Cedars and Jews 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 rabbis 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.