As I browsed the Jerusalem Post online this afternoon, I noticed a little article headlined ‘Shavuot Triples Dairy Consumption’. This was indeed another little reminder that makes you stop to realize how cool this country is.

Traditionally Shavuot (which celebrates the giving of the Torah at Har Sinai) is a holiday of dairy. Cheesecakes, special danishes with sweet cheese filling, sweet challah with cheese filling and many other one time a year offerings flood the bakeries of Israel. Given this minhag (custom) one would assume that dairy consumption would be noticeably higher in the days leading up to Shavuot, but three times higher?!?!? Wow, that is a lot of milk!

The article went on to tout Israel’s dairy industry as the world’s leader, more productive than even the famous dairies of the Netherlands. The average Israeli cow produced more than 10,000 liters of milk annually, far surpassing the world average (for comparison’s sake the Dutch cows produce 8193 liters, US 8162 liters and Australian cows 3450 liters annually). Whatsmore, Israeli milk is higher in quality than milk throughout the world (measured by percent fat and protein in milk). The article even gave kudos to Israel’s most productive cow, Noa of Moshav Zippori, who boasted 19,911kg of milk last year!!

Not that any of this is quite as exciting as putting in a man in space or the seventh game of the World Series, but it is just one more example of the kind of special place where we live. Not only does the newspaper have an article about dairy consumption around Shavuot but Israel is technologically far ahead of the rest of the world in yet one more industry…dairy cows!!!

Chag Sameach from the Land (literally) flowing with Milk and Honey!!