The presence of Citron, a citrus fruit cultivated in particular in the Agadir region and renowned for its quality and flavor, is very remarkable in Israeli markets on the occasion of the celebrations of the “Sukkot” festival, which take place during this week.
Also called Citrus medica, this fruit is characterized by its very thick skin, its pleasant smell and its tangy taste. The citron tree measures up to five meters, with soft branches and leaves, white flowers and a fruit that looks like a lemon whose color is yellow tending towards orange.
These citrus fruits are used with palm leaves during the Israeli celebrations of Sukkot, also called the “Feast of the Tents”, in memory of the Exodus of the Jewish people from Pharaonic Egypt and the ordeal of spending several days in the desert. .
The newspaper “Haaretz” reports that Hervé Lévy, a Jewish businessman from Agadir, exported large quantities of this fruit to the Israeli market on the occasion of this holiday, directly from Casablanca on Royal flights. Air Morocco.
He adds that these fruits have been produced in the High Atlas Mountains for more than two thousand years and are highly prized by Jews who use them on the occasion of the Sukkot holiday, largely preferring them to those imported from Caribbean countries.
According to “Israel24”, the citron is generally produced locally, but the sabbatical year has just ended with the Hebrew New Year/Roch Hashanah, when it is religiously forbidden to cultivate the land during the seventh year according to the Torah.
Quoting Einat Levi, former head of economic affairs at the Israeli mission in Morocco, the media noted that the dynamics experienced by the trade in this citrus fruit “symbolizes the increasingly warm relations between Morocco and Israel”.
“When Jews cannot work their land, their Muslim brothers can provide what they need during this year, so that they can maintain their rituals and traditions,” she explained.