Locusts: The Torah’s Plague, 10 Surprising Facts

1. There are about 8,000 species of grasshoppers, but only around 12 can turn into locusts—band together as one and set out on a collective search for food. Along the way they can cover thousands of kilometers in just a few days, vault over obstacles, and cross rivers. In the past, a swarm was even reported to have crossed the Suez Canal.

2. When solitary grasshoppers converge and become locusts, they change both their behavior and their appearance—and the reverse is also true. From solitary, nocturnal, green-brown, individualistic, and harmless creatures, they become a massive yellow-black swarm that attacks in broad daylight and leaves destruction wherever it goes. The contrast is so striking that for a time zoologists thought they were two separate insect species; only in 1921 was it clarified that they are one and the same. That’s the power of social influence...

3. So how do you turn a cluster of grasshoppers into a locust swarm? It happens through stimulation of the hind legs when they’re packed tightly together. That crowding occurs, for example, when food sources dwindle, the solitary grasshoppers squeeze into the few remaining patches of food, and rub up against one another. Against their will, they become a ravenous community sharing a common fate.

4. Locusts aren’t picky and will eat almost anything—except olive trees and date palms.

5. Locusts first appear in the Torah in the plagues of Egypt: the plague of locusts was the eighth blow the Egyptians suffered after Pharaoh refused to let Israel go. They appear again in the book of Devarim, where locusts are presented as a punishment for sins.

6. Kosher or not? In Vayikra, chapter 11, it says: "Yet these you may eat from among all the winged swarming things that go on all fours: those that have, above their feet, jointed legs to leap with on the ground. Of these you may eat: the locust according to its kind, the sol'am according to its kind; the hargol according to its kind; and the chagav according to its kind." By the Torah’s signs, locusts are kosher. The reason they aren’t commonly eaten today is that in most communities (especially Ashkenazi ones) the identifying tradition was not preserved—that is, the custom of eating them was not passed down from father to son.

7. Even so, in some North African communities, and especially in Yemenite communities, this tradition was preserved because locusts were common in those regions, and for long periods people there ate locusts—until a ruling by Rabbi Chaim ben Attar (1696–1743), born in Salé, Morocco, who prohibited the residents of his city from eating grasshoppers. His ruling sparked a major debate between supporters and opponents. In the end, it was adopted only by some communities: the Tunisian community accepted it fully; the Yemenite community preserved their tradition and continued to eat them; and in Morocco there was no consensus. Southern Moroccan communities, near the Sahara where locusts were common, kept eating them. More northern, urban communities, where locusts were not common, stopped due to loss of tradition—and in some mixed communities, some Jews continued while others refrained.

8. Ten different types of locusts are mentioned in the Bible: arbeh, giv, gazam, chagav, chanamal, chasil, chargol, yelek, sol'am, tzirtzal. It’s possible these are different names for the same creature.

9. This isn’t the first time locusts have attacked the Land of Israel. Such outbreaks were recorded in the past as well. In 1827, famine in the Land of Israel was described as a result of a locust plague, and again in 1865 and 1866, one year after another. In 1915, on top of World War I, residents suffered a locust plague; the authorities found a novel way to deal with the piles of carcasses—they required every resident over age 15 to collect 16 kg of locusts or pay a hefty fine. Before statehood, in 1945, a swarm attacked settlements in the fields of the Jordan Valley and reached Sha’ar HaGolan, and in November 1955 a swarm hit the settlements of the western Negev. In 2004 as well, a few grasshoppers were seen crossing the border from Eilat.

10. One of the most remarkable stories about the 1955 locust plague belongs to the Haredimoshav Komemiyut. That year was a Shmita year, and, against all logic, the residents decided to observe this mitzvah and not sow. The grain they had left to live on was what had been sown before the seventh year and was permitted to be eaten in the seventh year (with kedushat shevi'it). That year saw one of the largest attacks by the migrating locust swarm, focused on the settlements of the western Negev, Komemiyut among them. To everyone’s surprise, the locust swarm skipped the fields of Komemiyut. Aryeh Moskowitz, now a resident of Nov, remembers it clearly. He was then a child, from moshav Yad Natan, whose fields bordered those of Komemiyut, and he tells it this way: "The locusts attacked our moshav, and my father called me to help drive them away. There was no spraying then, and the usual method was to make noise—banging on tin cans and on boards—to scare them off. We went out to the field and started banging. While I was banging, I looked at the fields of the neighboring moshav—Komemiyut. And there, not a single locust. I remember asking my father, 'Dad, why do only we have locusts, and our neighbors’ fields are empty?' He didn’t know how to answer. Later on, when I grew stronger, I came across the story in a book by the Chazon Ish, which brings the testimony of the residents of Komemiyut, who tell of the Shmita year and of the locust plague that skipped their moshav. Then I understood that my eyes had witnessed an open miracle."