Picking Olives

This past weekend we helped to pick olives on the property of Tantur, an ecumenical organization located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on the Israel side of the wall. The property has 500+ olive trees that need to be picked. We were told that some of these trees are more than 1,000 years of age! The organization usually hires West Bank Palestinians to come and do the work, but this year all their permits to allow them to enter Israel for the job were cancelled because of the current tensions. Tantur sent out an email to local churches to ask for help to get the job done.

A small group from our church went on Friday morning. Because of the ratio of small kids to adults, I’m quite certain we were not the most efficient in our picking! Our 4 hours of work yielded in only 4 trees being picked. Picking olives is a real labor of love (even for the experienced pickers, I assume!).

Picking olives with a beautiful view overlooking the hills of Bethlehem.

Separating the leaves and twigs from the olives – a good job for the younger workers among us.

Our olive picking crew.