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Issue 94, November/December 2005
INDYANNA of Galilee can claim 2005 as a landmark year. We shall market more than 30 tons of olive oil – 50% more than in 2004. The increase led us to move in July to larger quarters in Kfar Cana (traditionally, the village of the wedding feast in the Gospel of John). Our new building, which is now in the process of being approved as a food-packing plant, has enabled us to expand our offerings. We now market olive-oil soap in five varieties: regular, milk, honey, lemon and Dead Sea Mud. And we have recently gone into basketry.
On October 24, we held a festive opening for all who have been interested in Sindyanna. Our guests visited a modern oil press at the village of Iksal, watching as the olives went into a chute on one end and liquid gold poured out at the other. Then all attended an elaborate Ramadan break-fast, prepared by the Sindyanna staff in the main room of our building.
Here are some of the latest developments:
1. In September we received a first experimental shipment of the enriched olive-oil soap mentioned above. It is sold in decorative packages of four bars. Almost all of it has already been ordered by customers in Europe and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the sale of the regular soap continues.
2. Also in September, we sent Oxfam in Belgium 10,000 jars, at 80 grams each, of Syrian marjoram, known in Arabic as za’atar, which we buy from a women’s cooperative in Jenin. It was the second shipment this year. (The first has sold out.) Next year we expect a 50% rise in za’atar orders from Belgium.
3. At September’s end, Sindyanna’s director Hadas Lahav visited Europe for a series of meetings with partners and potential customers. The partners included fair-trade groups in Holland, Belgium and Italy. Lahav was invited by L’altrameta, an Italian organization located in Sacile beside Venice, to participate in a symposium on Fair Trade. The event was part of a festival knows as Salam Shalom, which takes place each year in the region. As part of its presentation, Sindyanna screened a seven-minute film on its work (made in conjunction with Video 48), which is available in DVD format.
4. The olive harvest has begun, and as expected, it does not promise to be plentiful. This is in stark contrast with 2004, when the trees produced well. The scarcity has already spurred a price increase of 40%. The decline in Israel and the West Bank coincides with a global crisis in the olive sector, caused by a decline in the output of Spain, the world’s leading olive oil producer. 
www.challenge-mag.com/en/article__83/a_landmark_year
02.12.2008, 09:12