A Fruit With a Wider Journey
The etrog, a citron used during the Jewish festival of Sukkot, offered the Old Yishuv a source of income long before Jewish farming became a prominent Zionist ideal. Arab peasants cultivated etrogs, and Jewish merchants arranged their purchase and sale to Jewish communities.
According to Jacob Saphir, the Sephardic kollel held a monopoly over the business before 1835, contracting with Arabic growers in Umm al-Fahm for their Balady citrons. In the 1840s, Jewish-owned farms helped introduce the Greek citron variety. By the 1870s, Sephardic merchants had shifted to Greek etrogs, while Ashkenazi partners associated with Salant took over the Balady trade.
Commerce Meets Religious Practice
The trade depended on more than growing and transporting fruit. Religious requirements mattered: controversy arose over whether particular etrogs met the standards of kashrut. Rabbi Chaim Elozor Wax, president of the Warsaw-based Kupath Rabbi Meir Baal Haness, promoted sales among Ashkenazi communities in Europe. He planted thousands of trees in an orchard near Tiberias and directed the proceeds to the Warsaw kollel.
The etrog’s journey joined local cultivation to distant religious communities. A fruit needed for a festival could also help finance the people who lived where it grew.
