Rishona Fine
About
rishona.fine@mail.huji.ac.il
Rishona Fine is a PhD candidate in the Program for Folklore and Folk Culture Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a doctoral fellow of the interdisciplinary research group, “In Between: Traces of Migration” at the Mandel Scholion Research Institute at Hebrew University.
Continuing the research she began in her M.A. thesis on “The ‘Miracle Sukkah’: Negotiation of Space, Place and Home Among Bene Israel Immigrants, through the lense of minority and migration studies, her doctoral work traces the evolution of the rich vernacular tradition of the Bene Israel Indian Jews with their migration to Israel.
Lecture Abstract:
The etrog or citron fruit, originating in Himalayan India, made its way along imperial trade routes throughout the ancient world. Celebrated as a royal fruit, it appears in ancient mosaic artwork, emerging in folk legends and medical texts alike as a healing remedy. Particularly within the Jewish realm it would become suffused with multivalent symbolism. While archaeological evidence demonstrates its initial local cultivation in Israel under the Persian rule of the third and fourth centuries BCE, the citron would ultimately assume eschatological applications starting in Roman era in Jerusalem. Likewise, until today, it occupies an enduring ritual role within the greater Jewish tradition, as the most treasured among the Four Species of Sukkot - the Feast of Tabernacles. However, the Bene Israel community originating in Maharashtra, India celebrate an extraordinary ritual engagement and peculiar reverence for the fruit as a central fertility charm, amalgamating various folk traditions with roots, as the fruit itself, stretching far across South Asia and the ancient Near East. Placed upon the Elijah chair during ritual circumcision ceremonies, hung in the center of the Bene Israel sukkah or tabernacle to be given to a young couple praying for child, the etrog enjoys a unique vitality within the Bene Israel ritual tradition. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork, this paper examines the peculiar Bene Israel ritual performance of the etrog, encapsulating as it does embodied memories of the journey of fruit and folk across the region, from ancient times until the present day.