Table to Table

Today, for a post-Purim recovery activity, we went to pick oranges. This was part of a program called Table to Table that tries to put food waste to use in Israel. Part of the project involves picking up unused meals from office buildings and banquet halls and such. The other part of the program is called L'lechet, and derives from the Jewish tradition of leaving a portion of the harvest to those in need. Table to Table goes around Israel harvesting the leftovers, and gives them to food banks, soup kitchens, homeless shelters and non-profits. Particularly in the economic downturn, a lot of crops go unharvested. Because the export market is demanding less from Israel, more is put into the domestic market, which drives down the price of produce in Israel. This is great from a wanting to eat standpoint, but for farmers, it means that at a certain point paying people to harvest their crop puts them at a loss, because they can't sell it for enough. As a result, more is left unharvested.

We worked in a field that belonged to a lawyer who donated the entire thing to growing free food. There were 90 dunim (I have no idea what a dunim is), and potatos, beets, turnips, avocado, oranges, and pretty much anything one might want. We harvest oranges.

I really enjoyed climbing up into the trees with the huge sack slung across my back, twisting off huge gorgeous oranges (which were very tasty), and then lugging them back to the pallets that a tractor was picking up. But it was something of a fun game for me. It got me thinking about all of the migrant workers in the states, who do backbreaking labor day in and day out. It's a game for me, it's a meager existance for them. It was interesting to have my latest academic research (Hispanic immigration to the US and New Orleans, the latter of which was spearheaded by United Fruit Company) dovetail with the work I am doing here.

Israeli oranges are delicious. And my hands still smell like oranges.