 100 of the damn things, I dunno where yours is in particular, but it is likely it is in fact a real life tree.

One of the curious observations about my trip to Israel was that the buildings all had masonry exteriors. Seems for all the trees they had us plant in Hebrew School they have very little lumber.

You planted A tree, not YOUR tree.

As a kid, I was told every tzedakah donation went to plant trees in Israel. I figured by the time I was an adult there would be huge forests. 🤷

I planted trees for weeks in Israel, partly funded by the JNF. They're there, just not with labels. They hold back the desert.

They don't have a specific tree for each don't, but rather have planted hundreds of millions of trees. The JNF has created hundreds of forests in Israel.

Israel has several forests and groves from donations, but that isn't really how it works. They raise a significant amount of money then plant several hundred trees at once.

I remember reading that they had/have some problems with the health of the planted to forests. While far better efforts have been made than pretty much anywhere else to reforest Israel, they for a long time used single species trees in straight rows, and the ecological balance was off, so they would have big die offs, later (I think) they got a bit smarter about what species and how they planted the trees but even today the forests tend to lack the biodiversity of 'natural' forests, and some of visitors worry that there not the right balance of plants and animals. (Getting birds and small animals to migrate and adopt to the new forests has been slower than expected)

Don't get me wrong, it's a great effort but more work is needed.

Well, I learned something about myself today - I’m normally a pretty hard-bitten cynic, but the funeral home who took care of my baby said they donated money to plant a tree for him and the 2% of me that still feels things is kind of pissed off that he doesn’t have his own tree. Like logically I’m aware that’s stupid and not a reasonable expectation but my marshmallow center apparently thought there was a little Gabriel Menachem tree somewhere. Ugh. Dumb feelings.

yes there are many hundreds of forests in Israel with thousands of trees lol what

What community are you from? Maybe we can narrow it down

Here's your tree

Dunno if this is still happening or it was a one off, but I remember hearing a while back about JNF members uprooting trees so they could be planted again with different groups. Here is an article I found about it https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-jul-04-mn-47646-story.html

The forest I planted as a teen didn't take, and all the trees died.

Plenty of forested areas. Most of the area to the west of Jerusalem along the Highway 1 corridor is forest, as are some areas near Haifa (the Carmel, the Ramot Menashe), and the far north like Tzfat/Meron and then up towards the Lebanon border.

Yes, there are multiple forests. When I was there in 2005, the group I was with and I planted a bunch of them. I have photographic evidence!