Giant Israeli Pumpkins Fertilized With Qassam Rockets?
Image by Wikimedia Commons
One common interpretation of the symbolic significance of the egg on the Seder plate at Passover is that it represents the paradox of the Jews. Suffering at the hands of oppressors, from ancient Egyptians onward, made us stronger. Likewise, eggs are one of the few foods that get harder when boiled.
There’s nothing new there — but could violence from our enemies also somehow help our crops?
Farmers in Southern Israel say they have never seen pumpkins so enormous as those grown in a field twice hit by rockets from Gaza. The Mines family of Kfar Maimon have grown two supersize pumpkins, one weighing 140 pounds and another weighing 100 pounds.
“Some of the pumpkins were hit when the rocket landed. Maybe they became upset and that prompted them to grow like that,” Dotan Mines, the son of the farmer Shimon, told Ynet. “The really large one grew a few dozens of meters away from the landing site.”
The Israeli public is strikingly superstitious. Perhaps the Mines family could quit pumpkin farming — and instead make millions selling sachets of “magic Qassam soil.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
