Olives, Olives, Olives



  • Olives are a big deal in the Holy Land, particularly for Palestinians. The trees are everywhere, olive oil is drizzled on everything, olives are served with all meals and tourists purchase olive wood trinkets.
  • Autumn is the harvest period for olives and families will get together to harvest their fields, enjoying a picnic.
  • Joining the harvest is a great way to see rural Palestinian culture, so an office excursion to an olive grove was organized.   
 
  • Broadly speaking, olives are harvested the way they have been for thousands of years: by hand, either milking them (pulling) or using a plastic rake to strip the branches of their fruit.
  • This year, it was noted that the farmer used an electric tool with spinning rubber tongs to massage the olives from the tree. (Wikipedia says this is called an oliviera.)
  • The olives are collected in plastic tarps below the trees and then are sorted.
  • Picking olives is not as rewarding as apples or strawberries, where one can enjoy the fruits of their labor instantly.
  • However, there is a satisfaction from pulling the olives and hearing them land on the tarp with a gentle thud.
  • Afterwards, there was a visit to an olive press, a small factory and large warehouse with oil packaged for export.
  • Most surprisingly, the pressed oil is poured into a vat, which is actually an old claw-foot bathtub. As it happens, bathtub oil is pretty tasty.
Location: Jerusalem

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