While in past years many lulavim were imported to Eretz Yisrael from Egypt, the experts are reporting this will not be necessary this year as there are 700,000 locally grown lulavim available. Two-thirds of these lulavim come from Jordan Valley/Beit Shean area kibbutzim. In addition, 200,000 lulavim have been exported to the United States.
Most of the lulavim are grown in one of the religious kibbutzim under rabbinical supervision. The largest supplier is Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi in the Beit Shean Valley, which produces 10% of the lulavim in Israel.
In past years, lulavim were imported from Egypt, Jordan and Gaza, and this was associated with an array of issues, including threatened boycotts, security issues and supporting one’s enemies.
Nechemia Refel, the secretary of the Religious Kibbutz Movement is proud that today there is a sufficient number of home grown lulavim, grown by Jews in accordance with halacha as well as sending 200,000 to N. America. Lulavim will sell from 25 NIS to 300 NIS and the yomtov sales are expected to yield 50 million NIS.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
Now expect the prices of lulavim to triple. Not only because they want their money’s worth + the govt tax+ the local tax + the owners feeling that it’s a specialty cus it’s grown here. And for those lulavim that were imported; they’ll probably cost a lot more tax cus they’re imported.
I sold arba minim for two years 20 years ago, when the lulavim from Egypt still came in open crates tacked together from palm branch spines. My supplier was an Israeli, a relative of one pardesan, and he had been doing it for 30 years prior, having a lock on certain communities, and later having some satellite locations in Brooklyn. With his cost on lulavim from some larger middleman, plus the shipping to NY, still put my cost for a mixed batch at $2 each. I was still able to mark it up 500% and still sell sets in the $40 range. Often the boxes of etrogim marked ‘shlisi” yielded a few $5 fruits that easily fetched $100. Consider that the $5 covered his profit, the port fees and quarantine in NY, the shipping, the export and port fees in Israel, the orchardist’s cost of packaging and handling the growing costs, and the orchardist’s profit. Twas the good old days.
These prices are reasonable but there are still yidden who go crazy and spend five dollars for a special esrog from Italy to be mehader mitzvah. The same few hundred dollars given to poor yiddeshe family to put food on the table for yom tov would yield a much greater z’chus.