Introduction

This introductory chapter brings forward the focus of this book: Israeli forests as spaces of commemoration in the Jewish-Israeli memory culture. The work stays grounded in the realities of Israel-Palestine, reflecting on the convoluted knot of ideological, political, socio-economic, personal, and institutional dimensions of local tree planting, while also drawing from instances of arboreal commemorations from other geographical and cultural contexts. This way a locally established practice of memorial forests is placed within the wider framework of environmental memory and offers instructive insights for other instances of “green” remembrance, highlighting both the possibilities and risks associated with vegetation-based commemorations.