Balady Citron (Hebrew: הָאֶתְרוֹג הַפַּלֶשְׂתִּינִי), (Arabic: أترج بلدي) is a variety of citron, or etrog, grown in Israel for Jewish ritual purposes. Balady (Arabic: بلدي) is Arabic for "native." Local Arab farmers began using this name in the mid-19th century to distinguish this variety from the Greek citron, which was cultivated along the Jaffa seashore.
The Balady was grown on the outskirts of Nablus and the neighboring Nazareth, on the outskirts of Safed and Alma al-Shaib, in Umm al-Fahm, in an orchard near Tiberias, and in Lifta village near Jerusalem.
The Balady was already grown in the Holy Land at the time of the Second Temple; however, since the destruction, only small amounts were used as etrog and it was not exported. It is not a very attractive variety of citron, and new settlers continued using varieties they were accustomed to in Diaspora.
All of this changed in the 1870s, when Rabbi Chaim Elazar Vacks devoted himself to its cultivation, and managed to get it exported to Europe. Thanks to his high-esteemed authority and constant agitation, many individuals and even communities switched from the abundant Greek citron, which was also called Corfu, to the Israeli Balady citron.