Life is sweet!
“The honey is sweet, the land is beautiful, and we are home.”
Everybody knows that the biblical Land of Israel flowed with milk and honey. But not everyone realizes that the honey flowed not from bees but from the date. For the Schneidman family, the dates of the Kinneret are the source of life’s sweetness.
The family have lived in and loved the Kinneret for over a hundred years. “Our grandparents were among the first farmers in the village and for us the area is beautiful beyond compare. Today, when we produce and sell our date products, when we look out over the Galilee Sea, we feel a deep sense of belonging and gratitude.”
Producing dates takes time. “For us, it is the work of generations. Our family started small with just a single date palm.” In the Bible, the date is one of the seven species of Israel but by the 1920s it had largely disappeared from the land. The family started importing palms from Iraq and Egypt. “We learned about silan, date honey, from Iraqi Jews. And we listened to our grandparents, who taught us that if we nurtured the land, we would reap its fertility.” Today, the honey still tastes sweet and the land is still beautiful.
Have a sweet and happy New Year, Shana Tova u’Metuka.
