words and photos by Melissa Muller Daka

In the fertile, tree-lined hills that surround Zemer, an Arab village in Israel, an aging Palestinian matriarch, Fataheyya Qaedan, has foraged for wild herbs with her female relatives since her youth. Among the edible delicacies that grow in the Levant, one aromatic shrub, called “za’atar” in Arabic, occupies a special place in her heart. But every time this grandmother treks up the hills to collect this coveted herb, she is breaking Israeli law, as she was unpleasantly reminded recently when bundles of za’atar were seized from her car by the police. She was fined 500 shekels, nearly $135.