Etrog

How a Chinese Fruit Became a Jewish Symbol

By: David Z. Moster

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Hardcover | 7 May 2018

At a Glance

Hardcover
162 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
20.96 x 15.24 x 1.91

Hardcover

$99.00

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Every year before the holiday of Sukkot, Jews all around the world purchase an etrog-a lemon-like fruit-to participate in the holiday ritual. In this book, David Z. Moster tracks the etrog from its evolutionary home in Yunnan, China, to the lands of India, Iran, and finally Israel, where it became integral to the Jewish celebration of Sukkot during the Second Temple period. Moster explains what Sukkot was like before and after the arrival of the etrog, and why the etrog''s identification as the "choice tree fruit" of Leviticus 23:40 was by no means predetermined. He also demonstrates that once the fruit became associated with the holiday of Sukkot, it began to appear everywhere in Jewish art during the Roman and Byzantine periods, and eventually became a symbol for all the fruits of the land, and perhaps even the Jewish people as a whole.

Industry Reviews

"This highly documented, fascinating book is "the culmination of years of ritualistic, agricultural, and grammatical/historical information explaining how the etrog became integral to the practice of Judaism. ... It's therefore an example par excellence of what plants-and-people scholarship is all about. ... Not only is this a wonderful, detailed journey through the history of the etrog, but readers will enjoy the 80 pictures. This would make a wonderful gift book to anyone who purchases an etrog each year." (Sybil Kaplan, thej.ca, September 15, 2021)

"An exemplary piece of biblical exegesis as well as of historical botany." (Barry Dov Walfish, RBL, Review of Biblical Literature, Issue 11, 2020)

"The volume comes as well with a variety of photos, drawings, and maps, along with an addendum ... a bibliography, and indexes of primary sources and subjects." (Old Testament Abstracts, Vol. 42 (1), February, 2019)

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