Last Sunday, agriculture inspectors at Ben-Gurion International Airport confiscated a suitcase containing 70 Italian esrogim being brought into the country by a private individual, not a licensed importer. According to officials, the person who was bringing in the esrogim illegally can expect a fine in the area of NIS 5,000.
Agriculture inspectors will be increasingly vigilant this year due to shmitah, realizing more individuals will attempt to bring esrogim from abroad to eliminate shmitah concerns.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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9 Responses
Tziyonim – sonei hatorah!! y r they stealing esrogim from yidden?
#1- If you play by the rules and get an import license you can bring in as many as you wish- but bringing in 70 esrogim in a suitcase reminds me of the days about 35 yrs ago when we bochurim used to bring in tape recorders and Parker pens to sell- and every once in a while the meches folks would confiscate the goods-
#2, godolHador
Sounds good, unfortunately it’s NOT true! Sure they say that “if you have an import license then it’s OK”, the key word is “IF”.
As I have investigated this matter, I know for a FACT you CANNOT get an import license for esrogim, not any year and certainly not during a shmitta year. The agriculture dept. is totally controlled by those who insist on the validity of the heter mechira and will not do ANYTHING to help you avoid using it.
I am not advocating smuggling or anything like that. Just want to give the facts.
#1 you are an idiot! Why was the Sonei Hatorah so called importer trying to avoid bringing in Esrogim for YomTov in an illegal fashion? It might even be classified as Esrog or Lulav Hagozol!
It’s nice to know that the governments of the world regulate Esrogim, rather than concern themselves with minor things such as funky securities or the international traffic in women (something Israel is famous for).
number 4 – it is perfectly OK to use otzar beis din esrogim, or those picked from a tree. They might have kedushas shvi’is, but that isn’t a reason to bring the heter into this.
to #4 ephraim-from this and your other posts it is obvious who is the sonei hatorah(read your comments on schnorrers having a difficult time)
to #2-i smuggled in a hug eboom box 28 years ago ,it belonged to one of the most famous rav in kllal yisroel today(he was a bachur back then)i was unable to sell it and had to schlepp it back to usa,how did you sell yours?
he should have hidden the esrogim under the bag dougies wings he was bringing to the Mir.
the zionist medinah has no right to stop anyone from bringing in anything let alone esrogim to eretz yisroel – their laws are meaningless and especially here where their intent is to stop yidden from doing mitzvos – the gonef here is the tziyonim that stole the esrogim from this yid