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'Sindyanna' by Sarah Irving from Olive Co-operative

It’s never easy to work in Palestine and Israel, one of the most divided and controversial parts of the world, and one which has so many emotional resonances for people beyond these nations’ own disputed borders.

Since the New Statesman magazine picked up on Olive Co-op’s Trees for Life programme, which sponsors Olive trees planted on fair trade farms around the Palestinian city of Jenin, it has attracted attacks from many people who see support for the Palestinian people as directly indicative of anti-semitism and support for suicide bombings.

Even the Israeli English-language newspaper the Jerusalem Post has attacked New Statesman’s support for the scheme by offering the planting of three trees for anyone taking out an annual subscription to the magazine.

It is the ferocity of the attacks which greet anyone supporting the Palestinian people and questioning the human rights record of the state of Israel which has inspired me to write this article about Sindyanna, one of the organisations whose products we sell and who we work with on tours.

Sindyanna is a co-operative based in the town of Kufr Kana (believed by some to be the biblical Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine), in the Galilee in northern Israel. This is an area where, according to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 was not completed, so there are many towns still occupied primarily by Palestinians who did not leave when the state of Israel was founded. There are also many towns occupied almost entirely by Jewish Israelis, but the two communities rarely live in mixed towns. News reports in the last few weeks of a Palestinian – often called Arab Israeli – woman being denied a job in a local supermarket illustrate that the separation of communities is still strong here.

It is these local circumstances, as well as the general hostility between Jews and Arabs in Israel, which make Sindyanna so remarkable. It is a women-led co-operative which brings together Jewish and Palestinian women on equal terms, with the aim of creating jobs for them, bringing them together in work, and promoting the products of Palestinian farmers both in the Galilee and in the West Bank.

The co-operative sells a range of products. The olive oil soap comes from Nablus in the West Bank, and is dried, packaged and marketed by Sindyanna. Other soaps are scented and enriched with other products for which the region is famous, such as mineral-rich mud from the Dead Sea and honey and lemons grown in the area. The za’atar, a traditional herb from the region used on bread and other dishes, is gathered and dried in the Galilee. Carob syrup is produced by Palestinian farmers from the northern West Bank and Galilee in ways traditional in the region, possibly since the days when John the Baptist lived on ‘locusts’ – a mistranslation of the locust, or carob, bean, during his sojourn in the wilderness. And the co-operative’s beautiful range of baskets made in traditional ways by Galilean women is locally produced, using traditional and sustainable materials such as palm fronds.

Even the produce and materials marketed by Sindyanna resonate with the history and religion of the land they come from, items which are sacred to some of the religions which originate there, and are loaded with the symbolism of life, peace and fertility for cultures stretching from the Middle East to Northern Europe.

It is this drawing together of cultures, nations and histories which makes Sindyanna so important and inspiring, especially in the setting of the conflicts of Israel and Palestine. It demonstrates that Jews and Palestinians can work together constructively, promoting the richness of the land and cultures of the area together instead of existing in state of conflict over who should own and control them. The bridges these women manage to build amongst themselves also extends to the different issues they are willing to address, acknowledging that in the modern world the environment and women’s rights are just as much a vital part of the struggle for justice as the more obvious issues of racial oppression and injustice. And through their marketing of high-quality, fairly-traded products, the women of Sindyanna show that fair trade is an important part of establishing economically, social and environmentally sustainable communities that go beyond short-term development projects or philanthropy. They are truly an example to those whose reaction to the planting of olive trees are divisive accusations of anti-semitism and terrorism.

More information about Sindyanna’s products can be found at www.sindyanna.com.
The co-operative’s products can be bought in the UK from Olive Co-operative’s online shop at www.olivecoop.com.
The New Statesman’s subscription offer of Trees for Life olive tree planting sponsorship is at https://www.newstatesman.com/000SUBSCRIBE.htm.

© Ethical Earth Limited / Olive Co-operative 1st December 2006

 

 

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