Our olive wood buttons featured in the Street Taita collection are handmade by Omar Shalash. This is the journey of Omar and his "Christ's Gown" buttons in his own words:
When my uncle was making his way to the goat “storage” house, he moved some of the stuff lying around obstructing the path to where some pieces of wood were reclined on the wall. He pointed at the chunk of wood, looked at me, then said, "This tree is older than Christ.”
His shocking choice of words was not purposely to insult or ridicule any religion or faith, rather, he was simply expressing a historical scientific fact; that the age of the olive tree from which these woods were cut is estimated to be 2,300 years old, meaning that it was older, in years, than Christ himself.
Belonging to a land owned by the Khoury family in Arraba, this olive tree stood for thousands of years to witness the rich history of the road between the villages of Arraba and Deir Hanna, where Sakhnin and Deir Hanna form the “triangle of Land Day” in Lower Galilee, Northern Palestine.
In 1994, this tree was uprooted to pave the way for a new street in that area. My uncle, Dr. Hatem Kanaana, acquired it. He split into parts; some were used to decorate his garden, and he kept the others to eventually use them in making furniture for his house.
Narratives about Christ may vary; narratives about his birth, his upbringing to his crucifixion, and also about the paths he took or even the places from which he passed. However, no matter how different Christ’s narratives were, they will all agree on the fact that this olive tree, along with its companion trees, ornamented his journey in the Galilee from Nazareth to Tiberias.
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