Spring has sprung and the palm trees of Egypt are suddenly sodden, or sick, or something. New freedom in Egypt means cutting your exports of hundreds of thousands of palm fronds commonly called lulavim to Israel.
This year, Egypt is not exporting hundreds of thousands of lulavim for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot to Israel or to Jews around the world. For the past umpteen years, Egypt has earned millions of dollars and Jews around the world have benefitted from the Egyptian exports.
Observant Jews need the palm fronds and Egypt has obliged.
Good interreligious relations, you might say.
Good business, you might say.
Both, actually.
But this year the year of the so-called Arab Spring, supposedly a harbinger of democracy and freedom Egypt suddenly decided that its palm trees need a rest. Millions of dollars in exports be
damned! Let em eat cake, instead of shake the lulav, Egypt says, in effect, of Israeli and non-Israeli Jews around the world.
OK. So Israelis and other Jews have had to scramble to cut more lulavim in Israel and to locate new markets quickly in Spain and elsewhere. In the end, the Jews will have Sukkot, and Egypt will not have its exports.
Who knows? Maybe the new sources of lulavim will prove to be less expensive than the Egyptian source. Maybe, even if Egypt wants the market back next year, it might find itself priced out of the market.
These small tempests in Israeli- Egyptian relations serve as barometers for larger storms. It strikes us as monumentally short-sighted and counterproductive for Egypt to husband its lulavim, which no one else needs, and which even observant Jews wont need for another 12 months. But hey! This is freedom Egypt-style. Cut your national nose to spite your face.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
