'Abu Al-Rub' Coriander (Palestine)

Coriandrum sativum

Origin: Jalbun, West Bank, Palestine

Improvement status: Landrace

Seeds per packet: ~80

Germination tested 12/2025: 71%

Life cycle: Annual

This Palestinian family heirloom coriander was collected from farmer Ibrahiem Abu Al-Rub in the West Bank village of Jalbun (13 kilometers east of Jenin) in 2005 by Professor Khaled Hardan of Hebron University. He said he had received it from his father, and it was estimated at the time that it had been in his family for a century. We got the seeds for this coriander — which is a productive and tasty seed-type, though the leaves make for flavorful cilantro as well — on behalf of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library, from the USDA's National Plant Germplasm System, where it has been preserved for the past two decades along with many other herbs collected by Dr. Hardan. Jalbun, located near Mount Gilboa, is said to have been originally settled (centuries ago) by people from the Palestinian city of Qabatiya, located south of Jenin. The same family, also known as Dar Abu Rub, remains one of the four most prominent clans in Qabatiya, and is a prominent family in Jalbun as well. The entire region around Jenin, including both Jalbun and Qabatiya, have become major flashpoints in the Israeli government's attempt to fully annex the West Bank and destroy any hope of freedom for Palestinians.

As of this writing, the Jenin region and elsewhere in the north are rapidly headed toward the same sort of genocidal catastrophe orchestrated by Israel in Gaza since the Hamas-led massacres of October 7th, 2023. Over 50,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, including at least 12,000 children, with essentially a state of siege in place over the urbanized refugee camp cities of Jenin, Nur Shams, and Tulkarem. At the same time, armed settlers and the Israeli military routinely demolish homes, steal farmland, and harass, threaten or violently attack villagers across the region. And while this recent violence is horrifying, and marks a significant escalation, it is not at all new.

Simply by doing an online search for information about "Jalbun" and the "Abu al-Rub" family, one finds multiple cases of Israeli violence against civilians and can easily see a fundamental lack of freedom for Palestinians: 1) October 30th, 2005 - Mohammed Mustafa Abu al-Rub, 20, "wounded by shrapnel to the head"; 2) November 5th, 2005 - Mohammed Asa'ad Abu al-Rub, 14, "wounded by shrapnel to the right hand," and Sa'id Mohammed Abu al-Rub, 15, "wounded by shrapnel to the buttocks"; 3) April 8, 2009 - Israeli forces "kidnapped a Palestinian professor called Yousuf Abu Al-Rub from Jalbun"; 4) November 2, 2022 - "Israeli forces drove two military bulldozers into the village, where the heavy machinery demolished a 200-square-metre house that was under construction, belonging to Khaled Abul-Rub and a 120-square-metre house belonging to Amir Abu Seif", displacing his family of five; 5) October 30th, 2025 - Murad Abu Al-Rub, 45, is released after 20 years following a ceasefire deal, and he details to the press and human rights reporters his decades of mistreatment, including witnessing the deaths of 80 prisoners in just the past two years, in addition to deliberate malnutrition, medical neglect, and frequent violence: "The Special Forces would suddenly enter the rooms, armed and accompanied by police dogs, claiming that the prisoners had broken the rules when, in fact, there was nothing in the room to break the rules with—just mattresses and nothing else. They would begin to tie us up behind our backs, lower our heads, and beat us severely until we bled;” and to add insult to injury, he and his family were told he would be released to Jalbun, but at the last-minute he was deported to Egypt; 6) November 5th, 2023 - unarmed Palestinian physician Shamekh Kamal Abu al-Rub, 25, was shot and killed in an Israeli army raid on the town of Qabatiya; 7) In a news report from November of 2025, Jalbun Mayor Ibrahim Abu al-Rub (who may actually be the same person who provided these seeds in 2005) said that two Israeli army bulldozers stormed the town and demolished a 300-square-meter sheep pen in the southern part of the town belonging to Nimer Abu al-Rub, and also that occupation soldiers confiscated the identity card of Nimer Abu al-Rub's son after raiding his house; 8) Just a few weeks ago (as of this writing, on January 5th, 2026) Israeli authorities released a Palestinian detainee named Mohammad Khaled Yousef Abu Al-Rub, from the village of Jalbun, after two years of "administrative detention" in Israeli prisons — meaning he was held all that time without charge.

These are just a snapshot of what life is like for Palestinians in one small town in the West Bank, but they mirror the experiences of Palestinians across the occupied territories. For Palestinians, there is simply no freedom, no justice, and no hope of their situation improving. This is why the work of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library is so powerful: it helps to remind people around the world — many of whose governments, like our own, are complicit in the Israeli oppression of Palestine — that Palestinians are not the evil monsters portrayed by their Israeli oppressors. They are people of the land who want and deserve freedom. They want to plant the seeds of their beloved plants, just as all the rest of us to. They want to cook their beloved dishes with these plants. And they want to share them tenderly with the people they love.

These seeds were grown by our friend Leila Rezvani, co-owner and manager of Keshtyar Seed, based in Chesterfield, Massachusetts. Nate got to know them through participating in the Iraqi Seed Collective. 25% of the proceeds of these seeds will go to Leila and 25% will go to the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library to support their critically important work preserving a vital part of Palestinian culture in the face of political oppression, systematic violence, and cultural erasure.

GROWING TIPS: Direct-sow in early spring. Can be succession sown for greens.