Balady citron

Balady citron (etrog)
Braverman sub-variety of Balady citron
Species	C. medica L. var. Balady

An Israeli etrog, with pitam and gartel (trough around the center)

The balady citron (or etrog, Hebrew: אֶתְרוֹג, plural: etrogim; Ashkenazi Hebrew: esrog, plural: esrogim, also spelled esrog) is a variety of citron grown in Israel, mostly for Jewish ritual purposes. Not native to the region, it was imported around 500 or 300 BCE by Jews for ritual purposes. Initially not widely grown in the land of Israel, Etrogim from the region were promoted and popularized in the 1870s by Rabbi Chaim Elozor Wax.

Etymology

• Balady (Arabic: بلدي) is Arabic for "native." Local Arab farmers began using this name in the mid-19th century to distinguish this variety from the Greek citron, which was cultivated along the Jaffa seashore. The balady citron is an acidic variety, alongside the Florentine and Diamante citron from Italy, and the Greek citron.
• The romanization of the Hebrew as etrog from Sephardi Hebrew is widely used. The Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation is esrog or esrig. It has been transliterated as etrog or ethrog in scholarly works. The Hebrew word is thought to derive from the Persian name for the fruit, wādrang, which first appears in the Vendidad. Related words are (Persian: ترنج, romanized: toronj) and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: אַתְרוּגָּא, romanized: ʾaṯruggā. It has also made its way into Arabic as أُتْرُجَّةِ utrujjah notably in a hadith collected in the Sahih Muslim. A rare Aramaic form, eṯrungā (אֶתְרוּנְגָּא), is significant because it retains the alveolar nasal sound (as indicated by the nun) of wādrang, also observable in the English word 'orange'.

Taxonomy

Main article: Citrus taxonomy § Citrons

In Modern Hebrew, etrog is the name for any variety or form of citron, whether kosher for the ritual or not. In general usage, though, the word is often reserved to refer only to those varieties and specimens used ritually as one of the four species. Some taxonomic experts, like Hodgson and others, have mistakenly treated etrog as one specific variety of citron. The various Jewish rites utilize different varieties, according to their tradition or the decision of their respective posek.

Requirements

Pitam

Diagram of the Halachic properties of an etrog

A pitam or pitom (Hebrew: פיטום; plural pitamim) is composed of a style (Hebrew: דַד; dad), and a stigma (Hebrew: שׁוֹשַׁנְתָּא; shoshanta), and usually falls off during the growing process. An etrog with an intact pitam is considered especially valuable, but varieties that naturally shed their pitam during growth are also considered kosher. When only the stigma breaks off, even post-harvest, the citron can still be considered kosher as long as part of the style has remained attached. If the whole pitam, i.e. the stigma and style, are unnaturally broken off in their entirety, the etrog is not kosher for ritual use.

Pitam preservation technique

Many more pitamim are preserved today due to an auxin discovered by Eliezer E. Goldschmidt, emeritus professor of horticulture at the Hebrew University. While working with the picloram hormone in a citrus orchard, he unexpectedly discovered that some of the Valencia oranges found nearby had perfectly preserved pitamim. Citrus fruits, other than an etrog or citron hybrid like the bergamot, usually do not preserve their pitam. On the occasions that they do, their pitamim tend to be dry, sunken and very fragile. In Goldschmidt's observation, the pitamim were all fresh and solid like those of the Moroccan or Greek citron varieties.

Experimenting with picloram in a laboratory, Goldschmidt eventually found the correct "dose" to achieve the desired effect: one droplet of the chemical in three million drops of water.

Purity

In order for a citron to be kosher, it must be neither grafted nor hybridized with any other species. Only a few traditional varieties are therefore used. To ensure that no grafting is performed, preferred plantations are kept under strict rabbinical supervision.

Genetic research

Cross section of the Balady citron showing the signs for purity

The citron varieties traditionally used as etrog are the Diamante citron from Italy, the Greek citron, the Balady citron from Israel, the Moroccan and Yemenite citrons.

A general DNA study was conducted by Eliezer E. Goldschmidt and colleagues which tested and positively identified twelve famous accessions of citron for purity and being genetically related.

The fingered and Florentine citrons, although they are also citron varieties or maybe hybrids, are not used for the ritual. The Corsican citron fell into disfavor but has recently been reintroduced for ritual use.

Selection and cultivation

In addition to the above, there are rabbinical indicators used to distinguish pure etrogim from possible hybrids. These traditional indicators have been preserved by continuous selection performed by professional farmers.

The most accepted indicators are: 1) a pure etrog has a thick rind, contrasting with its sparing pulp segments which are also almost dry, 2) the outer surface of an etrog is ribbed and warted, and 3) the etrog peduncle is somewhat buried inward. By contrast, a lemon or different citron hybrid is missing one or all of the specifications.

A later and not as widely accepted indicator is the orientation of the seed. In a pure etrog, the seeds are oriented vertically, unless crowded by neighboring seeds; in lemons and hybrids, the seeds are oriented horizontally even when they are not crowded.

The etrog is typically grown from cuttings that are two to four years old. The tree begins to bear fruit about four years after planting the cuttings. If the tree is germinated from seed, it will not bear fruit for about seven years, and there may be some genetic change to the tree or fruit.

Historical cultivation

Identifying the etrog

Etrogim were extensively cultivated in the Holy Land at the time of the Second Temple, and images of etrogim are found at many archaeological sites of that era, including mosaics at the Maon Synagogue, Beth Alpha Synagogue, and Hamat Tiberias Synagogue. At all of those sites, the etrog is depicted alongside other important religious symbols, like the shofar or menorah. The etrog is also found on numerous Bar Kokhba coins. Archaeological evidence for citrus fruits is limited, as neither seeds nor pollen are likely to be routinely recovered in archaeology. The earliest evidence of etrogim in Israel is the 2012 discovery of citron pollen from the second century BCE in excavations at the Ramat Rachel site.

Citrus fruits in Israel

Citrus fruits are not native to Israel. According to Gallesio, Jews from Babylonia introduced the citron into Judea in around 500 BCE, while Tolkowsky believed that Greek settlers brought it from India around 200 years later during the 3rd century BCE. It is thought that the citron is the oldest cultivated fruit in the country. Being of ritual significance for Jews, the citron was exported abroad in small quantities during Roman times. During the 1800s, the Balady was grown on the outskirts of Nablus, Nazareth, Tiberias, Safed and Alma al-Shaib, in Umm al-Fahm and in Lifta village near Jerusalem.

Jewish ritual acceptability and 19th century history

It was only in the middle of the 19th-century that Balady citrons began to feature significantly in the European market and a religious Jewish controversy subsequently erupted as to whether the citrons had been grafted and therefore deemed disqualified for ritual use.

In the 1870s, Rabbi Chaim Elozor Wax devoted himself to its cultivation and organized shipments to Europe. He felt the Balady citron had the strongest traditional lineage of species pureness, and claimed it was to be found in the wild when Nahmanides (d. 1270) arrived in the country. He wrote many letters to the rabbis, hoping to influence the diaspora to use the Balady citron. These letters were published in his responsa Nefesh Haya and the responsa of his correspondents, as well as in pamphlets addressing the Greek citron controversy. Under his influence, many Jews began to purchase the Balady instead of the Greek citron. While the variety was not domesticated, it was used by important scholars and pious Jews who believed in its purity and appropriateness. Rabbi Wax also saw the trade in this citron as an important source of economic income for the Jewish community in Palestine. He invested large sums in establishing orchards in Hittin, donating the profits to charity. In 1875, Wax planted 600 trees, and by 1883, over 40,000 citrons had been exported.

The pro-Zionist newspapers HaMelitz and HaLevanon were instrumental in stirring up interest in etrog cultivation in Palestine, which was seen as important in paving the way for Jewish independence. The Greek citron has been introduced for plantation in the 1840s by Sephardic Jews with the financial backing of Sir Moses Montefiore. The new Greek-Jaffa variety was more commercially successful than Balady. Despite all efforts, the Balady was still unable to compete with the Greek citron, and at the beginning of the 20th century, its cultivation was very primitive and limited. The Balady was considered unattractive, and some of the new immigrants continued using varieties they were accustomed to in the diaspora.

The supporters of the Balady were strained in a conflict of interest. While the Greek citron grown in Jaffa showed a good economic future, the Halachic intentions were against it. As a partial solution, the Greek-Jaffa citron was occasionally grafted onto Balady rootstock. The progeny achieved the beautiful properties of the scion type, while the possible influence of lemon rootstock was assumed to be flushed, and replaced with that of the most kosher Balady rootstock. At some point, Rabbi Wax was forced to relent and commence topworking to part of his orchard, to replace part of the crop with the Greek citron.

In diaspora

After the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, exiled Jews planted citron orchards wherever the climate allowed: in Southern Europe (Spain, Greece, and Italy) as well as in North Africa and Asia Minor. Jews who settled north of the warmer citron-growing areas depended on imported etrogim, which caused much anxiety given the dangers and uncertainties of sea travel. By the seventeenth century, some of the most popular sources for etrogim were the islands of Corsica and Corfu.

Since the late 1850s, the Fruit of the Goodly Tree Association in Mandatory Palestine represented etrog farmers who marketed their crops to Jews in Europe. Some Jewish communities still preferred citrons from Italy, Greece, Morocco, or Yemen, but many Jews seeking citrons turned back to Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel.

American Jews continue to import the majority of their holiday etrogim from Israel, except during shmita when there are halachic complications in exporting the produce of Israel. The only commercial grower of etrogs in the United States is John Kirkpatrick, the former chairman of the Citrus Research Board, on a ranch in the town of Exeter in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Kirkpatrick, who is not Jewish, began growing etrogs in 1980 following a phone call with Yisroel Weisberger, an employee at a Judaica store in Brooklyn. In 1995, Weisberger's brother, Yaakov Shlomo Rothberg, became involved in the operation and has since become Kirkpatrick's business partner. As of 2010, Kirkpatrick has 250 etrog trees and produces 3,000 suitable etrogs per year, with 9,000 that do not qualify due to halakhic requirements. While there are other growers in California, such as Inga Dorosz and David Sleeth in the town of Gorda near Big Sur, these are not rabbinically supervised and are therefore not kosher.

Rescue and selections

The Old Yishuv rabbis Shmuel Salant and Meir Auerbach supported the progeny of Umm el-Fahm, but those declined quickly. Later, some Israeli rabbis did their utmost for the rescue of Balady. Each collected propagation material from a different place and brought it into cultivation under close supervision. This is how a diversity of sub-varieties or selections with different names developed.

The list of rabbis who were instrumental includes (arranged in order of date): Rabbi Zarach Reuven Braverman founder and dean of the Yeshiva Mea Shearim and Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld; which both where close disciples of Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin. Braverman's citron was planted by in the orchard of Yehoshua Stampfer and Zonnenfeld's (today known as 'Kibilewitz')' in the same orchard, but in the time of his son-in-law, Pinhas Globman.

When the Chazon Ish reached the Holy Land, he made his own selection according to his satisfaction. To Yakov Halperin, founder of Zichron Meir in Bnei Brak, he gave plantings of the variety called Halperin-Chazon Ish; and to Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz, the variety called Lefkowitz-Chazon Ish.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook promoted the intraspecific graft from the Greek citron onto Balady citron rootstock, and granted his Hechsher for this, believing that it was a practical solution to grow beautiful etrogs that were also kosher. However, he still acknowledged the halachic promotion of those etrogs cultivated at different Arabic villages, which were never as nice but were praised for not being grafted.

Balady citron varieties are still grown and sold today in diaspora as well as in Israel, and are favored by the followers of the Brisker Rov and the Chazon Ish.

Local cultivars are also used in Israeli cuisine for jams, juice, and alcoholic drinks.

Customs

On the right: An etrog (citron) next to its etrog carrier

To protect the etrog during the holiday, it is traditionally wrapped in silky flax fibers and stored in a special decorative box, often made from silver.

After the holiday, eating the etrog or etrog jam is considered a segula (efficacious remedy) for a woman to have an easy childbirth. A common Ashkenazi custom is to save the etrog until Tu BiShvat and eat it in candied form or as succade, while offering prayers that the worshipper merit a beautiful etrog next Sukkot. Some families make jam or liqueur out of the etrog or make a pomander by inserting cloves into the skin for use as besamim at the havdalah ceremony after Shabbat.

Etrogim grown in Israel are not classified as food and are therefore not recommended to be eaten due to the large amount of pesticides used in their agriculture.

Biblical references

On the first day you shall take the fruit of majestic trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.

— Leviticus 23:40, New Revised Standard Version

According to one study, the biblical phrase peri 'etz hadar (פְּרִי עֵץ הָדָר) (translated above as "fruit of majestic trees") is syntactically and lexically ambiguous, and has been interpreted or translated in at least fifteen distinct ways. Some of the best-known approaches are "fruit from beautiful trees", (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan; Martin Luther; NRSV cited above), "beautiful tree-fruit", (the Samaritans; Septuagint; Abraham ibn Ezra), or "branches of beautiful trees" (King James Version). Most Rabbinic translations directly link peri 'etz hadar to the etrog, e.g., "tree-fruit, that is etrogim" (Targum Onkelos), "etrog fruit from the etrog tree" (Nachmanides), or "fruit of the etrog tree" (Saadia Gaon). Some other approaches to the ambiguity have been "cone of the cedar tree" (Shmuel Tolkowsky), "fruit of the olive tree" (Irving Koller), or "branches of the myrtle tree" (Arnold Ehrlich).

Original mosaic of ancient Maon Synagogue (before the 6th century CE), depicting etrogim at the base of a menorah

Replica of Maon Mosaic in Or Torah Synagogue. A similar replica is placed at the yard of Yad Ben Zvi.

Ancient Mosaic of Beth Alpha Synagogue, depicting etrog alongside a lulav, shofar and a menora

The four species near a Shofar and Menorah, also found in the ancient Hamat Tiberias Synagogue

Ancient mosaic of Tiberian Synagogue, today in Eretz Israel Museum

Bar Kokhba silver coins depicting lulav and etrog

Replica of a coin of The First Jewish-Roman War depicting lulav and two etrogim

Bar Kokhba silver coins depicting lulav and etrog

In modern Hebrew, hadar refers to the genus Citrus. Nachmanides (1194 – c. 1270) suggests that the word was the original Hebrew name for the citron. According to this view, the word etrog was introduced over time and adapted from Aramaic. The Arabic name for the citron fruit, itranj (اترنج), mentioned in hadith literature, is also adapted from Aramaic.

Gallery

• 
  Rabbi Bergman re-examines an etrog for a student.
• 
  Rabbi Dov Landau inspecting an etrog
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  Balady citron in Bnei Berak market
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  Yanova etrog for sale
• 
  Cross section of Diamante citron, to check for genetic purity
• 
  Mature fruit of Yanover etrog
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  Cross section of Braverman etrog
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  Cross section in Yemenite citron
• 
  Cross section of Greek citron
• 
  Cross section of Balady citron
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  Cross section of a Moroccan citron
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  Yemenite citron (left) and a Balady citron (right)
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  Cross section of variety etrog citron, and in fingered citron
• 
  Diamante citron without pitam
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  Diamante citron with pitam
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  Inspecting an etrog for flaws
• 
  Inspecting a Yemenite citron
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  Shmita in Kefar Chabad, orchard left untended
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  Young plants in Kefar Chabad
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  Yemenite citron on tree
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  Etrog covered with cloves
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  Four species market in Tel Aviv
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  Pitam close-up
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  Etrog blossom
• 
  Etrog tree from Jewish Encyclopedia
• 
  Man in Mea Shearim inspecting etrog
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  Moroccan etrog with prominent gartel
• 
  At the Western Wall
• 
  German painting
• 
  Two Hasidim in Bnei Berak
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  Old photo of grower
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  An etrog from many angles
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  Round silver etrog box
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  Etrog with half-dried pitam
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  Etrog plants in nursery
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  Etrog leaves
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  Citron (etrog) flowers
• 
  Silver etrog box designed by Rabbi Chaim-Joseph-Meyer Elefant (1897–1976) in the early 1950s

See also

• Citrus taxonomy
• Etrog box
• Meir Auerbach
• Agricultural research in Israel
• Agriculture in Israel
• Agriculture in Palestine
• Jewish holidays
• Jewish cuisine
• Palestinian cuisine

References

• Moster, David Z. (2018). Etrog: How a Chinese Fruit Became a Jewish Symbol. Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-73736-2. ISBN 978-3-319-73735-5.

Further reading

• Citrus Propagation by Ultimate Citrus
• Fact Sheet HS-86 June 1994 by the University of Florida
• CROP PROPAGATION II: SEXUAL PROPAGATION

• Tolkowsky, S. (1938). Hesperides: a History of the Culture and Use of Citrus Fruits. John Bale, Sons and Curnow Ltd, London.
• Isaac, Eric; Isaac, Rael. (1958). A Goodly Tree: Sacred and Profane History. Commentary.
• Salmon, Y. (2000). The Controversy over Etrogim from Corfu and Palestine, 1875—1891. Zion, pp. 75–106.
• HaLevanon 11 no 23 Moshe Montefiori supporting plantation.
• HaLevanon 13 no 42 Letter by Rabbi Meir Auerbach, no 47 Letter by the Sephardic Chacham Bashi Rabbi Avraham Ashkenazi about some murkavim in Jaffa and Jerusalem environs. He stated that all these etrogim had a Pitam and those without one should not be used.
• HaLevanon 14 no 2 go right to page 4—History of Balady and description of sub-varieties by Yakov Sapir, No 9—page 5 no 14—page 4—no 15—page 7 Yakov Sapir addressing the conflict over the Jaffa-Greek etrog and the Balady.

External links

• The Citrus Variety Collection Archived 2015-06-08 at the Wayback Machine by the University of California Riverside
• Ancient Treasures and the Dead Sea Scrolls
• Mosaic depicting an etrog
• Lulav, Etrog, Shofar and Menorah, 2nd Cent. CE, Ostia Synagogue
• An antique Hebrew coin depicting an etrog
• Pictures homecitrusgrowers.co.uk
• Evyatar Marienberg and David Carpenter, The Stealing of the "Apple of Eve" from the 13th century Synagogue of Winchester, Henri III Fine Rolls Project, Fine of the Month: December 2011
• A Huge Etrog-looking Citron in Geetha's Kitchen
• Know Your Etrog, website with educational pictures, information how to plant your own tree.
• The Symbolism of the Lulav and Esrog, various sources explaining the symbolism and meaning of the etrog.
• Short Deutsche Welle video on growing etrog in Calabria
• Kuntres Pri Etz Hadar (Jerusalem תרל"ח)
• The Search for the Authentic Citron: Historic and Genetic Analysis; HortScience 40(7):1963–1968. 2005