Olives

Olives are one of the few foods I don't like. When I eat an olive, I feel like salt is slapping my tongue. Just the sight of olives are enough to make me start to cringe, but they are also a food that's in abundance here. Olive trees are native to Jordan, and you can find a healthy amount of them. Because of the amount of olive orchards here, there have been a couple of times when I took the scary step of consuming these fraudulent fruits, and I'm still alive to tell my tale.

Most of the times I consumed olives was at my host families house, where I wanted to ensure I graciously accepted what they offered me, but secretly grimaced when they weren't looking. There is one situation, and only one situation, in which I was actually excited to eat the olive set in front of me. This was for the Passover Seder hosted by CIEE students here in Jordan.

The Passover Seder is a Jewish ritual marking the holiday of Passover. The meal serves as a reminder of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt and of the slavery they had to endure before that. There are many symbols used throughout the Passover Seder, bitter herbs, wine (or in our case grape juice), Matzo (unleavened bread), and much more. In 2008 an organization called Jewish Voices for Peace proposed adding olives to the Seder feast. Jewish Voices for Peace is an organization that advocates for an end to occupation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Their addition of the olive is supposed to serve as a reminder of the struggle of Palestinians. It reminds people of the Mount of Olives, but also of the destruction of these long held symbols for peace amongst the violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The destruction of olive trees isn't the only effect the war has created. Over half of the population in Jordan is Palestinian. Whenever you ask somebody here where there from, the majority of the time you either get the answer "Jordanian-Jordanian" or "Jordanian-Palestinian". Dissecting the feelings of identity in the Arab world, and especially how it takes form in Jordan, is an in-depth topic, but the implication of having so many Palestinians in Jordan is clear. One of the consequences of this is that there are no longer any Jews in Jordan. There are Arab Jews throughout the world, but the stories of Arab Jews in Amman are told in past tense. There are a lot of people in Jordan who welcome people no matter what their background, for example the CIEE staff who welcomed the idea of a Jewish ritual feast to be held in their crammed office. Still, a lot of people in Jordan don't distinguish between Zionism (the belief in an ordained nation-state in the Holy Land) and Judaism. This means that Jewish people here usually have the choice of not mentioning their religious identity or risking their safety by publicly admitting their faith.

One of the hard parts about being abroad is running into things you don't like, sometimes in the simple form of an olive. As hard as I have it, I can only imagine how much harder it would be to run into situations where your religious identity could put you at risk. My friends are a shining example of how to confront these problems. They took a situation where they were away from home and their community and they hosted a Passover Seder that welcomed everybody. That night, eating an olive was exciting because I know it was a small gesture compared to what my friends were doing. It reminded me that not everything about going abroad is easy, or delicious. There are challenges and bitter experiences along the way. Yet sometimes partaking in those experiences allow us to learn, grow, and welcome others into our lives. Eating the olive was a reminder that these experiences can happen anywhere. It could be simple, like trying a new food. Or maybe it's doing more research on the Israel-Palestine conflict, or confronting anti-Semitism or Islamaphobia in America. No matter what it is, the experience of confronting those things we are uncomfortable with are sure to reveal complexities and intricacies that exist beneath what we originally perceive.

At the end of the Passover Seder, there's a phrase that's used by many people: "next year in Jerusalem". It expresses a sentiment that next year there will be peace in the world, that next year things will be better, that everybody can be safe. It was originally perplexing to think about the phrase "next year in Jerusalem". Many of us had been to Jerusalem, and the thought of meeting there for a Seder next year simultaneously revealed to us of how dispersed we would be in the coming year, and how there was so much sadness and pain surrounding our physical location. I realized next year I would be far away from the loads of olives, but I also recognized how my friends had created a space for everybody to come together, to be at peace, and to be open about who you were in a tiny room on the fifth floor of a building in Amman. I realized that in its own way, we were in Jerusalem, and as long as I remembered the olive the coming year I could take that piece of Jerusalem with me where ever I go.