Balady citron
Encyclopedia
Balady Citron is a variety of citron
Citron
Not to be confused with Cintron.The citron is a fragrant citrus fruit, botanically classified as Citrus medica by both the Swingle and Tanaka systems...

, or etrog
Etrog
Etrog refers to the yellow citron or Citrus medica used by Jews on the week-long holiday of Sukkot.While in modern Hebrew this is the name for any variety of citron, its English usage applies to those varieties and specimens used as one of the Four Species...

, grown in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 for Jewish ritual purposes. Balady
Balady
Balady or Baladi is an Arabic word meaning "native" or "local." It may refer to:* Beledi, also called "baladi", a duple meter used in Arabic music; and also rustic or folk tradition music* Baladi cheese, a Middle Eastern feta...

 
is Arabic for "native." Local Arab farmers began using this name in the mid-19th century to distinguish this variety from the Greek citron
Greek citron
The Greek citron variety of citrus medica was botanically classified by Adolf Engler as the "variety etrog". This is remarking on its major use for the Jewish ritual during Sukkot, due to its supposedly extraordinary natural beauty. It was also called Pitima, or the Cedro - Citron with a Pigolo -...

, which was cultivated along the Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...

 seashore.

The Balady was grown on the outskirts of Nablus
Nablus
Nablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...

 and the neighboring Nazareth
Nazareth
Nazareth is the largest city in the North District of Israel. Known as "the Arab capital of Israel," the population is made up predominantly of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel...

, on the outskirts of Safed
Safed
Safed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...

 and Alma al-Shaib, in Umm al-Fahm
Umm al-Fahm
Umm al-Fahm is a city in the Haifa District of Israel with a population of 43,300, nearly all of whom are Arab citizens of Israel. The city is situated on the Umm al-Fahm mountain ridge, the highest point of which is Mt. Iskander , overlooking Wadi Ara...

, in an orchard near Tiberias, and in Lifta
Lifta
Lifta was an Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Its population fled during the Arab-Jewish hostilities of 1947/48 and the efforts to relieve the Siege of Jerusalem . The village and spring for which it is named are now a park on the hillside between the western entrance to Jerusalem and...

 village near Jerusalem.

History

The Balady was already grown in the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...

 at the time of the Second Temple
Second Temple
The Jewish Second Temple was an important shrine which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon...

; however, since the destruction, only small amounts were used as etrog
Etrog
Etrog refers to the yellow citron or Citrus medica used by Jews on the week-long holiday of Sukkot.While in modern Hebrew this is the name for any variety of citron, its English usage applies to those varieties and specimens used as one of the Four Species...

 and it was not exported. It is not a very attractive variety of citron, and new settlers continued using varieties they were accustomed to in Diaspora
Jewish diaspora
The Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....

.

All of this changed in the 1870s, when Rabbi Chaim Elazar Vacks
Chaim Elozor Wax
Chaim Elozor Wax was a famous posek, a Hasidic rabbi, and a leader in Jewish Poland. He was a philanthropist and accomplished student of the Talmud....

 devoted himself to its cultivation, and managed to get it exported to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. Thanks to his high-esteemed authority and constant agitation, many individuals and even communities switched from the abundant Greek citron, which was also called Corfu, to the Israeli Balady citron.
He believed that this variety of etrog has the strongest tradition-lineage of specie pureness, being found in the wilderness of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 when the first settlers, including Nahmanides
Nahmanides
Nahmanides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman Girondi, Bonastruc ça Porta and by his acronym Ramban, , was a leading medieval Jewish scholar, Catalan rabbi, philosopher, physician, kabbalist, and biblical commentator.-Name:"Nahmanides" is a Greek-influenced formation meaning "son of Naḥman"...

 (1194–c. 1270), arrived there. While the variety is not domesticated, it shouldn't have been grafted
Grafting
Grafting is a horticultural technique whereby tissues from one plant are inserted into those of another so that the two sets of vascular tissues may join together. This vascular joining is called inosculation...

 and during the following years, when the settlement expanded
Old Yishuv
The Old Yishuv refers to the Jewish community that lived in the Land of Israel from the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE to the First Aliyah in 1881-82, prior to the onset of Zionist immigration....

, it was always utilized by great scholars and pious persons, who were certainly clear about its purity and appropriateness.

Even more importantly, he viewed in this trade an economic rescue for the entire Yishuv haYashan in the holy land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...

. He himself spent huge amounts of money to plant etrog orchards in the village of Haitin, which is close to the city of Tiberias. He placed all the profits in the hands of the Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

 Kolel, which he was heading, which provided aid for the Jewish families of Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 extraction, who were struggling from hunger and pain. The situation of those families gradually improved as a result of his effort.

He wrote many letters to the rest of the Rabbis in his time to influence the Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 of Diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...

, that they should use only this strictly kosher citron. Those letters are published in his responsa
Responsa
Responsa comprise a body of written decisions and rulings given by legal scholars in response to questions addressed to them.-In the Roman Empire:Roman law recognised responsa prudentium, i.e...

 Nefesh Haya as well in the responsas of those with whom he co-responded, and in special booklets dealing with the controversies of the Corfu
Greek citron
The Greek citron variety of citrus medica was botanically classified by Adolf Engler as the "variety etrog". This is remarking on its major use for the Jewish ritual during Sukkot, due to its supposedly extraordinary natural beauty. It was also called Pitima, or the Cedro - Citron with a Pigolo -...

 and in promotion of an Israeli.

At the same time, the pro-Zionist newsletters haMelitz and haLevanon were instrumental in a vast agitation to build up an Etrog-economy in Palestine, paving the way for Jewish independence.

Decline and intraspecific graft

Despite all efforts, the Balady was still unable to compete with the Greek citron. At some years before, the Greek citron was already introduced for plantation by the Sephardic settlers, and orchards were established thanks to the advocacy and financial support by Sir Moses Montefiore
Moses Montefiore
Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, Kt was one of the most famous British Jews of the 19th century. Montefiore was a financier, banker, philanthropist and Sheriff of London...

. This kind was also sold in diaspora as Israeli citron, and did quite a better job in competing with the Greek of Greece. Consequently, the Balady got to run a battle in two directions.

The supporters of the Etrog idea were strained in a conflict of interest. The Greek citron of Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...

 showed a good economical future, whereas the Halachic intentions were against it.

As a partial solution, the Greek-Jaffa citron was occasionally grafted onto Balady rootstock
Rootstock
A rootstock is a plant, and sometimes just the stump, which already has an established, healthy root system, used for grafting a cutting or budding from another plant. The tree part being grafted onto the rootstock is usually called the scion...

. The progeny achieved the beautiful properties of the scion
Grafting
Grafting is a horticultural technique whereby tissues from one plant are inserted into those of another so that the two sets of vascular tissues may join together. This vascular joining is called inosculation...

 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, even Rabbi Vacks himself was forced to commence topworking to part of his orchard, in order to replace part of the crop with the most beautiful Greek citron

Rescue and selections

The Old Yishuv
Old Yishuv
The Old Yishuv refers to the Jewish community that lived in the Land of Israel from the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE to the First Aliyah in 1881-82, prior to the onset of Zionist immigration....

 rabbis Shmuel Salant
Shmuel Salant
Shmuel Salant served as the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem for almost 70years. He was a renowned Talmudist and Torah scholar.-Biography:...

 and Meir Auerbach highly supported the progeny of Umm el-Fahm, but those declined very fast. Even later, there were still some Israeli rabbis who where not involved in the export, nor in agitation, and preferred doing the utmost for the rescue of Balady. Each of them collected propagation material from a different place, and brought them into cultivation under close supervision. This is how it developed a diversity of sub-varieties or selections called with different naming.

The list of those instrumental rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

s includes (arranged in order of date): Rabbi Zarach Reuven Braverman dean of the Yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...

 Meah Shearim and Rabbi Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld students and close disciples of Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin
Yehoshua Leib Diskin
Yehoshua Yehuda Leib Diskin , also known as the Maharil Diskin, was a leading rabbi, Talmudist and Biblical commentator. He served as a rabbi in Łomża, Mezritch, Kovno, Shklov, Brisk and finally Jerusalem, after moving to Eretz Yisrael in 1878....

, which are said to have been inspired to this ambition by their great master.

When the Chazon Ish reached the Holy Land, he made his own selection according to his satisfaction. He gave to plant for Yakov Halperin the founder of Zichron Meir in Bnei Brak the variety called Halperin-Chazon Ish, and to the Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz
Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz
Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz was a respected Haredi Lithuanian Torah leader and rosh yeshiva in Bnei Brak, Israel, for over 70 years. He was a maggid shiur at Yeshivas Tiferes Tzion from 1940 to 2011 and rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Ponovezh L’Tzeirim from 1954 to 2009, raising thousands of students...

 the variety called Lefkowitz-Chazon Ish. Even Rabbi Abraham Kook who very much promoted the intraspecific graft with his Hechsher
Hechsher
A hechsher is the special certification marking found on the packages of products that have been certified as kosher . In Halakha , the dietary laws of kashrut specify food items that may be eaten and others that are prohibited as set out in the commandments of the Torah...

, still acknowledged the promotion of those etrogim cultivated around Schem and different Arabic villages, that were not grafted at all.

Balady citron varieties are still grown and sold today in diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...

 as well as in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, and are favored by the followers of the Brisker Rov and the Chazon Ish.

External links

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