Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:22am EDT
By Ari Rabinovitch
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Jewish agricultural law that crops up every seven years is prompting Israel's most fervent Zionists to turn to Palestinian farmers for food.
According to biblical law, farmers must let the land of Israel "rest and lie fallow" every seventh year, which means no planting crops, no picking fruit and no working vineyards.
In past years, farmers have circumvented the law by symbolically "selling" their land to a non-Jew for the year.
This year, some Orthodox Jews want that loophole to be closed and are turning to Palestinian farmers for their kosher vegetables -- an ironic twist in a region gripped by conflict over land ownership.
Wearing traditional prayer shawls, a group of bearded Orthodox Jews strolled through Palestinian farmland in the occupied West Bank, choosing the shiniest, firmest tomatoes to take back to their communities.
They marked each box with a black "kosher" stamp in Hebrew.
"God wants to remind us and tells us 'look, I'm the owner of the land'," said Rabbi Shner Revach, chairman of the government- sponsored group that oversees implementation of biblical laws. "'Once in seven years, let mother nature rest, and trust me
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