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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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The post Why most Asian Jews use imported etrogs on Sukkot even though their countries grow the fruit appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Vast Majority of US Jews Reject Jewish Voice for Peace, Other Anti-Zionist Groups, Polling Data Shows
Pro-Hamas protesters led by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) demonstrate outside the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 14, 2024. Photo: Derek French via Reuters Connect
A new poll released on Wednesday underscores how far removed Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and other anti-Zionist organizations that claim to represent Jews are from mainstream Jewish views on Israel, Zionism, and the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians.
Commissioned by The Jewish Majority, a nonprofit founded by a researcher whose aim is to monitor and accurately report Jewish opinion on the most consequential issues affecting the community, the poll found that the vast majority of American Jews believe that anti-Zionist movements and anti-Israel university protests are antisemitic.
The findings also showed that Jews across the US overwhelmingly oppose the views and tactics of JVP, a prominent anti-Israel group which has helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza.
Founded in 1996 at the University of California, Berkeley, JVP describes itself as “the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world.” It was infamously one of the first organizations to blame Israel following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust.
“Israeli apartheid and occupation — and the United States complicity in that oppression — are the source of all this violence,” JVP said as Israelis were still counting their dead and missing.
American Jews who responded to The Jewish Majority’s poll overwhelmingly reject this line of thinking. Seventy percent said they believe that anti-Zionism of any stripe is antisemitic; 85 percent believe that Hamas, whom JVP described as “the oppressed,” is a genocidal group; and 79 percent support vocally pro-Israel groups such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization JVP has defamed as “not a credible source on antisemitism and racism.”
Additionally, JVP’s methods of protest are unpopular among American Jews, The Jewish Majority added, noting that 75 percent disapprove of “blocking traffic” and only 18 percent approve of protesters’ wearing masks to conceal their identities. Sixty percent also disagree with staging protests outside the homes of public officials, a common JVP tactic.
“Plain and simple, Jewish Voice for Peace is an extremist group that does not represent the views of the overwhelming majority of American Jews,” Jonathan Schulman, The Jewish Majority’s executive director, said in a statement accompanying the poll results. “American Jews share a strong and consistent stance against anti-Zionists as well as a deep concern over rising antisemitism and the tactics used by organizations like JVP.”
He continued, “It is high time people see through the charade: JVP is not representative of anyone but a marginal fringe, even if a few radical Jews are involved in their movement.”
The Jewish Majority’s poll was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies.
Jewish Voice for Peace’s inner workings, messaging, and political activities were recently documented in a groundbreaking report on the group published last month by StandWithUs, a Jewish civil rights group based in Los Angeles, California.
Titled, “A Shield for Hate, Not a Voice for Peace,” the report noted that JVP has promoted a distorted history of Zionism and Israel, accusing the movement for Jewish self-determination of everything from training US police officers to violate the rights of African Americans to abusing “Jewish history.” In doing so, it has allied with extremist groups such as WithinOurLifetime — whose founder has threatened to set Jews on fire and led a movement to harass Jews on New York City’s public transportation — and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), which celebrated Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre and has proclaimed that “the Zionist entity has no right to exist.”
The report also stated that JVP has collaborated with anti-Israel entities such as Samidoun, which identifies itself as a “Palestinian prisoner solidarity network,” to hold rallies. Samidoun described Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel as “a brave and heroic operation.” The United States and Canada each imposed sanctions on Samidoun in October, labeling the organization a “sham charity” and accusing it of fundraising for designated terrorist groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
JVP has also compared Zionism to Nazism.
“This is Holocaust inversion — an antisemitic tactic in which the genocide Jews faced in the past is used to promote baseless hatred against Jews today,” the StandWithUs report said. “The only group benefiting from JVP’s Holocaust inversion is Hamas — a truly genocidal terrorist group. JVP has helped shield them from accountability for launching the war, ruthlessly militarizing civilian areas across Gaza, stealing humanitarian aid, and rejecting nearly every proposed ceasefire and hostage release deal.”
In June 2024, the Anti-Defamation League filed a complaint with the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) accusing the political fundraising arm of JVP of transgressing federal election law by misrepresenting its spending and receiving unlawful donations from corporate entities, citing “discrepancies” in the organization’s income and expense reports.
The complaint lodged a slew of charges against Jewish Voice for Peace’s political action committee (JVP PAC), including spending almost no money on candidates running for office — a political action committee’s main purpose. From 2020-2023, JVP PAC reported spending $82,956, but just a small fraction of that sum — $1,775, just over 2 percent — was spent on candidates, according to the complaint. The money went elsewhere, being paid out in one case for “legal services” provided by a company which “doesn’t appear to practice law” and other expenses.
JVP continues to have the support of powerful friends in the world of progressive philanthropy, a formidable subset of the American elite, amid these scandals and controversies.
Since 2017 it has — according to a 2023 report by the National Association of Scholars — received $480,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a philanthropic foundation whose endowment is valued at $1.27 billion. Between 2014 and 2015 alone, JVP brought in over half a million dollars in grants from various foundations, including the Open Society Policy Center — founded by billionaire George Soros — the Kaphan Foundation, and others.
According to the recent StandWithUs report, JVP has received substantial financial assistance from organizations tied to Lebanon and Iran.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Vast Majority of US Jews Reject Jewish Voice for Peace, Other Anti-Zionist Groups, Polling Data Shows first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Turkey’s Erdogan Demands Israel Pay Reparations for Gaza, Says Palestinian State ‘Must Not Be Delayed’
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a joint statement to the media in Baghdad, Iraq, April 22, 2024. Photo: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/Pool via REUTERS
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday demanded Israel pay reparations “for the harm it inflicted through its aggressive actions in Gaza” and urged the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state.
During a press conference with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in West Java, as part of his Asian tour to Malaysia and Pakistan, Erdogan rejected US President Donald Trump’s plan to “take over” the Gaza Strip to rebuild the war-torn enclave while relocating Palestinians elsewhere during reconstruction efforts.
Like many other Middle Eastern leaders who rejected Trump’s proposal, Erdogan also advocated for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The creation of a sovereign, territorially united State of Palestine within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital cannot be delayed any further,” he said during the press conference, as aired by the Turkish TRT Haber TV channel.
“Any step, proposal, or project that undermines this matter is illegitimate in our view, and it means more conflicts, bloodshed, and instability,” he continued.
During Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House last week, Trump called on Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states to take in Palestinians from Gaza after nearly 16 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
“Until there is peace in Gaza, until the Palestinians achieve peace, peace in the region is impossible,” the Turkish president said.
With talks underway to extend the fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire, Erdogan also demanded that Israel must pay reparations “for the harm it inflicted through its aggressive actions in Gaza.”
“The cost of Israel’s 15-month attacks in Gaza is about $100 billion,” he said. “The law dictates that the perpetrator must compensate for the damage.”
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the war in Gaza when they murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during their invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Last month, both sides reached a ceasefire and hostage-release deal brokered by the US, Egypt, and Qatar.
Under phase one, Hamas agreed to release 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are deceased, in exchange for Israel freeing over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are serving multiple life sentences for terrorism-related offenses.
So far, 16 of the 33 hostages have been released during the first phase, which is set to last six weeks.
During the press conference, Erdogan also announced that Turkey and Indonesia will join forces in the reconstruction of Gaza.
Last month, Erdogan met with Hamas leader Muhammad Ismail Darwish in Ankara.
Turkey has been one of the most outspoken critics of Israel during the Gaza war, even threatening to invade the Jewish state and calling on the United Nations to use force if it cannot stop Israel’s military campaign against Hamas.
Last year, Ankara also ceased all exports and imports to and from Israel, citing the “humanitarian tragedy” in the Palestinian territories as the reason.
Erdogan has frequently defended Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” against what he described as an Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. He and other Turkish leaders have repeatedly compared Israel with Nazi Germany and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Adolf Hitler.
The post Turkey’s Erdogan Demands Israel Pay Reparations for Gaza, Says Palestinian State ‘Must Not Be Delayed’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Boston University Rejects Proposal to Divest From Israel
College students in the Boston, Massachusetts area hold dueling demonstrations amid Israel’s war with Hamas in April 2024. Photo: Vincent Ricci via Reuters Connect
Boston University has rejected the group Students for Justice in Palestine’s (SJP) call for its endowment to be divested of holdings in companies which sell armaments to the Israeli military, becoming the latest higher education institution to refuse this key tenet of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
“The endowment is no longer the vehicle for political debate; nevertheless, I will continue to seek ways that members of our community can engage with each other on political issues of our day including the conflict in the Middle East,” university president Melissa Gilliam said on Tuesday in a statement which reported the will of the board of trustees. “Our traditions of free speech and academic freedom are critical to who we are as an institution, and so is our tradition of finding common ground to engage difficult topics while respecting the dignity of every individual.”
Gilliam’s announcement comes amid SJP’s push to hold a student government administered referendum on divestment, a policy goal the group has pursued since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Its hopes were dashed on Tuesday when what SJP described as “technical difficulties” caused the referendum to be postponed indefinitely. However, SJP hinted that the delay may have been caused by its failing to draw a “representative sample of BU’s undergraduate population” to the polls.
SJP’s relationship with the university is poor, according to The Daily Free Press, Boston University’s official campus newspaper. In November, the Student and Activities Office issued the group a “formal warning” following multiple violations of policies on peaceful assembly. SJP, the Free Press said, occupied an area of the Center for Computing and Data Sciences for two days and tacked anti-Zionist propaganda — which included accusations that Boston University profits from “death” — on school property inside the building despite being forewarned that doing so is verboten. Following the disciplinary action, SJP accused the university of being “discriminatory towards SJP and our events.”
American universities have largely rejected demands to divest from Israel and entities at all linked to the Jewish state, delivering a succession of blows to the pro-Hamas protest movement that students and faculty have pushed with dozens of illegal demonstrations aimed at coercing officials into enacting the policy.
Trinity College turned away BDS advocates in November, citing its “fiduciary responsibilities” and “primary objective of maintaining the endowment’s intergeneration equity.” It also noted that acceding to demands for divestment for the sake of “utilizing the endowment to exert political influence” would injure the college financially, stressing that doing so would “compromise our access to fund managers, in turn undermining the board’s ability to perform its fiduciary obligation.”
The University of Minnesota in August pointed to the same reason for spurning divestment while stressing the extent to which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict polarizes its campus community. It coupled its pronouncement with a new investment policy, a so-called “position of neutrality” which, it says, will be a guardrail protecting university business from the caprices of political opinion.
Colleges and universities will lose tens of billions of dollars collectively from their endowments if they capitulate to demands to divest from Israel, according to a report published in September by JLens, a Jewish investor network that is part of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Titled “The Impact of Israel Divestment on Equity Portfolios: Forecasting BDS’s Financial Toll on University Endowments,” the report presented the potential financial impact of universities adopting the BDS movement, which is widely condemned for being antisemitic.
The losses estimated by JLens are catastrophic. Adopting BDS, it said, would incinerate $33.21 billion of future returns for the 100 largest university endowments over the next 10 years, with Harvard University losing $2.5 billion and the University of Texas losing $2.2 billion. Other schools would forfeit over $1 billion, including the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and Princeton University. For others, such as the University of Michigan and Dartmouth College, the damages would total in the hundreds of millions.
“This groundbreaking report approached the morally problematic BDS movement from an entirely new direction — its negative impact on portfolio returns,” New York University adjunct professor Michael Lustig said in a statement extolling the report. “JLens has done a great job in quantifying the financial effects of implementing the suggestions of this pernicious movement, and importantly, they ‘show their work’ by providing full transparency into their methodology, and properly caveat the points where assumptions must necessarily be made. This report will prove to be an important tool in helping to fight noxious BDS advocacy.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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