Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Lulav Smuggling Abounds Ahead of Sukkot

Thousands of palm fronds have been smuggled from Egypt and have made their way to Israel and the United States, veteran palm frond traders said Monday, despite the Egyptian ban on their export ahead of the upcoming Sukkot holiday.

One of the traders told Haaretz that the palm fronds, which are known as lulavs in Hebrew and are used ceremonially in Sukkot, were transferred from Egypt via Jordan to Israel and Jewish communities in New York and other big cities in the U.S.

The lulav traders utilized long-existing ties with senior officials in Egypt, and succeeded to covertly purchase a large amount of lulavs. According to one of the traders in New York, a senior official in Cairo received $100,000 to aid in smuggling the palm fronds outside of Egypt.

The trader said that Egyptian farmers desired to sell lulavs to Israel, especially in light of the economic crisis that has recently fallen upon the country. According to him, there was no logical reason to bar the export of palm fronds to Israel other than anti-Israel sentiments.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.