cedars and jews in calabria
TRANSCRIPT
Cedars and Jewish in Calabria
Cedar is perhaps the oldest and constant bond that unites Jews to
Calabria and Calabria to Jews.
• Cedar is one of the most important typical Italian products.
Almost all production comes from the Italian tiny stretch of
the Calabrian coast between Tortora and Cetraro, that has
taken its name from this citrus fruit.
• It was the Jews who spread the cultivation, first in Palestine
and then in all other regions where they were forced to
emigrate to escape deportation
• God said to Moses, "You will take the fruits of the most
beautiful tree, some branches of the palm tree , some
willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice in front of the
Lord your God." For Jews, the fruits of the most beautiful
tree are cedars. Without these they could not do the
festival of booths and so they brought back the secrets of
cultivation wherever they went.
In Italy Cedar has made its appearance two or three hundredyears before Christ by those Hellenized Jews that surely hadfollowed the Achaeans founders of agricultural colonies ofMetapontum, Sybaris and Croton on the Ionian Sea and ofPosidonia and Laos on the Tyrrhenian Sea
In the centuries , this link between cedar and the Jewishreligion did not end and, even today, every summer, therabbis are in Calabria to choose and pick up with their handsthe most beautiful fruits, which are indispensable to the party.
The cedars collected are shipped around the world fromArgentina to Russia, from Australia to Canada.
Whatever is the tree from which itcomes, the fruit must have certaincharacteristics that make the citrus sacredkosher o kosher that is good, suitable tothe ceremony. “The reason why theJewish priests reach Calabria from manyparts of the world, in particular from theUnited States and Eastern Europe, isobviously a religious motive: the searchfor the perfect cedar to be used inSeptember and October for the Sukkot("Feast of Tabernacles" or "Feast ofTabernacles"), one of the three majorJewish holidays of the year, with thePassover (Pesach) and Pentecost(Shavuot). Nearly all Italian production ofcedar is concentrated in Calabria.
The rabbins come to the Riviera of the Cedars to view personally, one by one, the trees and pick individual fruits. The work of selection begins in the early morning, with the rabbi and the farmer who advance slowly between the rows of cedars. The rabbi usually precedes the farmer who follows him with a wooden box and a pair of scissors in his hands.
The cedars to be used in the celebrations must have precise characteristics: they must come from trees grown from cuttings and grafted at least in the fourth year of life and have a stalk accentuated, a perfect conical shape with no roughness and no stains on the skin.
The cedars of Calabria are among the few in the world to present the required characteristics and to have them the rabbis are willing to pay a lot of money .
Sukkòt, the "Feast of Tabernacles"
Sukkot, the "Feast of Tabernacles" or "Feast of Tabernacles" is
celebrated on the 15th of Tishri - which means principle - and it is
the month that begins the Jewish calendar, between September and
October. • The Feast of Tabernacles commemorates the 'exodus
from Egypt and the forty-year period in which the Israelites lived in
the desert before entering the Promised Land.The season coincides
with the period of the last harvest before winter, and it is for this
reason that the recurrence is identified as the "Harvest Festival".
During Sukkot, they eat and spend most of the day in a hut of
branches, adorned with flowers, fruit and drawings and with the roof
covered of sparse branches in such a way as to allow its
occupants, in the evening and during the night, to observe the stars.