Israel's milk (and tallit) shortage

10th Oct 2021

This year Israelis were astonished to encounter severe milk shortages starting shortly after Rosh Hashana and continuing for weeks.

Every year milk supplies become a bit scant in the later summer, because cows produce less milk in the heat. This year that was exacerbated by the holiday calendar, since none of the Yom Tov days overlapped with Shabbat, meaning there were even fewer work days than usual during the month of Tishrei. Furthermore, fewer Israelis traveled abroad due to COVID-19, which led to greater consumption. Critics said the dairy plants could have prepared better, arguing that the supply and demand issues were foreseeable.

Today I learned from an insider at one of Israel's largest tallit manufacturer's that some of the above applied to tallit production. Every year they find it challenging keeping up with demand leading up to Pesach and Rosh Hashana, but this year before Rosh Hashana there was an acute tallit shortage largely because they miscalculated, assuming demand would be down because of COVID economics. 

They are now literally working day and night to close the gap, and we too are in a bind, since certain very common tallit and tzitzit products are completely unavailable, therefore we have had to remove them from our web store temporarily.