Calabria’s Proud of Its Esrogim

The Calabria region in southern Italy, located at the “toe” of the Italian peninsula, is commemorating 40 years since Chabad rabbis begun picking Esrogim that grow on their trees.

The Rebbe’s Shluchim in Milan, Rabbi Moshe Lazar and Rabbi Shmuel Rodal, supervise the Esrogim for “Altein Esrogim” sold by Rabbi Leibel Altein, whom the Rebbe entrusted to pick Esrogim for himself.

Rabbi Altein’s grandfather, Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson, and later his father Rabbi Mordechai Altein, were the ones who imported the Esrogim for the Friediker Rebbe and then the Rebbe.

There isn’t a year that the Shluchim don’t make a Kidush Hashem by being interview on the Italian television, this year the RAI, Italy’s state-owned TV channel, interviewed the Shluchim on occasion of a monument that was installed in the center of town to commemorate when the Shluchim of the Rebbe to pick Esrogim first came to Calabria.

The Rebbe instructed in the mid 50’s that Rabbi Jacobson should travel to Calabria to personally check the trees from which the Esroghim were being picked for the Rebbe, since someone wrote to the Rebbe that there were Esrogim trees that were Murkovim.