הדרים (hadarim) — citrus fruits

Etymology

The word הדרים derives from the biblical phrase פְּרִי עֵץ הָדָר ("the fruit of the hadar tree"), which appears in Leviticus 23:40 as part of the commandment to take the Four Species on Sukkot. The word הָדָר itself referred to a specific tree — most likely the cedar, whose pinecone was sacred across ancient Near Eastern religions. The probable etymological root of "dar" is Sanskrit devadaru ("tree of the gods"), used by Indians for the cedar. The Assyrians also used a cedar-cone in an autumn ritual closely resembling the Sukkot water-libation ceremony, and the Greeks employed them in Dionysus rituals.

The citron (etrog) was not known to ancient Hebrews — it arrived in the Land of Israel only during the Persian period, and its name comes directly from the Persian word "turung." The first Hebrew evidence of citrons comes from the Hasmonean period, when the crowd pelted Alexander Jannaeus with etrogim during a Sukkot water-libation he disrespected. One of the Hasmonean priest-kings had apparently substituted the etrog for the cedar cone in the Sukkot ritual deliberately, to differentiate Jewish practice from the pine-cone-heavy Dionysus cult. In Talmudic literature, the orange and lemon arrived from the Far East during the first centuries CE but were described merely as varieties of the etrog: "an etrog like a ball" (Sukkah 36a) was apparently an orange, and the "Kushite etrog" (Mishnah Sukkah 3:6) was likely a lemon.

The collective botanical term peirot hadar came into use at the start of the 20th century and was shortened to simply הדרים in the 1930s. Va'ad HaLashon officially approved הדרים as the name for genus Citrus in 1946. Each citrus has its own etymological story: לִימוֹן from Sanskrit nimbu via Persian and Arabic; תַּפּוּז coined in 1932 by Yitzhak Avinery as an abbreviation of תַּפּוּחַ זָהָב (golden apple); אֶשְׁכּוֹלִית named by Dr. Israel Weinberg in the late 1920s; מַנְדַּרִינָה via Portuguese from Malay mantri and Sanskrit mantirin; קְלֶמֶנְטִינָה named after Father Clément Rodier in Algeria; and פּוֹמֵלָה from Dutch pompelmoes (gourd lemon), shortened by French to pomelo.

Key Quotes

"וּלְקַחְתֶּם לָכֶם בַּיּוֹם הָרִאשׁוֹן פְּרִי עֵץ הָדָר כַּפֹּת תְּמָרִים וַעֲנַף עֵץ עָבֹת וְעַרְבֵי נָחַל" — Leviticus 23:40

"תַּפּוּחֵי זָהָב בְּמַשְׂכִּיּוֹת כָּסֶף" — Proverbs 25:11 (the verse that inspired the name תפוז for orange)

Timeline

• c. 500 BCE: Citron (etrog) arrives in the Land of Israel from Persia
• Hasmonean period: Etrog replaces the cedar cone in the Sukkot ritual; Alexander Jannaeus pelted with etrogim
• 1st–3rd century CE: Orange and lemon described in the Talmud as etrog varieties
• 1827: Shimshon Bloch coins "tapuah zahav" for orange in Shvilei Olam
• c. 1900: First grapefruit grown in Palestine at the Weiss-Kremensky orchard, Petah Tikva
• 1907: Pomelo introduced to Palestine by Tzvi Holtzman from Singapore
• 1913: Agronomist Avraham Brill brings the "Marsh" grapefruit variety from Florida
• Late 1920s: Dr. Israel Weinberg names the grapefruit אשכולית
• 1930s: הדרים replaces the longer form פירות הדר in common use
• 1932: Yitzhak Avinery proposes abbreviating תפוח זהב to תפוז
• 1946: Va'ad HaLashon officially approves הדרים as the Hebrew name for genus Citrus

Related Words

• אתרוג — citron; from Persian turung
• תפוז — orange; 20th-century coinage from תפוח זהב
• לימון — lemon; from Sanskrit via Persian and Arabic
• הדר — splendor, glory (the original biblical noun)
• פרי — fruit (general Hebrew)