Behind the Times Eps 23. Operation Esrog

Did you know that the forgotten founder of Zionism went on to play a leading role in Agudas Israel or that Rafatka was responsible for the continued presence of the Muslim wack on Harabias? It turns out that the margins of history tell the real story. Behind the Times dives into the big concepts and overlooked moments that carry vast meaning all through the lens of Torah and rabbitic thought. Join me, Gdalia Gutag, as I go behind the times to explore the forgotten history, remarkable personalities, and transformative moments that shape current events and explain how we got here. Behind the Times with Gdalia Gutag. It was September 2011. And the geopolitical world was shaking because Hosni Mubarak, the longtime president of Egypt, had fallen. The Muslim Brotherhood was waiting in the wings as the army took over. And amid what became known as the Arab Spring, suddenly Arabinim became the focus of a minor diplomatic storm. What had happened is that just weeks before Sukus, Mubarak had fallen and this was the regime that had been from Saddat's era onwards had been, you know, responsible for basically keeping Israel's southern border peaceful and a mob stormed Israel's embassy in Cairo and forced the Israeli diplomats to flee. And there was a general fear for the future of the cold peace it has to be said between Israel and Egypt. And amid all that what happened was that the Lulov went missing because by that point by 2011 the Israeli lul industry in fact one of the largest supplies to the lul of industry or arraominium industry let's call it was Egypt providing something like 700,000 love him for the Israeli market and many more besides for the rest of the world and suddenly as Cairo's politics was roing there was a message that there were going to no more love the love and were going to be exported from Egypt. And the reason that the Egyptian authorities came up with this obviously an excuse, patently an excuse, says there's some infestation in the uh palm branches and if we harvest them, then there's going to damage the trees, which is obviously a load of nonsense. Well, that's what the message came through from Cairo. And it became something of a diplomatic incident. Israel started to look around for different sources of Lulov in Jordan and as far away as Spain. And a congressman, actually a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to the Egyptian Prime Minister and said, "In light of the recent tensions between Egypt and Israel, there's a widespread sense that the reported ban on Dulav exports was imposed for purely political reasons. Eventually we'll come back to the story later but to me this is just one recent manifestation of something that we know over the ages arominim have been blocked by all manner of holdups revolutions hostile governments closed borders blockades and one of the four has generated more extraordinary stories than any of the other which is the estrog because while grow in different places and it's not possible to it's very difficult to smuggle through the border a towering derry lulv the estrog is the kind of thing that is very exotic only grows in a few places and yet it's mobile it's something small you can hide it and so long before these global supply chains this international trade in arbaminim and the encounter with Jewish history has led throughout the ages to some very very interesting stories because when Sukus comes along doesn't make a difference what is happening outside in the world of geopolitics when sukas comes through the question is where are we going to get an estrog and the answers have produced a secret history stretching back nearly 2,000 years welcome to operation estrog So operation ESR I think in a very ahistoric and unscientific survey I think we could talk we can stretch it back 1900 years to the days of Barova because it's fair to say that war has been one of the primary reasons why Arabaminim couldn't get through and why Esroy found themselves being smuggled in the days and we find a remarkable foreshadowing of that later dynamic in Barak KVA because what happens in in just to go through briefly through the Bara revolt 132 common era which is 60 years after the Kurban Shiman Bara or Barwa depending on what he was known at the time he launched his revolt against Rome and as we all know it was spectacular success and caused delirious joy among the Jews to under Barova as they felt that they're going to be able to throw off the Roman yoke. But what happens is within two or three years the Romans have have mobilized. They bring in Julius Seis the general and they restore they don't mount a direct battle an assault on Baraka's army. They go they start a periphery strategy and they go from place to place and subdue and conquer leaving finally in the end by 135 common era we find that Betar falls. Fast forward to 1960 and what happens is that Israeli general and our famous archaeologist Yigaladin his expedition finds something in place called the cave of letters and discovers there something that's absolutely phenomenal famously but but it's interesting and the link to Arabin because what they discover there in the caves is a tiny strip of papyrus containing a remarkable set of wartime correspondents from Barva himself. Well, Bakova signed his name Shimon, but it's understood to be that was Baka himself. And it says in Hebrew or in Aramaic really, it says and in the old script, Shiman Yehuda Barmanas Arava Shimon a message from Shim to Yehuda Baranasha in a place called Kiryat Arabaya. So whether that's related to that arro or to Arabs, it's unclear. This is place called anda shima as writing there actually as mo tells him he sent two donkeys and I'm sending two donkeys which are bearing a precious cargo not arms and on instructions that precious cargo sent by barva is lavim and estrier him and imagine what an unbelievable scene. Here it is in the middle of a war. It is the most it's an existential war because it Shiman Baka knows that everything he faces annihilation. The Romans there was no mercy. They annihilated especially when he calls the Baka revolt was one that shook the foundations of the Roman Empire. It was an existential war for the future of the Jews and Erits Israel. And there he says for my army I need love him and destroy him. And actually the details are interesting because in the same correspondence we know that he sent to another mission to was another donkey uh resupply run to another place where they had adas. So they weren't all in the same place. The love and historian were from the commander of this shiman baruda I think was in Enghedi in fact and he seems to have had problems Baraka with the this particular garrison there in Enghedi and it was seems that it was a considered to be a place where in the re rear echelons where people who wanted a cushy easy ride in the war they would go they would be in Anghetti and he had to threaten the commanders that they better send the troops not to fighting. So it's a very interesting this whole uh trove of letters is in fact a treasure trove for understanding this uh this incredible chapter in Jewish history tragic chapter the the rebellion of barba but there you find that in the middle of this military campaign against the Roman Empire the the general the chief of staff himself has the worry that he has is what's going to be with Arabin which is an incredible thought that we talk about Jewish army and you know there's actually beautiful pictures that you know always come out of the IDF supplying soldiers with Arabin. But can you imagine that the commander-in-chief himself is writing to call for specifically he's intervening on this little detail of Arabium itself. I think it's an unbelievable thing and and in Aramaic he says other details that come out with this thing this message is that he stipulated he says prepare them as send them to the camp but that's depends how you translate them. Yalyadin himself understood he was obviously a person who understood the context he he'd researched the rabbitic context and he understood that he said that actually Ascan doesn't mean just prepare it means tick for microserus he was saying that it means to that he was saying make sure that they are taken barak was getting involved in the level of we've got to make sure that they take the trumus and the maestros are taken and what was the need for the operation bedil because the alusa Sagi the population is large and the modern Hebrew word for population is so this is obviously drawing on this on the garra phrase bedilusagi I've got a lot of Jewish soldiers under arms here what an unbelievable opening it is to operation est over there yadin himself says what a testimony it was to bara strict religious piety and he says notes the extraordinary fact that in the middle of this war he goes bara goes into great trouble to get them. And so what we see nearly sort of 2,000 years before some of the later stories that we're going to come to of smuggling of a story and and diplomatic pouches and customs officials and kind of uh international diplomacy going on over here over Estrogim. Jews were already moving through a war zone in Israel. In other words, operation estrog had begun. Fast forward elegantly, take a leap over a couple of millennia because there is a huge amount of history uh that I'm just jumping over. So, in this thoroughly unscientific survey of the topic, but anyway, let's go fast forward to a particular episode in the first world war. What happens is we know that in the first world war clash between the Russian Empire, the Austrohungarian Empire, basically patchwork of different legal and sovereign entities, let's call them, that divided Jews across Eastern Europe began falling apart and there was new borders put in place where none had existed before. And one of those was leads to a chuva from the the Risherov. The Risherv who was of Aaron Lavine Risha is jev today. Rash is jev in today's Poland Reho right pronounced jev and the rasherv was a big po the of a kett big a Polish poek he was um and in fact the rasherv was the grandfather of today a very famous orthodox lawyer Nate Leuen a DC high power DC Washington DC lawyer and the rasher was a rov was a place in in that was then I think it's in Ukraine today but it's then in Poland a place called Sambour and He has a chuva because what happens is that he says that Sambbor is cut off from the lands of the south where the normally the arbaminum come from. And so he says that he uses in his cha he says because of the warel a wall of iron separates between the the lands where the estra grows in our country and our area. So there's a great difficulty in finding and he he mentions how there was he needed to intercede with the army the local army authorities. is I don't actually know which army authorities which army would have inceded with presumably maybe the Austrahungarian army and they had to send the military courier to bring in different story but that was the context and he says what actually happened is shila develops because of this so shila ino is like price gouging or unfair trading or unfair when you've cheating and um to do with markups in in trade what happens is is the following he recalls the question is somebody some enterprising individual imports I think before before the rerov was managed to before Rabbi Lavine himself managed to he bought an estrog and he sells it to the community and then he at some incredible price but then another someone else brings another estrog far a cheaper price and so the community says hey it's I know you've just overcharged it's above market value and what should we do it caused it caused a shall we say a huh a hakic huh and what happens then is that so obviously they asked Lavine what to do about it and his chuva is he basically says that first of all can there be a no for a community and so basically it it devolves into that discussion can there be overcharging for no which you can't charge more than a sixth of the value can that does that apply that applies to an individual can it apply to a community where a group have brought it together and the rationale is that if it's not going to be if you divide it amongst all the town the people affected in fact all the people who are represented as parties to the sale meaning all the town's How much did they have a sixth overcharging for them or or rather even less? Was there even a pa overcharging? If you think there were it was one estrog was bought for 3,000 people and the and the it was overcharged if you know whatever some it was overcharged. It's unlikely to be a prut a small you know this penny's worth loss to the to to each individual. So that's one of their bits of rale to say why that it wasn't considered a case of and there's others as well. This this chuba is quoted by Zashin in his famous in his well-known works Kashuk which deal with all sorts of interesting Halik problems often involving different stories and he's the one who goes through and he he says well there's actually others who who argue with that uh course it's worth it's worthwhile looking into that and he also looks into the question is anyway is there a price for an estrog especially in a in in a wartime that means assumes a market price can there be a market price when there is no market when there's none there's on left. But what I find striking is a is an interesting thing is the way that Rabbi Lavine, Rabbi Aaron Lavine, the writer of ends his chuva. And he says actually the reason I'm writing this is not just for the itself, but because to record for posterity the circumstances in which Jews have to practice this mitzvah. He says, When give us peace, he he talks about then I'm going to record them. I'm recording this because to record is the difficult life we're living through today. He says I want this to be preserved. And in that recording it seems I would say that what the Aaron Lavine the Rasherv is saying is that we have to get this down on in in this belongs this question which is somewhat hahic but also belongs in in the responsor belongs in chuvas. There should be a record of the great mysterious nephesh that Jews have always gone through in order to practice this beloved mitzvah of Es and Arabin itself. What a beautiful I would say example that is of operation ESR. Just over two decades after the rasherv comes into something a momentous battle in the second world war. The battle of the Atlantic. Now the battle of the Atlantic was basically Britain was isolated. Continental Europe had had almost entirely been conquered and Britain was alone holding out against the invader if to quote from famous words from Asterisks for those who know it. Britain was holding out against the invader and they were hoping that the strategy the British led by Winston Churchill was that we're going to try and resist until and get America to come on on on side and by that point America had was supplying indeed the America which uh I think Roosevelt called it the arsenal of democracy was going to supply the whole world the whole free world starting with Britain with everything with arms and eventually they did join the battle when you had uh Pearl Harbor but what happens is in 1941 won the Battle of the Atlantic. The Germans knew that if they can isolate Britain, if they can cut off that maritime, that sea link between Britain, the United States and Britain, they can bring Britain to its knees because Britain needed oil. It needed everything, needed everything from overseas. And what in fact happens in the Battle of the Atlantic, at the height of the Battle of the Atlantic, when these horrendous losses of British shipping to yubot, German submarines that were roaming in what were called wolf packs who were highly effective, sending hundreds of thousands of tons of merchant ships to the bottom of the Atlantic in what was a a brutal war fought in absolute sub-zero temperatures in the Atlantic. It's it's something that doesn't receive enough attention historically, really. how close Britain came to being cut off and how close the Germans came to winning the battle of the Atlantic. But in the middle of the battle of the Atlantic, we have this phenomenal thing, the Estster Lullivan Estra gets into the battle of the Atlantic because what happens is according to you look around in 1941 the JTA which is the venerable Jewish telegraphic agency reported that Britain can't obtain its normal supplies of arabaminium. For those who know the British climate is not totally suited for growing Arabaminium, never has been. And despite the claims about global warming, despite the fact that today they are now growing, apparently grapes sometimes occasionally in the south of England. Despite all of that, I doubt that England, the the sunny shores of England will ever be a world center of production of uh Hadasium simply for obvious reasons. But this is 1941 and until then the supplies had come from two places. One of them was Palestine, otherwise known to us as Arat Isisel, mandate, British mandate Palestine. The other was Kfu, the island of Kfu, which was on the Greek islands traditionally very associated with growing Arabinim estrogu and and and also to do the estrogen and kfu has to be said were very controversial because the fact that they were seemed to be murkov that they basically grafted and also the kfu were also there was a lot of outbursts of Greek anti-semitic attacks on the Jews of Kfu and so basically they were boycotted by a very very vigorous rebinic campaign of of boycott and eventually they forced them out the market but until then on and off they basically had Palestine and KFU and the JTA says that because of the war situation that's it they can't get them through they're just simply not coming through the Germans remember will I think this is give or take the time of the battle of of you know this is the British are being pushed back across the Libya and etc and becomes the battle of Elmain but the Mediterranean is very much a contested environment and you can't get supplies through over there. So what happens is that something extraordinary happens there that the British government gets involved with giving the go-ahead to import love from America and this comes about through the lobbying of an aguda historical organization called the British aguda called organization called Keranto um which I think was linked to Vikaski and according to the JTA the British food ministry issued special import licenses and the Bank of England released the necessary currency. You see, it needed to be at the time that the British then at that stage of the war that England's economy or Britain's economy had turned into a war economy and that meant foreign currency, foreign trade was tightly regulated. So, this had to go to be able to buy a lot of historic game. You couldn't just, you know, Ali Ali express them DHL over to London. you. It had to be it was a major operation that involved all levels of government that they had to say that the food ministry could say that they needed it and the shipping authorities and the current the Bank of England etc. And remarkably that happened. Now can you imagine on these these Atlantic convoys every one of them could have gone to the bottom. It was because they were hunted by these the Ubot and somewhere imagine this somewhere in the midatlantic gales with these dreadful seas and the and the somewhere inside the cargo ship in the second world war operation estster had brought through Arabinim and what's actually noticed is that there was another report actually in America from something called the JPS I don't know what that is some news uh Jewish news service or whatever it reports in an American newspaper the next year that the British Agudath Israel organization received government permission to import an unlimited number from the United States. And then that same report tells us where they were from. They were from Cuba and California. California since the beginning of the war. The report says they'd grown in Cuba and California. What a wonderful detail. Imagine that. Cuba and California. Okay. But it makes you think because we know that it it's in fact is quite mysterious. I've not managed to find perhaps it's open source somewhere else but just poking around and not sure who would have remember this is this was the Londonbased in undergraky would not have imported some problematic source they had to be the the real article so somewhere they were growing in you know in America in California now in California itself you do a bit of poking around California has a lot of history but there was a controversy again about the cash of the Californian estrogen and one of the thing again because a murkov might be grafted one because you have to understand I think it's worth recalling that the estrog needs a pedigree right it's liked a prized anything needs a welldil anything that needs a a pedigree a prized pooch dog a prize you know a a a pedigreed horse it has a history they had clear breeding lines and one thing that you need for an aster is the clear breeding lines. And here one of the big things we if you notice in the shop sells Kazun is and that of that that came from the Kazun is said about he knew a particular tree that grew that was definitely kosha and he gave that in famously initially gave that he gave a cutting from that tree to ofich um Sal who planted it in his garden in his garden and then it became it became the source of a lot of kazinish estrogen essentially a a an estrog pedigree The question is what was the pedigree of the Californian estrogen? And we know that there was, if you just poke around, you'll see an interesting thing that it says that in 1923, a lady brought back from Palestine an estrog tree and they planted it in the uh in the courtyard of some reform or conservative shul and that was meant to be a big thing that California had pedigree, but I'm just not sure that would have been enough for Dina Bramsky in London. But whatever the case and and and I don't know what the story is with the Cuban esrog so I wait to be enlightened by others but again focus on what that remarkable detail tells us here in the at the height of the second world war when all was so bleak there was a a a operation estre had brought in of whatever provenence they were the strokim that was needed to bring some y of light into wartorn Britain and I think that the that particular a picture of the sim that Arabin bring us perhaps especially when we have to work hard for them when there's mysterious nephesh for them I don't think you can get a greater expression of that than some pictures that came fairly recently to light these are pictures from the lodge ghetto in Poland of Jews shaking the Arabinim in the ghetto you see these pictures you want to cry these are pictures that came out a few 101 15 years ago or something like that They show in sukas 1941 Jewish man a young boy holding the arabominium and another one shows the suka a suka and apparently the story behind that was that the suka was that the lodge ghetto was famously run with an iron fist by a Jew called Modkai Runovski was called the lo the ghetto king or the king of lodge or whatever I don't remember who his name was and he literally ran it as his thieftdom and eventually he was killed as well and maybe whatever the story was different story for another time. But the Jews of lodge wanted to build a suka and they they asked Rukovsky and Rukski said despite the fact all materials were rationed. Imagine that wood inside the suka could have been used to heat or whoever it was whatever it was there was no free supply of this into the what the lodge ghetto. There you have the evidence. So the Jews wrote to Rkovski to thank him. But getting back to the minimum, how did they get there? Where did they come from? So I think the JTA Jewish again the Jewish telegraph telegraphic association account says that they speculated possibly they were smuggled in from possibly as far away as Palestine. I don't know where they would have come but imagine that. For me this is so it's an emotional thing these photos because it brings to mind the puk says we are killed for you every day. The posserious nephesh, the mys mysterious nephesh of Jews who are living on the brink of disaster, who are actually well over the brink of disaster. They're living in the ghetto in which is going to be they're all going to leave. They know nothing good awaits them. They have this terrible bleak presence. And yet there they all be nephesh forim. How they got them, we don't know. But it actually leads me to think something else as well. And this is a comment on all of everything we're discussing today. Because as much as there's Jews of moes for mitzvah and Jews of Mohish forb but we also have to think how much the mitzvah gives to us especially at a time when life is so bleak the ability to do a mitzvah to a mitzvah to snatch a mitzvah to have snatched a mitzvah from the jaws of the Nazis when all around was such such utter disaster. Imagine the light that would have shed into the lodge ghetto. Imagine the light. Imagine what those Jews felt like when they were holding the Arabin. Let's jump forward to a bittersweet time four years after that at the lodge ghetto because in 1945 mid1 1945 you know the war is over. Tens and tens of thousands of surviving Jews are scattered in DP camps across you know the different occupation zones. the Russian, the American, the French and the British occupation zones. And what is happening there is we have this incredible encounter on Yung Kipa of 1945 that that involves Arabinium. Well, let's look look at the scene before we get to the encounter. The scene is the background. So let's get to the setting and let's understand the context first because what had happened months after the war the Jews under American occupation were living in horrendous conditions. There was uh President Truman sent in the summer. He heard reports of the sort of the horrendous conditions that Jews in survivors uh were still living in the concentration camps and basically treated by the American guards almost like almost in the same way as they would have been treated by the Germans meaning in a procedural sense. They weren't hit. They weren't nothing mistreated in that way but they were treated as captives in that way. And that's because partly because of anti-semitism, it became clear, but also partly because the blunderings of a big bureaucracy that was not set up to handle this. Anyway, that summer, President Truman sends Earl Harrison, who's the dean of the University of of Pennsylvania law school, serves as a Kashwa academic to investigate conditions among the the DP camp. And one of the things he says he basically he visits about 30 camps and the harrison sends back a devastating report and he says as matters now stand we appear we the Americans appear to be treating the Jews as the same way as the Nazis treated them except that we don't exterminate them. And Truman was horrified horrified what he by what he heard because in fact what has been happening is that the Jews were imprisoned behind with together by nationality. So German Jews would have been locked up with German prison German non-Jewish prisoners. In other words, could have been SS, Italian Jews with fascists, right? And it was it was horrific. And one of the culprits for that was the ruler, the military ruler of Bavaria was General Patton. And General George Patton was obviously an American war hero, but an absolute mushkus of a man. I think that's fair to say. Patton was was a battle and war-winning general, but he was a wreck of a human being. And what we have is from his diary his utter contempt and the anti-semitism that comes through. And he says that about in September the 15th he he writes about Harrison's report. Harrison and his ilk believe that the displaced person is a human being which he is not. And then he says singles out the Jews. This applies particularly to Jews who are lower than animals. Thus says General Patton conquering general of the American army. conquering war hero of the American army. And elsewhere, George Patton says, "If we treat them, if we allow them, they're going to spread across the Jews going to spread across Germany like locusts is what he says." and Eisenhower who was struggling he knows that he's got this very talented subordinate but he knows what a miserable human being George Patton is general Patton is and he goes on Yung Kipper Eisenhower who's then supreme commander of the whole the forces in Europe and later to be the American president he is told by Truman to go and investigate what's actually going on in his short implementation and famously in Yung Kipper 1945 he goes along to the DP camp called Feldering. Now, Feldering is not just mere somehow became a a Jewish town. It became an enormous vibrant center of Jewish life immediately after the war. And so, there he goes along to spend your kippa in to see what's going on in Felder. And there he has a very very interesting meeting with one of the great survivors who was then in Felink who was then the great the closenereb of Yusiel Yehuda Hala and obviously the closeneter sons Closenberg he was he lost everything wife 11 children what a tragedy would later remarry have I think two sons who are the closenber rebels of Natana and sons sons of rebels of Natana and of America respectively and he the the closener the father having lost everything throws himself in with this holy fire. He throws himself into rebuilding everything. And he treats the survivors as as his children. And there's this very a few days ago actually ended up speaking to a man called Rabincian Reich, a man who lives in Natanya who was the gaba for I think the last 10 years of the of the closing's life and he said he was telling me the famous a famous story which is worth which worth mentioning. I think it was before on on that Yung Kippa how the girls approached him. This is the holy clothes of Megarba. And they said, "Reba, we've lost everything before Kippa. We would have every year our fathers, our mothers would bench us, but we have no father and mother left. Reba, what should we do, Reb? Can you bench us?" And there was this incredibly moving scene because one by one, I think hundreds of girls came before the Reb and he benched each one. And that was the something that that that the closeare was Avian Shal Israel, the father of these survivors. And he and that Yoen Kipper was the one who represented the Jews to this this bedraggled downtrodden Jew Jewish remnant to the to to the powers of this anti-semitic George Patton and the and and General Eisenhower who was not anti-Semitic. He was in fact there to help. And he was the one who's the closest he said please it's only a few days to sukus now and we don't have any Arab minimum can you please give it to us and we know that eventually that they did that they got Arabinium there's different versions of the stories stories I think that closen has the tons to say it was flown in by American military plane from Rome but in fact what we find is an interesting thing the invaluable archives of the JTA come up with another gem because there's a little report from September 20th, 1945. The JTA reporting from Frankfurt carries a tiny story and it says, "Over 100 sets of palm leaves and citroins of the JTA have arrived here from Palestine by air to be used in observance of Sukkot this weekend." And that's the JTA. Who was the man behind it? A man called Major Judah Nadich or Nadich. And the JTA says he was an adviser on Jewish affairs to General Dwight D. Eisenhower. And there you have it. So we have a famous story that the Closer was there asked Eisenhower please. He says to this to the supreme overlord of conquered Europe and he says we need Arabinim. There we have it shows up in the press that they brought in the Arbaminim all the way from Erit Israel. For me this is this episode is is again operation estrog uh we can call it in in the way what a moving story that is. It's a moving on so many fronts that you had a man like Eisenhower who himself, Major Judinet would go on record, I think would write a book actually, you know, lording Eisenhower praising into the skies saying what a what a great savior and hero he was of the Jewish people and and indeed especially in comparison to his to to his detestable subordinate George Patton. He was indeed a ray of light. But it's also moving because of another thing. Because just imagine months, this is months after just so these broken survivors. What did they want? What did they want? All they wanted was Arabinim for sukus. And Hashem stepped in and sent the right to to fulfill that need. Circling back from Europe to the shores of Erit Israel of of the Middle East more widely, we have a remarkable story of involving Raaddio in 1949, sukus 1949. What is happening then is that the Egypt and Israel then is young very young country of Israel are at war which means that Jews in Egypt including Raaddio who a few years who shortly before had arrived as the Afghan of Cairo was and he was then very young I think 27 years old. Raaddio is and his community face a major problem because it seems that what happened is that the Arab Minim were not coming from Egypt to to Israel. They came in those times from Israel to Egypt, but ties had been cut off. In fact, Yasv was seen as an enemy alien. He was a citizen. He'd grown up in inim. And apparently the Egyptian secret police didn't look kindly on the fact that built a suka because when he built a suka, he was one of the only ones in the hold. There's not a very observant Jewish community there in Cairo. He was the one of the only ones there in the community and the Egyptian secret police said that it must be signaling to the Zionist air force. So he was instructed to take it down. Now by the way this is total aside but this is a golden example of the any given godle variety of story because this story we've heard in so many times but apparently oh nuradf was told to take down his suka by the Egyptian secret police and was given seven days to do so that story is told about yusf told about so many others as well so I think it's a particularly sterling example of that particular genre of agiven godle but regardless What in fact is clear is that and this I think Rodia recorded in it as Chuvas. He said that what happened is a remarkable way in which they got Arabinim that year. I presume they could just go down to Arish or whatever to get or just go around the corner to get Egyptian Lulov wasn't a problem but Estrogan seems to have been a problem. They were cut off and they meant to come from Eric Israel but there's war times. What happens is remarkably the Egyptians themselves who ended up giving them the Egyptian government. And how did it come about? It came about because an Israeli boat ship rather drifts into somehow or blunders into Egyptian territorial waters. What does the Egyptian Navy do? It impounds the boat. It seizes the boat and sails it off to Egyptian port. And there they unload the car contents and in the cont in the cargo is found 100 or so estrogen. What is the Egyptian government do with these things? It says well the Jewish uh you know they I don't know how they know but but apparently they gave them to the Jewish community and that is how says Ravia in 1949 the Egyptian Jews including Ravadius himself were able to have Arab minimum because they were delivered to their doorstep by the Egyptian Navy. What a wonderful example of operation estrog. And so we go back for another couple of final stops on the on this whistle stop tour of this of the Claniststein and the unusual in the in the supply of esrogum and Arabinim because what that takes us to Eastern Europe because what in fact happens is that in the 1960s there was the beginning of the movement to help Soviet Jews that would later gather steam and one of the big figures there was a man called Rabbi David Hill who was I think became head of the was Latafian born bea be became head of young Israel and he wants to try and start helping Jews in the Soviet Union then he approaches the man who knew most about that was the labatureba and he goes to see the rebs to him actually I will never I've never before given away any details because everything was so secret and hash of all the kabad activists behind the iron curtain I've never given away anyone's names but because I trust you I'm going to give you he gave 40 to50 50 names and he said you should be in contact with them. And in fact, what happens is the Bavar makes a stipulation. He says that if you're going to send rabbis, make sure they have beards. That's a very interesting thing he says because the Russian Jews have never seen a modern rabbi. They they will only trust ones a rabbi for them. They have a folk memory of a ra the rabbi with a beard. So that's one of the interesting things you hear. He said the other interesting thing he said the rabbi told him was that you're dealing with life and death here. you have to do it without any publicity and indeed I think he kept this Rabbi Hill kept these stories under wraps uh for decades but eventually would tell the Kabad archives a remarkable incident in which he said that when it came to they had the idea that when it comes to sukas we got to take in smuggle in somehow how do you do this so the Reb says to them okay write to that Russian embassy in in New York and tell them you want to send seasonal fruits to the Soviet So Rabbi Hill said, "No, it's not going to work because in fact the Soviets were not foolish and they knew exactly what the fruits of the season were. They were they and they said, "No, we're not accepting any fruits of the season." So then they had a new there's a breakthrough. This Rabbi Hill had a friend called Dr. Morris Sage and Morris Sage uh had been in the Sorbon the Paris University and he'd known one of his fellow students in the Sobborn was an African student who later became his country's ambassador to Moscow. Well, he says as Dr. Sage says, well, I know the man because diplomats have a diplomatic pouch. And so that's how in the 1960s they began this cloak and dagger or rather diplomatic pouch uh mission. They smuggled uh small must have been very small lulov together with a story in the diplomatic pouch of an unnamed African country to the Soviet Union. And that says Rabbi Hill worked like a charm. I think we can leave Eastern Europe for the last time and go back to the shores, the sunny shores of the Mediterranean where in 2011 with what we started, the impact with the Hosni Mubarak regime has fallen, the Muslim Brotherhood is in waiting in the wings, the Egyptian army is in control of the country and it's not clear what's the future of the Israeli Egyptian peace deal and the cold peace between Egypt and Israel gets even frostier just in time for Sukas. Because the Egyptian agriculture minister says that's it no more no more love and for sukus what actually happens at the end the result of that saga is a very very interesting thing which has echoes of today only a few years you know 15 years later because what does Israel say okay we desperately knew love him but just over the is Egyptian border with Israel on the tribe border area is Gaza now remember 2007 this is the since 2007 the Gaza has out the control of Kamas and the Gaza strip is blockaded by Israel. But Israel says that's it. We're going to lift a blockade on Gaza in order to bring through Lovim from the Gazen growers. And that sets off an absolute firestorm on the left because they say, "Ah, you see, you see, you can you don't need a blockade in Gaza when you don't when it's convenient for you. You can you can trade with it with Hamas." And so Israel, I don't know remember exactly how that ended, but the reports are it's actually Hamas that made the difficulties with it and they didn't want their Israel's cash. What they said and they came up with an interesting reason. The Hamas agriculture terrorist comes up. He says there's something called the red palm weevil. The red palm weevil, an evil weevil. It's a a little infestation of these little creatures and they are infesting these these lulov and we don't want anyone to suffer if we export them which obviously we know the great caring that Hamas and including down to the last Hamas functionary have for those who shake the lul of itself. So as Egypt wouldn't export them, Israel was willing to import them from Hamas controlled Gaza. But eventually they turned the the end of the story was they turned to to Jordan and the the real end of the story was the Middle East a bit of old Baksh bribery is not going to is won't be a miss and in fact that's what helped because miraculously strangely enough the the Egyptian who love him started turning up in enormous quantities in Eric Israel and in fact in America and everywhere else that that needed them. So that was the end of that story and what what happened because of that encounter was that Israel started all the lul of grow started uh reducing heavily their their reliance on Egypt and Erit Israel started becoming a a source of them the famous deravim and all different sources. They diversified the supply. But for me this is the denurum of operation estrog which began thousands of years before with barba which put in the time of the risherv an iron wall across the first world war Europe and came up in the Atlantic battle of the Atlantic in the lodge ghetto and inside airlifts to the DP camps in Germany had come all the way through to the Arab springs that same dynamic operation estrog and for me it's something which is very powerful to think about that while governments rise and fall and you have this kind of you have the world changes and upheaval as we see today. One thing is a constant somewhere in the middle of it all. Yidden are looking at their calendar. Sukus is coming. We need the little and esug somehow someway. It's going to get through. Thank you for listening to Behind the Times. We appreciate you joining us as we explore the stories and people that shape Jewish history. If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share with friends. Until next time.