sweet figs

Approximately ten years ago, the Society of Fig Lovers was registered in Israel. No more than fifty people participate in its activities, but any of them - without exaggeration - is familiar with every fig tree in the country. Members of the Society have no doubt that, as in the case of wine, the taste of figs is determined by the terroir, that is, the combination of soil and climatic factors and the special characteristics of the area. Almost all of them are unanimous in choosing the "very-very" fig tree - the first place in taste is given to the so-called "Maurice fig tree", which grows somewhere between Safed and Mount Myron. It was discovered by Maurice Zemach, who, of course, is also a member of the Society of Fig Lovers.

In the fig garden of Dani Yakir, in the town of Binyamina, there are 200 varieties of fig trees. This is one of the largest fig collections in the world, rivaling even the famous National Gardens in Provence. Here you can see absolutely fantastic trees, on which three or four different varieties of figs grow at the same time.

Figs are included in the list of seven types of agricultural crops ("shiv'at ha-minim") for which the Land of Israel is famous. Jews were obliged to bring the first fruits of the harvest of these plants to the Temple, and in ancient Jewish sources it was noted that residents of places close to Jerusalem brought fresh figs, and residents of distant places brought the same grogeret, which we would today call dried figs.

According to a study by Professor Danin from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the results of archaeological excavations in the area of ​​the springs of Ein Gedi and elsewhere in Eretz Israel provide indisputable evidence that figs grew here more than five thousand years ago. One such evidence was the fossilized leaves of a fig tree found in the limestone rock of the Judean Desert.

It is said that the Eskimos have dozens of concepts that describe snow. And in Hebrew there are many words associated with figs. The Israeli linguist Professor Yehuda Felix counted 32 (!) Verbs in the historical layers of Jewish thought relating to this fruit, and 16 more words describing parts of the fig tree and different types of figs.

Figs even merited that the Jewish tradition likened him to the Torah. The Jewish sages rewarded the well-known quote from the book of Proverbs (Mishlei) - "He who guards the fig tree will eat its fruits" - with many explanations and comments, one of which emphasizes the dignity of the fig by the fact that, unlike other fruits (date, grape, pomegranate) everything in it is useful and edible, just like every word of the Torah is good for a person.

The fig tree, as the fig tree is also called, is the first fruit tree that is mentioned in the biblical text. From it, Adam and Eve knitted their first clothes after they tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. In the Talmud, there is an opinion that the fruit itself, plucked by Adam, was precisely a fig.

Pectin in the composition of figs increases the nutritional value of seedlings, is able to normalize metabolism. Dried berries are especially useful for the female body: Eating a few fig berries helps to maintain the balance of chemical elements during critical days.

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