None is more emblematic of our hopes and prayers for this coming year than the pomegranate, a fruit that is central to our culture, one of the biblical seven species which hold a special status in Judaism.
Because of the ongoing crisis volunteers continue to be vital in helping local agriculture. The first farm I volunteered on after October 7th 2023 was a kibbutz near my home which has huge tracts of pomegranate orchards and suddenly had few hands available to pick them.
I went to help because they were in desperate need but also because pomegranates were something I knew how to pick. For years we've been going every autumn around Rosh Hashana to pick pomegranates at another local farm, not as a volunteer, but just for the simple joy of spending time in these beautiful orchards at the peak of their glory, and of course the pleasure of choosing our own supremely delicious pomegranates for the traditional autumn festive season fresh from the tree.
So I knew a bit about how to pick premium pomegranates and handle them with the care and respect such fruit requires, though hours of work picking many tonnes of them while worrying about possible rocket attack overhead was of course a very different experience.
Pomegranate thorns can also be brutal. It's one thing if you are just picking a few pomegranates for yourself, it's another when you have a whole tree to clear of fruit and you need to get into all the difficult branches, thorns and all. Long sleeves are a must, as with most citrus trees.
By last year that kibbutz where I volunteered on the pomegranate harvest of October 2023 had manage to organise enough help from pensioners and high schoolers in their immediate area to manage without more help but there were other pomegranate farms further afield who needed volunteers.
Particularly memorable was the adorably scatterbrained ritual scribe of Yemeni descent and his quaintly chaotic organic pomegranate orchard overgrown with thistles on a small village in the south. Somehow despite the apparent neglect of the orchard he produced amazingly sweet giant fruits, most of which he used for juicing. Our volunteer groups both harvested the fruits and did shifts in his ramshackle juicing shed behind the equally ramshackle family home. It was a race against time to harvest all the pomegranates before they burst from ripeness and juice them before they started to go bad. He had orders to fill for the holidays, but this was also an important harvest for the year ahead, with much of the juice frozen to last the whole year until the next harvest.
While we worked he extolled the health benefits of pomegranates in Jewish traditional medicine as handed down to him by his father and grandmother. The orchard was originally planted by his grandfather. He seemed constantly overwhelmed dividing his time between the pomegranates, other farming activities and his work as a scribe. We came home each time covered in sticky pomegranate juice, but also with giant pomegranates he had selected for us as a thank you for our work, symbols of blessing to serve at our holiday tables.
On a neighbouring village just down the road we volunteered to work the pomegranate harvest for another farmer who seemed the polar opposite of the scribe - meticulously organised and fastidious in everything from his clothing to his farm, his orchards in neat well weeded rows set up for the harvest with purpose built canvas baskets mounted on straps for each picker to wear to maximise efficiency, a tractor pulled trailer following us through the long rows of trees so that we could easily deposit our baskets when they were full. He was every bit as grateful and as warm as his more colourful neighbour though, and like him, it was all hands on deck from any family who could help with this big seasonal job.
The first fruits are the premium ones, regal with their crowns, stately elegance that required gentle handling. These were the ones that would go on sale carefully packaged in crates. As the season progressed the pomegranates became more full bodied and developed a deeper ruby colour, but they were also more likely to start to crack. These could be picked much faster as they went for juicing.
And this year? We're still only half way through the pomegranate season. The early varieties have mostly been harvested for Rosh Hashanah, but in October later ripening varieties like the Wonderful pomegranates will be harvested.
At one family farm we were picking pomegranates for donation to Leket, Israel's national food rescue organisation. The family had decided to donate a substantial part of their pomegranate harvest to those in need because this biblical fruit is such an important symbol of the holiday and there are so many families relying on donated food packages this year. At another family farm we picked enough fruit to fill last minute Rosh Hashanah orders and it was gratifying to see the crates of our freshly picked fruit being loaded up to go straight to market to provide people with this holiday staple.
I know I can ramble on a lot more about pomegranates and pomegranate harvests, they have always been one of my favourite fruits but having worked in so many pomegranate orchards in the last two years I love them even more now.
I know I end up spending most of my coffee breaks photographing instead of eating and drinking, they are just so gorgeous in every way, inside and out.
This time of year I can easily just sit down to a whole juicy pomegranate for breakfast or dinner, but it's also a fruit that goes in everything: in salads, desserts, sprinkled on tehina atop grilled vegetables or over desserts, used as syrupy molasses to create delicious fish and meat dishes, especially good with lamb and salmon. As a seasonal touch for festive jewelled rice, in addition to the usual raisins, almond and prunes.
It pairs beautifully with mint to create a light relish like salad or to coat fish. Pomegranate, finely chopped mint and honey are superb as a topping for ice-cream or over raw tehina or yoghurt, just eat with a spoon. A Persian Jewish relative taught me to make her family's Rosh Hashanah lamb-chestnut stew with pomegranate juice and pomegranate molasses, served garnished with pomegranate seeds.
Aside from being delicious and healthy it has such deep cultural meaning. It's an auspicious symbol of blessing, good deeds and fertility that appears in poetry and art since ancient times, from the tiny gold bell shaped pomegranate flowers and pomegranates that the bible describes adorning the High Priest's robe to the romantic descriptions in the Song of Songs and medieval Hebrew liturgical poetry. It can be seen on ancient Hebrew coins, in mosaics decorating ancient synagogues and in stained glass panels in modern ones.
It's traditionally eaten at the Jewish New Year, when we pray that our merits and good deeds may be as numerous as the seeds of a pomegranate so that God may judge the world favourably for a blessed year ahead, and most importantly, inscribe us all in the book of life and peace. If a fruit can also be hope and a prayer that fruit is the pomegranate.
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