Olive Oil ~ Window Into Palestine

By Mike Odetalla

www.hanini.org

Palestine, Palestinians, and Olive trees, much has been written and will continue to be written about the ancient and symbolic olive trees, their importance, and significance in the very lives of the Palestinian people.This connection runs thousands of years and continues to this day. Olive trees and their fruit not only provide a livelihood and income to most Palestinians farmers, but they are also imbedded in the very fabric of their every day lives just as they have been for many centuries.

Many of the elders in the Palestinian society today still practice the ritual of drinking a “shot” of fresh cold pressed virgin olive oil every morning. They swear by its medicinal powers of maintaining good health and longevity. Who can argue with them? Not when they start telling of their age the absence for needed medical care? Also, olive oil has many other uses in Palestinian society and life. Olive oil has always been and continues to be a staple in the diets of Palestinians. It used in many types of salads and for cooking many foods. The oil is also often times used to massage aching joints and bones as well. Its powers of healing are very well entrenched in Palestinian life and lore. When a child is sick with a cold or cough, it is not unusual for Palestinian mothers to rub warm olive oil on the children’s chest and backs.

The West, with all of its scientific resources, know how, and studies, is only now beginning to learn what Palestinians have known for eons: that Olive Oil has many beneficial health benefits!

My grandfather, may God have mercy on his soul, lived well into his ninety’s on a diet that consisted mainly of olive oil, zaatar (wild thyme that grows in the hills of Palestine), cracked pickled olives, and whatever fresh fruits or vegetables that happened to be in season at the time.

There aren’t many Palestinian babies, whether born in Palestine, or in the Diaspora, who have not been introduced to the world of olive oil at infancy. The Grandmothers of these babies are the ones that are given the honor of introducing the infants to their Palestinian roots and connection to the olive trees that dot the landscape of Palestine. The Palestinian Grandmothers live for the day that they can see their grandchildren and rub and lather them in the olive oil of Palestine.

I remember watching my mother take my newborn nephew in her arms and lather him in warm, fresh, pure olive oil. She would take a small glass bowl or tin cup and place it over the flame of a candle so that the oil could be warmed. She would then take her hand, dip it in the olive oil and begin to massage the oil into the babies flesh. She would do this from head to toe as she massaged his body and skin. The baby was then be wrapped in a blanket and put to bed. They would sleep soundly as they had never before.

My sister, the baby’s mother, would stand by, watch and learn, in the hopes that she too might someday be doing this for her own grandchildren.

Thus a circle would be completed. The new born baby would be immersed and massaged in the oil that came from the very same trees that had been planted, sometimes, many centuries before, by his ancestors. A tree, planted by hand, hundreds and sometimes thousands of years before, by the baby’s Palestinian ancestors, provided the very same oil that was now being lathered on him or her. My very own children, all three of them have been introduced to this very same custom. My mother in law, traveled from Palestine to the US to be present when my wife had our first child, a boy. She had the honor of massaging my oldest son with the oil that was sent by my mother, who picked the olives from the very same trees, that provided the oil that was massaged into my skin as an infant, as well as my siblings, father, grandfather, and so on…A long line of connectivity that, God willing, will never be interrupted.

Today, my wife, who had always looked forward to the day, that God willing, she will have the honor of introducing her very own grandchildren to the very same oil, from the same trees, that their parents, grandparents, and ancestors had massaged, and soaked into their own bodies as well, takes my grandson, who is also my namesake, and lathers him in the oil of the very same trees that I climbed and picked as a child, and I am still amazed at how soundly the baby sleeps through the night after one of his grandma’s Palestinian Olive Oil massages…Connecting in ways that are not even remotely imaginable to those that either refuse to see or are still in denial of the special connection that Palestinians have to the land of Palestine and the olive trees that grow unto its soil!

Palestinians care for newly planted trees as if they were newborn children.

When the Palestinians plant an olive tree, they say a prayer: “May God protect it and make it grow so that my children's grandchildren will benefit from its bounty"

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http://www.palestineremembered.com
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