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Why most Asian Jews use imported etrogs on Sukkot even though their countries grow the fruit
TAIPEI, Taiwan (JTA) — Rebecca Kanthor, a member of a progressive Jewish community in Shanghai, knows that she can easily order lulavs and etrogs in a few clicks online.
Kanthor, who belongs to Kehilat Shanghai, simply logs onto Taobao, China’s equivalent to Amazon. Etrogs, important components of a ritual for the Sukkot holiday, are known as xiang yuan (fragrant citrus, or citron) in Chinese. While American Jews may spend anywhere between $20 and $200 on a single etrog grown in the Mediterranean, etrogs grown in China, mostly in the southwestern Yunnan province, are available on Taobao for about $2 each.
Taobao also sells a wide array of traditional products made from the etrog, including tea, perfume, preserves and candy. The fruit is well known in China as a medicine used to treat everything from stomach issues to severe cough. (The components of the lulav, the other major component of Sukkot rituals, are available, too, in potted form: palm, willow, and myrtle plants go for around $7 altogether.)
But even though etrogs are available locally, most Jewish communities throughout Asia opt to import them from countries such as Israel or Italy for Sukkot. That’s because rabbinic authorities on Jewish law have for decades debated whether etrogs grown in Asia meet the standards for ritual use.
The etrog plays a central role on Sukkot, when Jews are commanded to hold it as they shake the lulav and recite the holiday’s prayers. The fruit’s ritual significance has given rise to a competitive marketplace: Some Jews pay hundreds of dollars for the perfect fruit and spend hundreds more on etrog boxes.
Most important to observant Jews today are the rules proclaiming that an etrog must be clean and without blemishes; that it retains its pittam — a protrusion separate from the stem; and that the plant must not be grafted.
“Most important: etrog is a weak tree,” said Rabbi Shalom Chazan, an emissary for the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement stationed in Shenzhen, China. “Usually, farmers will make a graftage between an etrog and lemon tree to make it stronger. That makes the etrog not kosher. We don’t know if the Chinese farmers do it or not, therefore we buy from Israel or Italy, and Morocco, to make sure it’s kosher.”
Chabad will import about 40 etrogs to share with the eight Chabad communities throughout China this year, he said.
Centuries of debate over the ritual propriety of Asian etrogs
These rules are borne out of rabbinic commentary, not the Torah, which only describes the ritual fruit as p’ri etz hadar, which has been interpreted as “fruit from the beautiful tree,” “beautiful fruit from any tree” or the “choice fruit of a tree.”
Scientists have traced the fruit’s genetic origins to the triangle of southwest China, northern Myanmar and northeast India. Today the etrog still grows in abundance in that area. But it was after the fruit migrated that it caught on with ancient Jews.
Rebecca Kanthor, far left, celebrating Sukkot with members of Kehilat Shanghai. (Courtesy of Kanthor)
According to David Z. Moster, a Bible scholar and author of “Etrog: How a Chinese Fruit Became A Jewish Symbol,” the etrog was the first citrus fruit that traveled from East to West — likely because of its thick rind that hardens rather than rots over time, preserving the fruit and seeds inside. It arrived in Israel around the fourth to third centuries BCE, and while it is not clear when exactly the etrog became the “choice fruit of the tree,” it quickly rose as an important symbol to distinguish Jews from Christians and Samaritans while fulfilling rules laid out in the Torah.
“Every Jewish community has, in the past, found what they wanted the most,” said Moster. “There’s the Yemenite etrog, which, if you get a really good one, you get the size of a football. … A lot of the European Jews are looking for [an etrog with] a gartel, a belt … Now, in the modern world, a person like me can go to Borough Park [a heavily Orthodox neighborhood in Brooklyn] and see 10,000 etrogim in one day.”
In modern times, most Jews in the West used etrogs grown in what is now Israel, the Caribbean or North Africa, including Morocco. But in the East, where most Jewish communities formed in the 18th and 19th centuries, debates over the etrog continued, especially with the discovery of the Chinese “Buddha’s hand” citron, which sprouts finger-like protrusions due to a genetic mutation.
Rabbi Asher Oser of Hong Kong’s historic Ohel Leah synagogue has researched the subject heavily for classes he has taught. He found documents revealing debates among Baghdadi rabbis about the Buddha’s hand citron, which is often not considered an etrog at all. (“All etrogim are citrons but not all citrons are etrogim,” Moster wrote.) Most important, the rabbis wrote, was continuing tradition.
“In the city of Baghdad we don’t allow the Dibdib tree, which has all the signs of an etrog, except it is sour,” wrote Yosef Hayyim of Baghdad in 1909 in response to questions about the Buddha’s hand. “If a person is in a strange place and they find a fruit completely similar to etrogs of the place where they are coming from, then they can be used. If they’re not completely similar … they should not be used.”
Hong Kong’s Jewish community has continued the tradition today, ordering etrogs from Israel or the United States.
A photo of the Buddha’s hand variety of etrog. (DEA/V. GIANNELLA/Getty Images)
Thapan Dubayehudi, a member of the Jewish community in Kochi, India, said Jews enjoyed local etrogs from trees outside of the local synagogue until the late 1990s. But as more Jews began traveling between Israel and Kochi every year, the community elected to ditch the local fruits and use Israeli ones brought back by individuals.
“There’s high-quality, rabbinically blessed supplies coming from Israel. Then why would we grow the local varieties that are usually smaller and not exactly the same species?” Dubayehudi said. “It’s been 30 years, none of the trees are left there.”
A World War II etrog rescue, of sorts
According to researchers, etrogs from what is now Israel or Iraq have long been preferable in Asia. Jewish communities in Shanghai and Kobe, Japan, for decades in the late 19th and early 20th centuries received etrogs from the wealthy Abraham family, international traders who had brought a Baghdadi etrog plant with them to Shanghai. It was planted outside the Abraham mansion and tended by Chinese gardeners, according to Yecheskel Leitner’s 1987 book “Operation–Torah Rescue.”
Leitner wrote that this tradition ended after Pearl Harbor, when patriarch David Abraham was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp and the family’s property was seized by the Japanese, who had occupied parts of the city. With the Jewish community desperate for the ritual fruit at Sukkot, someone was sent to climb the walls around the family’s garden and pick etrogs to distribute. The Japanese army then cut down the tree in retaliation.
With no other choice, the Jews were left to source local etrogs and were again faced with the Buddha’s hand variety. The community was conflicted.
“Some experts in halacha [Jewish law] used this esrog for the religious observance without pronouncing the customary blessing over it — to denote their doubts regarding its authenticity,” Leitner wrote. Others used it as a symbolic physical reminder of the mitzvah, while others refused to use it at all.
Getting ‘creative’ to import etrogs
In today’s world, importing fresh fruit across borders is a complicated process that can require significant paperwork and sometimes diplomatic intervention. Chabad was only able to legally import etrogs into China beginning in 2017, after a Chinese professor of Jewish studies helped the communities provide adequate documentation, according to an article from that year on the Lubavitch website. Before then, emissaries had to come up with “creative alternatives,” said Rabbi Shalom Greenberg of Shanghai. Chabad emissaries did not elaborate when asked what those solutions were.
In Taiwan, decades ago, community members would bring etrogs from Hong Kong back to Taipei in their luggage. Since Chabad arrived in 2011, they have been legally imported with the help of the Israeli representative office but not always made available to the wider community.
Today, the Japan Jewish Community in Tokyo also gets help from the Israeli consulate and Chabad, though “nothing is certain until it arrives,” said Rabbi Andrew Scheer. One lulav and etrog set is priced at $150 before shipping, and as far as Scheer knows, etrogs don’t grow locally. “If it could be produced locally, that would be best. Just like with cars, ‘Made in Japan’ implies the highest quality.”
Austin Haeems with his etrog trees in Ahmedabad, India. (Courtesy of Haeems)
The etrog has long been hard to get, said Moster.
“In many Jewish lands, if they wanted an etrog, they’re gonna have to send someone on a multi-thousand-mile trip and cross many nations, just to be able to pick this thing up and get it there in time,” he said. “So the idea of it being historically hard to get also added to its value.”
At least one community in Asia has used locally grown etrogs since its establishment over 2,000 years ago: the Bene Israel in Western India, where the citron is known as the bijora.
In Bene Israel Jewish culture, the bijora appears across traditions and holidays, said Esther David, a Bene Israel writer from Ahmedabad, a city of about 8 million with a community of about 100 Jews.
“For Bene Israel Jews, Bijora is a holy fruit and placed as an offering with a myrtle twig on the chair of Prophet Elijah, at the synagogue. Bijora is also placed on the prophet’s chair during the circumcision of a Jewish male child,” David said. During a malida — a ceremony of thanksgiving to the prophet Elijah unique to the Bene Israel — a bijora is placed on the ceremonial plate.
Austen Haeems, a member of the Ahmedabad community, has been growing etrogs for over a decade and providing them to the community free of charge. He says they are grown naturally and without grafting, starting from the seed. The trees produce 30 to 40 fruits each year.
But if there isn’t enough to go around, bijoras are readily available at local markets for about 100 rupees, or $1.20, year-round.
“On my dining table, you will always find one etrog. My wife keeps it until it dries up,” Haeems said.
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Jews Urged Not to Attend German Music Festival Headlined by Anti-Israel Rapper Macklemore
Macklemore performing on stage at Rock In Rio Lisbon, in Lisbon, Portugal, on June 22, 2024. Photo: Nuno Cruz via Reuters Connect
A major Jewish organization in Germany and the country’s commissioner for the fight against antisemitism have warned Jews against attending a large German music festival in July because the headliner is Grammy-winning American rapper Macklemore, who has a history of making antisemitic and anti-Israel comments.
Macklemore, whose real name is Benjamin Hammond Haggerty, is scheduled to perform as the main act at the Deichbrand Festival in Cuxhaven that will run from July 17-20. Approximately 60,000 people are reportedly expected to attend the festival this summer.
In his lyrics and comments on and off stage, the Seattle-based “Thrift Shop” rapper has promoted antisemitic stereotypes; repeatedly accused Israel of genocide, apartheid, and war crimes; and compared the struggles that Palestinians have in the West Bank to the horrors Jews experienced in the Holocaust.
The “Can’t Hold Us” singer made numerous anti-Israel claims in his songs last year titled “F—ked Up,” “Hind’s Hall,” and “Hind’s Hall 2,” and described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “colonizer.”
The Central Council of Jews in Germany said on Tuesday that Macklemore’s invitation to perform at the music festival sends a “sobering signal” that antisemitism is welcome “on the big stage.”
“The fact that Macklemore spreads antisemitic propaganda and trivializes the Holocaust in his lyrics and videos seems to be of little interest,” the Jewish organization added. A spokesperson for the Central Council of Jews in Germany further told German media that following Macklemore’s invitation to perform at the music event, “the Deichbrand Festival is therefore no longer a safe place for Jews.”
Felix Klein, the federal government’s commissioner for Jewish life in Germany and the fight against antisemitism, also condemned Macklemore’s scheduled performance at the music festival. Klein told the German news outlet RND that Macklemore promotes “very real hatred against Jews” and should not be offered a stage in Germany to perform on.
The Deichbrand Festival responded to backlash about Macklemore’s upcoming performance. “We do not tolerate discrimination in any form, including antisemitism, racism, sexism, queer and transphobia, ableism or aggressive behavior,” said a spokesperson for the festival’s organizers.
In his pro-Palestinian song “Hind’s Hall,” Macklemore applauded protests at American colleges and universities that criticize Israel’s military actions during the Israel-Hamas war. In the same song, he accused the Jewish state of occupation and suggested that the deadly Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, were an act of “resistance.” The track’s title refers to the Columbia University building Hamilton Hall, which anti-Israel student protesters broke into and occupied and renamed “Hind’s Hall” in honor of Hind Rajab — a child killed in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war.
In “Hind’s Hall 2,” Macklemore featured performers who sang “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan that is widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of Israel, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and for it to be replaced with “Palestine.”
Macklemore has also supported efforts to fund the controversial United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which has faced widely corroborated allegations that several of its employees are active Hamas members and participated in the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. All proceeds from “Hind’s Hall” went to UNRWA and the rapper participated in a pro-Palestinian concert in his hometown of Seattle in September 2024 in which proceeds were given to various groups, including UNRWA.
The post Jews Urged Not to Attend German Music Festival Headlined by Anti-Israel Rapper Macklemore first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Energy Secretary Says Washington Can Stop Iran’s Oil Exports
US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright speaks to the media, outside of the West Wing of the White House, in Washington, DC, US, March 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Friday that the United States could stop Iran’s oil exports as part of President Donald Trump’s plan to pressure Tehran over its nuclear program.
The January return to the White House of Trump, who in his first term withdrew the US from a 2015 nuclear accord with Tehran and clamped down on its oil exports, has again brought a tougher approach to the Middle Eastern power over its nuclear work.
Wright, speaking to Reuters on a visit to Abu Dhabi, said he thought the Gulf allies of the United States were extremely concerned about a nuclear-powered Iran and shared the US resolve that this is an outcome that is in no one’s best interest.
Iranian oil exports recovered under Joe Biden, who became president after Trump’s first term, and so far in 2025 have yet to show a decline, according to industry data. China, which opposes unilateral sanctions, buys the bulk of Iran’s shipments.
“That’s actually very doable. President Trump actually did it in the first term,” Wright said when asked how the United States can enforce its maximum pressure policy on Tehran. “We can follow the ships leaving Iran. We know where they go. We can stop Iran’s export of oil.”
Asked if the US would directly stop Iranian ships at sea, he said, “I’m not going to talk about the specific methodology of how that’s going to happen. But can we turn the screws on Iran? 100 percent.”
Iran said on Friday that it was giving high-level nuclear talks with the United States on Saturday “a genuine chance” after Trump threatened bombing if discussions failed.
Asked if military action against Iran would lead to regime change, he said he would not talk specifics but “everything is on the table.”
“In the short run, because of the strength of American energy production and our relations with our allies, we‘re going to tighten the sanctions and tighten the ability for Iran to export oil. You start economic, you start with negotiations, we hope that’s enough. But the end of the day is, no nuclear armed Iran.”
OIL PRICES
Wright also predicted that there would be a positive outlook for oil demand and supply in the next few years under Trump’s policies, and the concern of markets about economic growth will be proven wrong.
Comfortable oil price levels are “not meaningfully different from where we are today,” he said.
“But of course industry’s got to be profitable to drive growth. And I think that’s going to come from a combination of structural impediments that are removed by the Trump administration and innovation by the industry.”
There was “no direct coordination” between the US and the OPEC+ producer group about its decision to boost supply “but we have very close relationships with our key allies” in the Gulf, Wright said, adding he believed they share the Trump administration’s view that “the world needs more energy.”
Trump, days after taking office, publicly called on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its de facto leader Saudi Arabia to reduce oil prices. OPEC and allies including Russia comprise the wider OPEC+ group. Its supply boost deepened an oil price plunge triggered by Trump’s sweeping tariffs announcement last week.
Wright will fly to Saudi Arabia for his next stop of a Middle East tour that is his first trip abroad in his role, followed by a visit to Qatar.
China will likely have slower oil demand growth over the next few years, he said when asked about the impact of Trump’s tariff policies, but said demand growth would come from places like South Asia and Latin America.
The post US Energy Secretary Says Washington Can Stop Iran’s Oil Exports first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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New York Times Takes Iran’s Side in US-Iran Talks
The New York Times building in New York City. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The New York Times coverage of the US-Iran nuclear talks seems written from Iran’s perspective.
One Times article reports that the talks “come at a perilous moment, as Iran has lost the air defenses around its key nuclear sites because of precise Israeli strikes last October. And Iran can no longer rely on its proxy forces in the Middle East — Hamas, Hezbollah and the now-ousted Assad government in Syria — to threaten Israel with retaliation.”
For Israel and America, it’s a less perilous moment, as we no longer have to worry about our planes getting shot down by Iranian air defenses. “Perilous” seems to be from the point of view of the Iranian terror-sponsoring regime. For America and Iran, it’s a hopeful moment, as we may finally eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat or, even better yet, the terror-sponsoring and oppressive Iranian regime.
The same Times article, by David Sanger and Farnaz Fassihi, reports, “Many Iranians have begun to talk openly about the need for the country to build a weapon since it has proved fairly defenseless in a series of missile exchanges with Israel last year.”
That spins the Iranian nuclear weapon as a matter of Iranian defense, when in fact the Iranians have been pursuing it for decades as part of their goal of wiping Israel off the map. Even the Times article concedes as much later on, reporting that “Iran’s nuclear infrastructure has been operating for decades and is spread around the country, much of it deep underground.”
The same Times article goes on to contend, “If Mr. Trump does not achieve full dismantlement, he will be forced to confront questions about whether he got anything more than the Obama administration got a decade ago. Mr. Trump dismissed that accord as a ‘disaster’ and an embarrassment, noting it would lift all restrictions on Iran’s nuclear production by 2030. Now his challenge, experts say, will be accomplishing more than Mr. Obama did.”
Who are these unnamed “experts”? Even if Trump simply walks away from the negotiating table without giving Iran the sanctions relief that Obama and Biden did, relief that that allowed funds and weapons to flow to Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, he’ll accomplish more than Obama did. The Obama deal provided a $700 billion subsidy to the terror-sponsoring nation that has vowed to wipe Israel off the map, in exchange for unverifiable short-term promises of a pause in work on nuclear weapons, so “accomplishing more than Mr. Obama did” is a low bar. The Times “experts” apparently don’t include any with that opinion, or, if they do, the Times doesn’t share that view with readers.
In another article, the Times portrays it as a “concession” that Iran is merely willing to talk to America.
Iran has been ardently pursuing negotiations with the US for 30 years, since the Clinton administration, because those negotiations have the potential to pay off in sanctions relief of the sort granted by President Obama’s nuclear deal, which enriched the Iranian regime so that it was able to fund more Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism.
The Times reports in another piece previewing the negotiations, also by Farnaz Fassihi: “On Saturday, Iran and the United States will hold the first round of talks in Oman. If this progresses to face-to-face meetings, it would be a sign of a major concession by Iran, which has insisted it does not want to meet Americans directly.” That’s ridiculous. Merely negotiating isn’t a “major concession”—if anything, it’s a concession by America, which might reasonably take the position that Iran must shutter its nuclear weapons and missiles programs, release political prisoners, and cease its backing of terrorist organizations before earning a meeting with the US For Iran, a “major concession” would be verifiably abandoning the nuclear and missiles programs or ending its hostility toward Israel and America. Simply having a meeting is not a “major concession.” That’s Iranian spin, which the New York Times is passing along unlabeled to readers.
The New York Times has a long and not credible history of cheerleading for Iran nuclear deals with the US. Back in 2022, it relentlessly, breathlessly hyped a deal:
March 8, 2022: “Iran Nuclear Deal Nears Completion…”
January 31, 2022: “US and Allies Close to Reviving Nuclear Deal With Iran….”
January 12, 2022: “…the US and Iran Inch Closer to a Nuclear Pact”
Yet that deal never happened, and the Times never really adequately explained to readers why it so misled them about the likelihood of it.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
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