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IMMORTAL FRUIT
In collaboration with ITALYITALY Magazine
By Laura Costantini
Photographs by Rocco Spagnolo Emanuele Pacifici

Every year rabbis journey from afar to the fragrant citrus groves that surround a little town in Calabria, in southern Italy. There they select perfect kosher citrons for the festival of Sukkoth.

The citron tree is pruned to grow only about 20 inches in height. It has intensely green foliage and long, well-concealed thorns to defend the fruit. Oval in shape and yellowish-green when ripe, the fruit is rough-skinned and highly perfumed, and practically unknown to most people. Citron is used to make candied fruit, flavoring for dessert dishes, syrup for beverages, and a liqueur. The plant, especially when it is not grafted, is very delicate, requiring constant care. It starts to bear fruit after about five years, but, because it is vulnerable to a number of viruses, rarely lives to be more than ten or fifteen years old. So it is easy to understand why citron growers are few and far between. The citron risks extinction even in its home territory, the so-called Riviera del Cedro (Citron Riviera) on the Tyrrhenian coast near Cosenza, in Calabria, with the town of Santa Maria del Cedro at its center. Yet every year from July to early September chief rabbis from Hebrew communities around the world arrive to plod through fields and cane thickets along the banks of the rivers Lao and Abatemarco to visit the citron groves. They are in search of the finest fruit, the shekia, an indispensable element in the celebration of one of the three main traditional Jewish observances.

"The citron," explains Dr. Mario Durante, who accompanies the rabbis in their quest for the perfect fruit, "is a fundamental part of the celebration of Sukkoth, the Festival of the Huts. It is said that it was Hellenized Jews from the colonies of Magna Graecia who introduced the fruit to this area. Thanks to the rivers and the rocky, alluvial terrain, the land proved to be particularly well suited to the production of the best citrons."

But the citron plant is very delicate. And in order to be kosher the citron has to come from the ungrafted variety, which is even less resistant to disease and inclement weather. Though a grafted citron has a life expectancy of thirty to thirty-five years, the ungrafted variety lives less than a third of that time and produces no more than sixty-six pounds of fruit a year. "And of these," continues Dr. Durante, "only one or two percent reach the perfection required by Hebrew tradition." Perfection is what the rabbis who come to Santa Maria del Cedro are looking for. Accompanied by Dr. Durante and the owner of the citron grove, two American rabbis, Samuel and Lipa Teitelbaum, brothers from New York, make their way each morning through the rows of citrons to preside over the choice of fruit to be picked. "The citrons are placed in crates and carried to a shed where they have to undergo a second inspection. After cleaning them with a sponge, the rabbis examine them with care. Those which are chosen are wrapped in paper and plastic bubble wrap with air holes so the citrons can Œbreathe¹ and arrive undamaged at the community that bought them."

A well-formed citron the size of an egg or larger, with uniform coloring, wrinkled but regular skin, and with the remains of the flower at one end, is worth from seven to ten dollars. That is not enough to make anyone rich, given that a grove of three hundred plants requires four people working eight hours a day for at least nine months of the year (in winter the plants are covered with canes and require little attention).

If the Calabrian citron, celebrated by poets like Byron and D¹Annunzio, has been saved from extinction, it is thanks to the Jewish tradition, which has required that the citrons used at Sukkoth be perfect, and better still, Italian.

"The fruit¹s perfection," explains Rabbi Vittorio della Rocca of the synagogue of Rome, "is essential to the symbolism attached to the citron. It is written in the Torah [the Jews¹ book of divine law] that Œon the fifteenth day of the seventh month you will celebrate the Lord for seven daysŠyou will live in the huts for seven daysŠbecause I made the sons of Israel stay in huts when I made them flee the land of Egypt...You will take a citron fruit, some palm leaves, branches of myrtle and willow from the streams¹. These four plants form a lulav . . . which is shaken during prayer."

Sukkoth is linked both to an event in the history of the Jewish people (the forty years spent in the desert after Moses led them out of Egypt), and to the agricultural roots of the tribes of Israel. For a people of farmers, rain was essential to survival. The Festival of Huts (between the end of September and the earliest days of October) was celebrated, when the temple of Jerusalem existed, by Jews who went there in pilgrimage with thank offerings for a bounteous harvest, past and future.

"But the lulav has meanings that transcend simple human thought," continues Rabbi Della Rocca. "Under the branches there are no distinctions," he says. "The message of Sukkoth is one of openness, brotherhood, equality and a sense of justice that can be found also in the symbolism of the citron. It has to be perfect in form and in color, and have perfect skin, pulp and juice, because it represents the heart of the person."

So it is easy to understand why the Rabbis Teitelbaum, like so many others since 1954, make the journey to the Riviera del Cedro to roam among the citron trees in their quest for peri¹etz adar, the immortal fruit that the Jews discovered in Egypt and brought to Calabria, where it grows better than anywhere else in the world. And so it will as long as the growers of Santa Maria del Cedro resist the temptation to turn to crops that are more lucrative and easier to cultivate.

ItalyItaly Magazine
www.italyitalymagazine.com