The Media Line: Honey’s Health Benefits: Why Israelis May Want To Eat More Honey This Rosh Hashana  

Honey’s Health Benefits: Why Israelis May Want To Eat More Honey This Rosh Hashana  

Medical-grade honey dressings can form part of care for certain chronic wounds, while Israel’s honey industry faces broader challenges   

By Maayan Hoffman / The Media Line  

As Israelis prepare to dip apples in honey for Rosh Hashana, the familiar symbol of a sweet new year is taking on a role far beyond the holiday table. In hospitals, medical-grade honey is used in some clinician-supervised treatments for difficult wounds; in orchards and fields, honeybees remain vital to crops whose value far exceeds the honey they produce.  

The season also offers a window into Israel’s changing honey landscape—from the decline of citrus-blossom honey and the rise of avocado varieties to concerns about counterfeit honey and the mounting pressures on bee colonies.  

Medical-grade honey and store-bought honey are not one and the same. Regular honey may contain microorganisms or other contaminants, while medical-grade honey is sterilized for use on open wounds and specially prepared for clinical use.   

Clalit Health Services explained that patients with certain health conditions, including diabetes, pressure injuries, and chronic medical conditions, can develop wounds that heal slowly and are therefore more vulnerable to infection. Medical-grade honey can help create an environment that makes it harder for certain microorganisms to grow while maintaining the moist conditions that support wound healing. According to Clalit, some types of medical-grade honey can also help remove damaged tissue.  

“The goal is not simply to put honey on a wound,” said Alona Benjamin, a clinical specialist nurse at Clalit Health Services’ Sharon-Shomron District. “It is about using a medical product as part of a comprehensive treatment plan, according to the patient’s condition and the characteristics of the wound.”  

 “There is something beautiful about seeing a substance that has such a deep place in Jewish tradition also having a place in modern healthcare. It reminds us that sometimes, nature gives us tools that we continue to discover new ways to understand and use,” she added.  

According to Arnon Dag from the Volcani Institute, citrus blossom honey was once the country’s most popular and widespread variety. Around 40,000 dunams of citrus orchards served as a major source of Israeli honey, and beekeepers would move their hives to the orchards in the spring, particularly in the Sharon region, producing large honey yields.  

“This honey is high-quality, tasty honey,” Dag said. “Very light in color and pleasant.”  

Over the years, however, many of those citrus orchards were uprooted to make room for the country’s growing population. “We are no longer the citrus powerhouse that Israel was when the state was established,” Dag said. In addition, the varieties of citrus grown in Israel have changed, with newer varieties producing less nectar.  

Avocado trees have replaced many of those orchards, and today, beehives are often moved to avocado orchards for pollination. The result is avocado honey, which Dag said differs greatly from citrus honey. It is darker and more aromatic, and richer in minerals.  

“That gives avocado honey another dimension in terms of its potential health value,” Dag told The Media Line. “If someone consumes avocado honey as part of their diet, it can provide some of the minerals the body requires.”  

Another honey associated with Israel is produced from the jujube tree, known in Hebrew as the sheizaf tree. In Christian tradition, the jujube is associated with the crown of thorns placed on Jesus’ head before his crucifixion. The tree flowers during the summer and grows primarily on the slopes of the Golan Heights and in northern Israel, Dag said.  

“Its honey is very highly valued, particularly among people in Arab countries,” Dag noted, adding that the plant also appears in the Quran. He said that tests at the Volcani Center found that the honey showed potentially beneficial properties, including stronger antioxidant activity than some other types of honey.  

The growing demand for jujube honey prompted Dag and his team to study it. As honey became more sought after, concerns emerged that some sellers were marketing products as jujube honey even when they were not genuine or pure. The institute’s research therefore focuses on identifying markers that can establish the authenticity of jujube honey.  

“We are trying to create a kind of ‘seal’ that would allow a consumer buying the honey to know that it really is honey produced primarily from the flowers of the jujube tree, rather than honey from another source that someone simply labeled jujube honey,” Dag explained.  

Eucalyptus is another important source of honey in Israel. Dag said that many eucalyptus trees were planted during the British Mandate period, and the tree has since become an important source of nectar for Israeli honey production.  

In the Negev, tamarisk—known in Hebrew as eshel—offers another source of nectar. The honey it produces is generally darker, with a wider range of flavors and colors shaped by Israel’s varied climates and vegetation.  

Many hives are simply placed in areas where a variety of flowers grow. In the international honey market, the resulting honey is generally called “multifloral honey.” In Israel, it is usually known as “wildflower honey.” Because it does not come from a single plant species, its characteristics can vary from batch to batch.  

Israel also produces clover honey, which tends to be very light, as well as smaller quantities of more distinctive varieties made from plants such as thyme, lavender, and even za’atar.  

Dag said that, generally, darker honeys tend to be more aromatic. In some cases, they can also contain higher levels of certain beneficial compounds. However, he cautioned against making a blanket assumption that darker honey is necessarily “better” than lighter honey.  

The demand for raw honey is on the rise internationally, and the product has become especially popular in the United States. The primary difference between raw and regular honey, Dag explained, is that raw honey does not undergo the same heating and fine-filtration processes to remove particles that contribute to honey crystallization. Because many consumers hesitate to buy honey once it has crystallized, producers may use mild heating and fine filtration to keep it liquid longer.  

According to Prof. Sharoni Shafir of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the most common bee in Israel is the Western honeybee, also known as the European honeybee, although Israel was also previously home to the Syrian honeybee. “That’s almost extinct because it was more aggressive and produced less honey and was harder to deal with,” he told The Media Line. “So, most of the honeybees we have now are European-based, mostly the Italian-based honeybee, with a few other European subspecies, and it’s kind of an Israeli mix.”  

In recent decades, as in many other parts of the world, Israel has faced a honey shortage. This is partly because the Israeli population has grown while production has decreased, Shafir said. But another, more fundamental challenge remains. “To make honey, you need nectar. For nectar, you need flowers and open spaces, and that is becoming more and more difficult to find in Israel,” Shafir said.  

More broadly, he said, bees worldwide are under significant stress, and their populations are declining. Fewer bees mean a smaller workforce to produce honey.  

Israel also faces challenges from the Varroa mite and the viruses it carries, requiring beekeepers to use treatments to protect their colonies. But Dag said that when beekeepers repeatedly use specific treatments against Varroa, the mites can eventually develop resistance. “That means we continually need to find alternative solutions. That is a major challenge,” Dag said.  

The stakes extend well beyond whether Israelis have enough honey into which to dip their apples on Rosh Hashana. From an economic perspective, Dag said, the pollination services provided by honeybees are far more important than the honey they produce.  

 “If the honeybee were to disappear because of Varroa mites or something else, the direct loss for the Israeli economy would be 2.8 billion shekels. We have more than 20 crops that are completely or almost completely dependent on honeybee pollination.”  

 

 

 

 

 

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