A. Rabbi Chaim Palachi, chief rabbi of Izmir, ruled that honey is not kosher and therefore cannot be used for the dipping of apples. His ruling was based on a concern that the legs of the bees could be stuck in the honey, and since the insect is not kosher, the honey containing a body part of the insect must also be avoided.
B. There has been a huge increase in the number of dying bee colonies in recent years. There are a variety of factors being studied to explain this phenomenon, including habitat loss, pesticides, and parasites. Turkey is a huge producer of honey by its native Caucasian Honey Bee population, but there was a major colony collapse in 2017, wiping out a large portion of the bee community. As a result, the Chief Rabbi Isak Haleva, citing the concept of tzaar baalei chaim (a prohibition against causing harm to animals) declared that Jews should not use honey until the colony was restored.
C. One of the earliest known Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) was in the village of Bursa. In 1427 there was a killer bee attack which decimated the community, with 23 children and 6 adults dying. Ever since, the community removed honey from their Rosh Hashanah celebrations.
D. Hürrem Sultan (known in English as Queen Hürrem) instituted a pogrom in the Jewish community of Constantinople in the mid-1600’s. As a result, Rabbi Shelomo Haim Alfandari, chief rabbi of the Ottoman Empire, ruled that no queen should be given honor among the Jews, and symbolically, the Jewish community extended this to queen bees and their honey-producing colonies.
E. Saturday Night Live introduced the Killer Bees sketch in their first season in 1975. The Killer Bees, led by guest host Elliot Gould, assaulted a young couple played by Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner. Elliot Gould’s Jewish family was from the Turkish town of Izmir (his birth name was Elliot Güzelses), and many Turkish Jews were outraged to see one of their own acting so violently. As a result, the head official at the Izmir synagogue, Gabbai Tom ben Gabbal, ruled that bees were evil and no pleasure should be derived from them or their honey.
