Following the ancient interpretation of Leviticus 23:40, the etrog or citron is one of the four plant species used in the rituals of Sukkot, the festival that begins this evening. The Jews of early America followed their largely northern European forbears in importing these fruits from various Mediterranean locales, and especially from Corsica and Sicily. But the Napoleonic wars cut off the supply, and in the early 19th century rabbis began to raise questions about the halakhic suitability of this variety. Jonathan Sarna and Zev Eleff explain how American’s citron market evolved thereafter:

The World Health Assembly—the annual meeting of the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO)—will conclude in Geneva tomorrow. As it has every year since 1968, it dedicated part of its time to discussing “health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan.” The fact that this is a permanent yearly agenda item for the assembly has nothing to do with any special medical circumstances in these areas, nor with any particular ability the WHO has to provide healthcare to their inhabitants. Rather, it is another example of the capture of the United Nations by the anti-Israel movement. David May explains: