As Farmers And Fields Rest, A Land Grows Restless

As Israel’s Jews start a new year, the country finds itself in the middle of a fierce religious dispute about the sanctity of fruits and vegetables.

In the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malahi, a man held a scroll of the Torah, which mandates shmita, a kind of sabbatical for the land which occurs every seven years.

Rabbis are pitted against one another, the state and the religious authorities are in conflict, the Israeli Supreme Court is involved, the devout are confused and the cost of produce is rising.

And a country in love with flowers and proud of “making the desert bloom,” in its own disputatious way, is letting much of its land go to seed.

This year, 5768 by the Jewish calendar, is a shmita, or sabbatical year. Jewish-owned land is to be left fallow, whatever grows there is to be free and at year’s end, all personal debts are to be forgiven.

Shmita occurs every seventh year, as a kind of sabbatical for the land, and it is mandated in the Torah. In Exodus 23:10-11, for instance, shmita precedes the injunction for individuals to rest on the seventh day. “Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove.”

That presumably worked fine in a primitive economy before decent fertilizer, but shmita presented problems for the new Jewish state. Zionism was founded on the notion of a return to the land, but a modern country cannot live on what falls to the ground.

So respected rabbis from both the Ashkenazic and the Sephardic communities compromised. Charged with interpreting religious law, or halacha, they devised the “heter mechira,” or sale permit, which allows Jews to temporarily “sell” their land to non-Jews for the shmita year, so the land may be cultivated.

It is similar to the practice during Passover, when lawyers do a big business “selling” leavened products to non-Jews, so they need not be discarded.

In largely Arab East Jerusalem, the manager of Jafar’s Super Market and Sweets describes shmita this way: “It’s all about fooling the man upstairs.”

For most Israelis, said Rabbi Yehudah Mirsky, a theologian, heter mechira “helped Zionism create a modern agriculture in the new state.”

But for many especially observant Jews, this is a dodge too far. They insist their produce must be grown by non-Jews on non-Jewish land. “Heter mechira is a religious stretch, and the ultra-Orthodox are not ideologically invested in the enterprise of building a modern economy,” Rabbi Mirsky said.

Today’s Israel is increasingly religious and the ultra-Orthodox sector, which is not Zionist and is ambivalent about the state, is more powerful. The Ashkenazic chief rabbi, Yona Metzger, is considered a puppet of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, 97, the leader of Israel’s Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox Jews and a renowned foe of heter mechira.

The chief rabbinate, which controls the vital kosher certificates for food, declared this year that heter mechira was the rule, but it also said rabbis of local cities and towns could decide for themselves. The announcement resulted in confusion, anger, an unresolved suit before the Supreme Court, a rabbinical revolt and a declaration by the agriculture minister, Shalom Simhon, that he will forbid imports that compete with Israeli produce.

In Jerusalem, Israel’s poorest city, heter mechira is not supposed to be recognized. But while the Supreme Court is deciding on a petition against the chief rabbinate’s ruling, some supermarkets are selling produce under the heter mechira dispensation.

Since the ultra-Orthodox make up at least 30 percent of the city’s population, shops in areas like Geula and Mea Shearim are paying prices two or three times higher than normal for cucumbers and tomatoes grown only by non-Jews in the West Bank. The community is already among the poorest in Jerusalem, but the rulings of their rabbis matter far more to them than money.

Still, a group of younger Zionist rabbis, known as Tzohar, have announced that they will flout the chief rabbinate and issue heter mechira certificates in cities where the local rabbis will not. Rabbi Rafi Freuerstein, chairman of Tzohar, said: “We believe it is important to strengthen Jewish farmers and provide reasonably priced produce to the Jewish nation.” Rabbi David Stav of Tzohar said: “We are trying to save the chief rabbinate from itself.”

Yigal Yaacov of the Super Shuk grocery in the relatively secular Emek Refaim district sells heter mechira produce. “My tomatoes are greenhouse grown, but in the West Bank there are no greenhouses,” he said. “When there’s quantity, the price is low, and when there isn’t, the price is high.” There were expectations that much produce would, as happened seven years ago, come from Gaza, but since the Hamas takeover in June, Israel has not allowed any Gaza exports.

Down the street, the manager at the Marvad Haksamim Yemenite restaurant, Mor Yehezkel, holds firm. “Our vegetables come only from gentile produce,” he said.

The shmita year also affects gardens — even second- and third-story balconies of potted plants.

Shabi Zevieli, 48, a gardener who has recently become religious, will observe shmita in consultation with his rabbi. “The point is like Shabbat — to let the land rest every seventh year, to let the agricultural workers work less and have time to study,” he said. “In a shmita year, also, all debts are supposed to be wiped out. But the rabbis say that’s not so relevant today, or banks wouldn’t give loans. This is the first time for me, so there are a lot of dilemmas.”

Shlomi Taasa, another gardener who is religious, is less conflicted. “The main thing for me is that once in seven years, all people are the same. Whether you’re rich or poor, everything belongs to everyone, and in my garden, everyone can come and take the fruits that grow.”

It is a time, he said, to learn more about his trade. “I can fertilize my brain,” he said, “if not the soil.”