Living in the Galilee, I am occasionally gifted with transcendent moments of timelessness – where the landscape and the scene that unfolds within it have more to do with thousands of years of history, than the blink of an eye of the latest decades.
At least once a summer, together with Balkees and Muhammad, Ron and I visit friends at their agricultural field not far from Nazareth. Their plot is small – just a few acres – planted with tomatoes, okra, fakus, zucchini and black eyed peas – a few rows of each. We arrive at twilight, after the crushing summer heat – when the various family members are at work, trolling the rows with pails, gathering the ripe produce.
We always help with the work, and each of us sets off, pail in hand, guided by some internal compass to his or her own row. Again, here is the soft orange light and the distant muted hills, the crumbling dirt and rustle of leaves nudged aside to unveil fakus, dark green and hairy – different and the same, every summer.
The produce in this field is grown “baal” – without any irrigation. The varieties are adapted for this type of growth, and the owner of the field saves the seeds from season to season. This is the way this land was farmed since the dawn of agriculture, and our friends are among the last of the local farmers who are still perpetuating it.
And as the sun slips behind the horizon, I wonder if we’ll meet again next year, to participate in this backbreaking labor that, by contemporary standards, yields so little. The tomatoes I bring home have flavor that sears the palate, and the fakus are crunchy cool delights.
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PeaceXPeace – an organization that promotes peacebuilding between women around the world, published a piece about my book and work. If you’re curious, here’s the link:
Breaking Bread in Galilee – Food as a Bridge Across the Israeli-Palestinian Divide
