Today, we're going to talk all about dates.
Not the ones that you go out on with your loved ones,
but the ones you eat.
(Sergio)
the date is a delicious fruit,
and Israel is very famous for it.
In fact, Israel produces 75% of the entire world production
of the medjool dates,
which are considered the highest quality dates
and are in top demand.
But these infamous Israeli dates
are actually not Israeli.
These dates were imported from California
and originated in Morocco
because the real Israeli date trees
had been extinct for 2,000 years.
But recently,
the unbelievable happened.
Archaeologists found a 2,000-year-old seed,
which after they had successfully germinated it,
it brought forth the extinct Judean palm tree.
Wow! Look how big it is!
I can't believe this is it. It's amazing.
(Sergio)
we will visit the date farms in the Arava desert
to see the Judean date palm
that had resurrected from the dead after 2,000 years,
and, as a bonus, share with you
a frozen date recipe that will have you go...
♪ (playful music) ♪
Dates are the staple food of the Judean desert.
In fact, they are called the meat of the desert
because they're full of energy.
They are so good for you,
and they can fill you up very well.
Even in the biblical times,
they're used as medicine for boils and different types of diseases.
They are mentioned in the Bible a few times.
But not only that,
they were also the symbol of the Judean kingdom.
They found coins -- ancient coins --
with the palm tree stamped on the coins,
but also today, we have that on our 10 shekel coin.
Look at that.
There is a palm on it.
Date palm trees are all over Israel,
from north to south,
but did you know that none of them are original to this land?
That's right.
The dates as we have in Israel today
are not original to this land.
Where they come from? Morocco.
♪ (music) ♪
Behind me is a date farm
where they grow medjool dates.
This is the king of the dates.
They're large. They have a lot of meat. They're delicious.
That's probably what you would buy,
and that's what Israel exports to the entire world,
but they're not original to this land.
They come from Morocco.
You see, about half a century ago,
Moroccan medjool trees, they died due to disease.
So the rest gets out the trees to California.
In the 70s, they brought them to Israel
and found out that if they grow them here in the Arava,
in the southeast desert of Israel,
they grow to their best potential,
but they're not original.
What happened to the original Judean date palm?
What happened to the date palms that we read about in the Bible?
Where is their fruit?
We're about to find out.
♪ (music) ♪
There are two theories
why and when Judean trees went extinct.
The first one dates all the way back to AD 70.
The Romans destroyed the temple and the Judean trees.
Since then, they've been extinct.
The second theory is that they survived all the way until the 14th century.
Some time around the Mamluk period,
the climate change in this region,
and they died.
The Judean palm tree and the dates
went from being the fruit of the region
to a joke
where writers who came here after the 14th century--
because they couldn't find any damn palm trees around--
it was like a joke, "Were they really here?"
Where are they?"
In the 60s,
during the excavations at Masada,
archaeologists found an ancient jar.
In the jar were ancient date bits.
They did radiocarbon dating on them.
It estimated the time to the first century.
Those are really old ancient date seeds.
What did they do with them?
They take them to Bar-Ilan University
to a storage room
where they laid for 40 years
until 2005
when Dr. Elaine Solowey took some of those seeds,
germinated them,
and guess what?
One seed sprouted.
They planted it
in a kibbutz nearby in the Arava
- and Kibbutz-- - Ketura.
- Ketura. - Yeah.
So let's go there
- and take a look at that tree. Yeah. - Let's go. I'm so excited.
I can't believe it.
If you're thinking, how's it even possible that a 2,000-year-old seed
can become a tree?
It would still sprout after all that time.
It's almost doesn't make sense.
What is it? Is it the seed cannot die? Is it eternal?
Or it's quite the opposite.
A seed wouldn't germinate until it dies.
It's actually pretty cool.
If you think a seed, it needs to dry, needs to die,
and it stays like this with the innate, all information inside
until water touches it,
and then it receives life.
Think about it. Water touches it, it receives life.
That's not new
because Leviticus speaks about it.
The symbolism is just incredible.
In Leviticus, it says that a seed,
if it touches a dead corpse or something unclean,
it stays clean.
You don't need to do anything with it. Why? Because the seed is dead in itself.
But if water touched the seed,
life enters it,
and then it touches an unclean thing, like a corpse or something else,
then it becomes unclean.
The logic in that is huge
because until life enters the seed,
it's still dead.
Water must enter the seed for it to receive life.
It's just incredible symbolism here.
Also with Jesus being the living water
that enters us that--
Souls are bound to die, generally.
But through Christ who cleanses us--
He is the living water;
who drinks from Him will never thirst again--
He enters us, and we receive eternal life.
Wow.
You got this?
♪ (majestic music) ♪
(Rhoda) This is Methuselah.
The first to revived Judean date palm
since hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
It is amazing.
It's called Methuselah after the oldest character in the Bible.
It makes sense.
It is standing here tall and beautiful.
Now, the only unfortunate thing about this tree
is that it's a male tree.
What does that mean?
It means that it cannot bear fruit.
But what it can do?
It can pollinate other female trees to bear fruit.
They made a research.
The closest trees to this one by DNA
is an Egyptian date palm tree called Hayani date palm.
That's what they wanted to do,
to crossbreed this one to the Egyptian date palm tree
to get as close as possible
to the date fruit that we had about 2,000 years ago,
but there's a better option.
Let's go check it out.
♪ (upbeat music) ♪
Wow.
Since 2005,
they use more of the seeds found in Masada
to germinate them.
Three of them work. They're right here.
We asked, and they don't know yet if they are male or female.
They will know when they flower.
But I hope so much that one of them is female
because then we can taste -- original from the times of Jesus -- dates.
Imagine that! Imagine that.
How awesome is that?
Very exciting.
We should definitely come back here when they flower
and check out if we're going to have a new production of Judean dates.
We've got a return here.
This is incredible because they could restart the Judean crops out of this.
Think about it: in a few years,
we could have Judean dates.
Really! In shops and stuff.
Isn't it amazing?
It's just mind-baffling.
As promised, now is the time for the secret frozen date recipe.
♪ (playful music) ♪
This is the date that you know.
The dried, ripened, medjool date.
Very sweet, soft.
That's what you see in the stores.
Before it ripens, it looks like this.
Now, you don't want to eat this.
It's not too sweet.
Before it ripens, it's not the best.
However, there's another variety
comes from the Hayani date palm.
You see, it's more round,
not as oval as the medjool date.
What is special about it is that it's much sweeter.
If it ripens, it becomes extremely soft,
the skin peels away,
and you can just ship it to a different country
because it's not going to look very appealing.
It's going to be all mushed-up.
But what you can do with them
is eat them fresh
just in this form of the tree.
Because they're so sweet before they ripen,
they're already sweet enough for consumption.
Here's the secret recipe that Rhoda's family shared with me,
and I'm going to share with you.
These are best eaten when frozen.
All you have to do is buy them fresh in the store,
then go ahead and put them in the freezer.
Just freeze them.
In the summer,
you'll have a delicious summer delight.
Wow!
That is just too good.
Almost like a sweet mini melon.
I'm going to set a world record
on the shortest time it's going to take
from asking a woman to have a date with you
until the time you actually have a date with her.
Are you ready?
I don't know.
All right.
- Would you have a date with me? - Yeah.
(ding)
Okay.
Here you go.
Have a date. Come on, the time is ticking.
Faster, we're breaking the world record here.
- Breaking the world record. - Here you go.
There you go.
Yes!
Yeah!
We broke the world record. High five.
You're so cheap. That's what it is.
That's four shekels a bag. At least four shekels.
So cheap.
(laughs)