Dates are sweet and delicious. And they play a large role in Jewish life, from Biblical times to today. Read on for 10 diverse and delectable things Jews do with this lip-smacking fruit.
1. Eat Them on 15 Shevat
The fifteenth of Shevat is the “new year for trees.” It’s customary to enjoy fruit on this day, especially those of the 7 species with which the Torah praises the Land of Israel.1 Dates are on that special list, making them a popular choice for this special date (pun intended).
Read: 15 Shevat Customs
2. Eat Them on Rosh Hashanah
Many families serve dates on the first night of Rosh Hashanah. This custom goes back to the Talmud.2 The Hebrew word for date, tamar, is similar to yitamu, meaning “to be finished off.” Eating dates becomes a hopeful prayer: may any harmful plans of our enemies be wiped out in the coming year.
3. Ancient Israel and Babylonia: Food Staple
Date palms flourished in ancient Israel, and the Bible famously describes the land as “a land of milk and honey”3—the “honey” traditionally understood to refer to date honey (silan).4 Dates were so abundant that exporting them became an important industry, beginning in Biblical times and continuing for centuries. The Talmud speaks frequently of dates, showing that they were a staple food in Babylonia as well.5
Fun fact: Hebrew even has a special verb—goder—used exclusively for date picking!6
4. Used in Coinage
When the Romans conquered Judea and destroyed the Second Temple, Emperor Vespasian minted coins celebrating the victory. Some of these coins showed Judea as a mourning woman sitting beneath a date palm—highlighting how closely the land was linked with this iconic tree.
Jews crafted date-themed coins as well: During the Bar Kochba revolt, coins were minted with the figure of a palm frond (lulav). And in modern Israel, the ten-shekel coin features a palm tree with two baskets of dates.
Read: Wheat and Dates
5. Use Them to Measure Food on Yom Kippur
A date can even be a halachic measuring tool! On Yom Kippur, eating a date-sized amount of food constitutes a more serious violation of the fast than eating a smaller serving. Therefore, when someone must eat for health reasons—such as an ill person or a mother who recently gave birth—they are often advised to eat less than the size of a date, with breaks in between, whenever this is medically safe and feasible.7
6. Sephardic Jews: Add Them to Charoset
Charoset—the sweet dip used with maror at the Passover Seder—varies from community to community. While many recipes use apples, pears, and walnuts, many Sephardic families incorporate crushed dates. This gives the mixture a thick, mortar-like consistency, symbolizing the bricks and labor of the Israelites in Egypt.
7. Maghrebi Jews: Serve Them at Mimounas
The night after Passover, Maghrebi Jews (from Morocco and other North African lands) hold a special celebration called mimouna, where people visit each other’s homes to enjoy elaborately set tables. Among the many mimouna delicacies, you might find dates stuffed with nuts and honey.
8. Eat Them Before Other Fruit
Since the Torah singles out 7 special species of the Land of Israel—wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates8—they take priority when making blessings. So if you’re about to enjoy an apple and some dates, the dates go first: make the blessing, savor a date or two, and then reach for the apple.9
9. Make a Special After-Blessing
Dates also get their own unique after-blessing. While most fruits are followed by Borei Nefashot, after eating dates (or the other four Israeli fruits listed above), we say the special blessing Al Ha’etz Ve’al Pri Ha’etz.
10. Used as a Name
The Hebrew word for date, Tamar, appears as a name twice in the Bible—as Judah’s daughter-in-law10 and as King David’s daughter.11 The name has remained popular across the centuries and is still widely used today in just about every Jewish community: Ashkenaz, Sephardic, Chassidic, and beyond.
Bonus: Date Palms in the Bible
Date palms are among the most frequently mentioned trees in Scripture. A few examples:
- When the Jews left Egypt, they camped at Eilim, where they found twelve springs and seventy date palms.12
- Deborah the Prophetess judged the nation from beneath a palm tree.13
- The lulav of Sukkot is referred to as kapot temarim—date palm fronds.14
- King David compares the righteous to palm trees and cedars of Lebanon.15
- Jericho is famously called “the city of palm trees.”16
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