Oiling the wheels of progress 

In the heart of the industrial zone of Kafr Kana, among carpentry shops, workshops, garages and factories, there is a small and quiet space, very different from the sweaty and noisy masculine surroundings. Four women sit in it around a long table with very small glass jars, a pile of dry za'atar (hyssop) leaves and a small scale. They talk quietly among themselves, while putting za'atar leaves into the jars. A few days from now, a shipment of 10,000 jars, weighing 80 grams each, is supposed to be sent to Belgium, and they have to rush.

In the corner of the room near the wall, large stainless steel containers await the start of the olive-picking season, and olive oil production. Then the main part of the work is done: filling bottles with olive oil for marketing. From the next room wafts a strong smell of soaps made from olive oil in Nablus. The soaps are arranged in large pyramids until they dry out. Aside from traditional soap, they also produce, by special order, soaps with milk, honey, lemon or mud from the Dead Sea. They imprint the soaps with the words "Sindyanna of Galilee" (Galilee oak), package them and sell them all over the world. In spite of the problems caused to trade by the roadblocks around Nablus, the volume of sales last year reached about 60,000 bars of soap.

This small plant is the heart of the activity of the Sindyanna of Galilee association, which is succeeding not only in helping the women get ahead and providing them with employment, but also in promoting Jewish-Arab cooperation and helping the Galilee olive growers. The association, which was founded almost a decade ago, in 1996, grew from a school for mothers established by two women - Hadas Lahav from Haifa and Samia Nasser Khatib - in the village of Majdal Krum. In the school, the women learned how to help their children with their studies and how to be more involved in the children's education. Lahav says that up until then "they were unaware of the changes in the curriculum and unaccustomed to intervening in what was done in the school system in the community."

But the main goal of Sindyanna of Galilee was not to help women, but to start an economic project that would help the Arab growers to market their olive oil, and thus encourage independent Arab agriculture. The project was begun because of the growing distress of the Arab olive growers in the Galilee, who absorbed one blow after another: a shortage of water, the closing of the Palestinian market, whose merchants used to buy the oil from them wholesale and sell it to Arab countries, and a lack of awareness of new standards among olive producers. At the same time, a number of large Israeli companies took over the olive oil market, and the Arab growers, who couldn't find their place among them, were pushed to the margins.

Lahav and Nasser Khatib decided first of all to improve the chances of the Arab growers in the oil market, by raising their awareness of the new demands of the marketplace. They held seminars for the growers in which experts explained the quality required of olive oil. During one of the seminars, Dr. Fathi Abdel Hadi, a consultant for the olive industry in the Ministry of Agriculture, explained that "if we don't produce oil that meets the definition of high-quality olive oil, the oil will remain at home and will not be sold."

The fact that the orchards in the Arab sector are handed down by inheritance, and are therefore divided each time into increasingly smaller plots, "is contrary to economic logic," he told the growers. "That's why the moshavim and the kibbutzim become the most important producers."

Kibbutz Revivim, for example, which has 4,000 dunams of irrigated olives, produced 200 kg of olive oil from each dunam - a quantity greater than that produced by the villages of Dir Hana, Sakhnin, Arabeh and Ilabun, which have 9,000 dunams of olives. This is thanks to irrigation and a better use of the land, among other things.

Fair trade

Employing women was a natural "byproduct" of the very fact that the founders of Sindyanna of Galilee came from a background of working with women in the school for mothers. Over the years, they began to look for new horizons of activity that would suit the employment of women. On the last International Women's Day, said Lahav, the workers in the association spoke of their desire for economic independence and the sense of self worth that came with the work. "This demand, which is a basic right of every person, is still a distant dream for 83 percent of Arab women," says Lahav. "That places a great responsibility on us."

It was not easy for a group of women to establish a commercial status for themselves among the Arab olive growers. The advantage of Nasser Khatib and Lahav lay mainly in the fact that the growers were not keeping up with the pace of development in the olive oil market, and could not afford to be choosy. Afterward, they learned that the women were buying the oil at a fair price, that they could be relied on, that they kept their word and that they did not try to take advantage of the growers - and the result was that the men were willing to do business with the women.

Nasser Khatib and Lahav began to buy oil from about 50 farmers in the Galilee, and bottle and market it. Last year they sold 30 tons of oil to Great Britain, Japan, the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries in Europe. The products of the association are distributed through the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT), which promotes products whose manufacture does not involve exploitation or violation of rights. Only women are employed in packaging.

Nasser Khatib, who is also active in Ma'an, the Workers Advice Center, which helps Israeli Arab workers, says that "as a working woman, she has the ability to bring about a change in her life. By means of the work she is more independent, and her status at home and in society improves." She says that many Arab women want to go out and work, but encounter disgraceful exploitation.

Samia Naamna of Arabeh, who has been working in the association for two and half years, says she has found in it "every good thing that a person wants in his place of work: I work here in peace and quiet, I feel that the place is mine and there is nobody over me. When sales improve, I feel that it's thanks to my work. Work is not only money, I'm also giving something to society, I'm not just wasting time."

Tujan Sharari of Nazareth, a mother of three whose husband is ill and cannot work, was unemployed before finding a place in the association. Rula Naamna of Arabeh, also a mother of three, worked previously at seasonal agricultural work, for NIS 80 per day, and without social benefits. "Now I'm producing things that people in Japan and other places in the world want. I'm proud of that," she says.

Recently, the workers took a trip to the Haifa port in order to see with their own eyes how the products they packaged are loaded onto the merchant ships. For Samia Naamna, this was the first train trip ever. For Rula Naamna, it was the first visit to the port. "Next time," said the women, "maybe we'll get to places where they sell the products, in Japan or in Europe."

The fair trade market is developing rapidly abroad, and there is a demand for the products sold by Sindyanna of Galilee. But Lahav and Nasser Khatib say that the reason for the demand is not only the message of peace and of Jewish-Arab cooperation, "but is also thanks to the good name, the reliability and the high quality of our products. This is a status that we have built up for years, step by step, client by client, with the patience and determination of dedicated visionaries," they said.

Outside the game

The association survives financially largely because it is a small organization with little hierarchy. There is no manager, there is no marketing director. Lahav and Nasser Khatib buy the oil themselves, and they are responsible for packaging and marketing. The profits are invested mainly in training farmers and in development. That enabled the move from a small place in Majdal Krum to the more spacious area in the Kafr Kana industrial zone.

At present they are trying to encourage the olive growers to go into organic farming. To date they have managed to get only one Arab olive grower into the organization responsible for organic farming in Israel. Abdel Majid Hussein of Dir Hana, who studied agronomy and has broad knowledge and experience in growing olives, did not find it difficult to go over to organic growing. He says that for years, Arab olive growers have been suffering from neglect by the industry, but "the neglect on the part of the government was accompanied by neglect on the part of the farmers. The Arab farmer is not even familiar with the concept of 'acidity' in olive oil. We have remained outside the game. For us, oil is a basic food product; in the outside market they treat oil as something beyond that, something spiritual that helps the body and the soul."

Hussein, who is a member of the board of Sindyanna of Galilee, estimates that 95 percent of the olive groves in the Arab sector are organic, but they lack official recognition. In effect, says Lahav, organic farming is the relative advantage of the Arab growers, which can bring them into a prestigious market that is rapidly developing worldwide. "But in order to help more people to take the step and get into it, you need power and influence," she says.

Just as Sindyanna of Galilee preaches to growers to keep up to date and to innovate all the time, Lahav herself practices what she preaches. After buying olive oil and its products, they began to buy za'atar and carob syrup as well, which are produced by a cooperative of 20 women from the villages of Zabuba, Anza and Kafr Dan in the Jenin area. The workers from this area are widows for the most part, or have husbands who don't work because of illness or disability.

Since the security fence was built and they have been forbidden to enter Israel, the main market for the za?atar they grow has been lost to them. "We buy the merchandise at a fair price and create awareness of the situation of the women there, who have great difficulty in finding sources of income," says Lahav. In Sindyanna of Galilee they emphasize with pride that anyone who buys this za?atar in European markets gets a product produced entirely by women, from the planting in the fields of Jenin, through the packing in jars and the loading on pallets in Kafr Kana.

Another initiative that was begun recently is basket-weaving. Six women have already been trained by counselor Ronit Pan to weave baskets from olive branches and palm fronds. Pan says, "This is work that requires a great deal of skill and physical strength. The choice of basket-weaving was made with the intention of enabling women to work from home, so that even those who have difficulty leaving the house will be able to earn a living."

"You have to believe in change," says Samia Nasser Khatib. "We believe in small steps, and Sindyanna of Galilee is a step. We have to start from the bottom. We turn to the weakest sector in society, those whom nobody offers a helping hand, and we believe in their ability."

Olive tourism

The story of Sindyanna of Galilee is part of the large mosaic of the olive oil industry in the north. The Olive Branch festival, which began last week, will be characterized this year by cooperation among the residents of Galilee: Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze.

Among the events at the festival, which began a week ago and will continue until November 12, there will be visits to olive groves and olive oil plants, as well as to tourist sites in the north. It will include musical performances, Israeli art, culinary events and the picking and pickling of olives. At Hananya Farm, which is the Israel Olive Council center, there will also be health workshops and a farmers' market with tastings of oil and olives.