This is the Forward’s coverage of etrogs, yellow citrons used by Jews during Sukkot.
Etrog
The Latest
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Life A Woman’s Place Is in the Sukkah
Nobody intentionally set out to make Sukkot and Simchat Torah feminist holidays. Yet, slowly but surely, these two Jewish festivals have evolved into a time of year when the envelope is pushed when it comes to women’s participation, even in Orthodox communities in which egalitarian practice isn’t easily accepted. Over the past four years,…
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News Hunting for the Perfect Etrog in Brooklyn’s Back Streets
(JTA) — Naftali Berger’s quest for perfection ends in victory when the 24-year-old kollel student enters Tsvi Dahan’s trailer on Wallabout Street in the haredi Orthodox Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. “Find something wrong with it – find it!” a glowing Berger exclaims Monday as he holds his treasure: a bumpy, lemon-like fruit. In open-air markets…
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Culture Is The Fruit of Leviticus Really an Etrog?
Besides the sukkah itself, nothing is more associated with the holiday of Sukkot than the “four species” — the arba’a minim, as they are called in Hebrew. These are the etrog or citron fruit; the lulav or palm shoot, and the willow and myrtle branches in which the base of the palm shoot is set…
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Fast Forward Sukkot Pilgrims Head to Italy for Perfect Etrog
At dawn, before the summer heat starts baking the countryside, groups of bearded men with black kippas descend upon the citrus groves that dot the coast of Calabria, in southern Italy. The sight of Hasidim wandering the fields and villages in this relatively isolated Italian region could seem incongruous, since practically no Jews have lived…
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Fast Forward Finding Market for the Four Species of Sukkot
When Yoni Wattenshtein was younger and Sukkot rolled around, he wanted to be like the big boys. While he was stuck at home watching TV, his brothers were out till 2 or 3 A.M., stocking up on the four species central to the observance of the holiday, and preparing to sell them in markets that…
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Food When Etrogs are Exclusive
Sukkot has traditionally been one of the easiest Jewish holidays to relate to current environmental concerns. The ritual of voluntarily “living” or eating meals in temporary, intentionally fragile huts reminds us of the cycles of the earth by placing us in physical contact with the elements. Putting up and decorating a sukkah to make it…
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Israel News Kotel Conflict Grounded in Modern Issues, But Roots Go Back Thousands of Years
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The scene is familiar to us all. Women of the Wall come to the Kotel to worship in the shadow of the Temple Mount. Haredi Orthodox worshippers respond by disrupting their prayers, sometimes pelting them with eggs and other objects. Underlying these clashes are distinctly modern issues – the conflict between liberal…
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The Schmooze Bootlegged Lulavs, Etrogs, for Sukkot?
Produce harvested in the dead of night, smuggled and sold for high prices under the radar of authorities. Warehouses burglarized. Tourists hiding the good stuff in suitcases and getting found out by customs. No, this isn’t a story of drug rings, but rather of lulavs and etrogs, the plant species waved during synagogue services on…
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