Before Motal started her tourism business, she was a retired preschool teacher. At 65, she says, she has found her true calling.
By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMANShoshana Karbasi in her ‘great dress.’(photo credit: MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN)
Efrat Giat was a successful tour guide until, at the age of 36, she decided to marry a shepherd from Ein Kerem.Giat and her husband quickly started having children – afraid she would be too old to have a large family. After the first four of her now five children were born, she realized she could no longer work outside the home. She assumed this meant giving up her once exciting career.“I found myself always doing for the children and neglecting myself,” says Giat on a recent tour of her Ein Kerem home, where she raises a dozen goats and produces her own cheese and other farm-fresh delicacies.However, five years ago her career was reinvigorated when she became a “home-based tour guide,” welcoming visitors into her home to eat her food and to hear the stories of her husband’s Yemenite family.The older Giats moved to Israel around the time of the founding of the state and built their lives in Ein Kerem with two goats and a slice of land provided by Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund. Her mother-in-law gave birth to all her children in Giat’s current home, which at the time was only one room with no electricity or running water.Giat has hosted groups of up to 50 people from Israel and all over the world.Efrat Giat (photo credit: MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN)“It gives me something to look forward to when the kids are at school,” she says. “And it is nice to bring home money, too.”Giat is part of “Women and Tales in Jerusalem,” a social tourism program co-sponsored by the Tourism Ministry and the Jerusalem Municipality, which enables a peek into the worlds of local Israeli women and a taste of their fascinating folklore and life stories. The program started five years ago in Ein Kerem and enriches the Israeli tourism product with authentic at-home tourism encounters, empowers women and facilitates small home-based businesses.“In a world that is becoming so automated and virtual, everything is so impersonal,” says Mina Genem, senior deputy director-general of strategy and policy planning for the Tourism Ministry. “This program is about meeting people, and Israel has all kinds of people from all over the world.”In Ein Kerem, there are a dozen women who take part in the program. Each woman owns her private business, but the participants collaborate and co-host as makes sense for the visitors.Dalia Harfoof offers a window into her Kurdish history and culture through an authentic Kurdish cooking workshop in which she prepares kubbeh soup and sambusak, Kurdish turnover pastries.Shoshana Karbasi is a poet and storyteller, who shares the legacy of the women of Morocco and Spain through tales of demons, ancient jewelry and charms, and a performance of Jewish lullabies and other songs in the dying language of the Jewish people of Morocco and Spain.Karbasi welcomes her guests in a “great dress,” worn as a bridal and festive dress by urban Spanish Jewish women (descendants of the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492) in Morocco. She explains that the original dress was made of metal thread-embroidered velvet, which was very different from the dress of the local Muslims and became an identity mark of the urban Spanish Jews and a source of pride. Karbasi’s dress was made in Israel and is a lighter-weight replica.Similarly, at Mazal Motal’s home, guests are greeted with the sound of the Yemenite drum and a petite older woman dressed in traditional Yemenite garb, including a vintage Beduin headdress.Mazal Motal at the ‘Sweet Yemenite, Spicy Workshop’ on Yemenite foods and spices (photo credit: MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN)In addition to her songs, Motal runs “Sweet Yemenite, Spicy Workshop” on Yemenite foods and spices, teaching guests how to grind fresh hot pepper, garlic, cumin, coriander salt and cilantro, along with a touch of water to produce the traditional Yemenite seasoning mixture eaten with fish or bread. She also offers henna workshops.Before Motal started her tourism business, she was a retired preschool teacher. At 65, she says, she has found her true calling.“I feel like I am able to be my authentic self during these workshops,” she says. “It brings me back to the warmth of my childhood, and I love that I can share the good old days.”The Women and Tales in Jerusalem program is the brainchild of Women in Jerusalem project manager Yael Kurlander, who presented the idea to Orly Ben Aharon, adviser to Mayor Nir Barkat on the advancement of women, after Kurlander visited China with her husband, where they were hosted by a local couple.“It was for us our ‘wow moment,’ and I understood this is something that I have to do in Jerusalem,” she says.At the same time, Ben Aharon was working in the mayor’s office, where Barkat always talked about the 10 million tourists who visit Jerusalem each year.“I was thinking, ‘What can we do for women to promote income and to help them be a part of the tourism community?’” Ben Aharon recalls.When the first meeting for the project was advertised, the planners expected around 20 women to register to learn more. In the end, 200 people attended information sessions in two days, said Genem. Today, there are 60 women throughout Jerusalem who take part in the project. One-third of them are from the haredi sector, and another 10 are part of the Israeli Arab community.Ben Aharon says the program empowers women who either never worked or were forced to retire. The women make between NIS 4,000 and NIS 8,000 a month, depending on how often they host and the season. The proceeds also help support the city through tax money. All home visits are operated on the books, the women billing as independent contractors or through their neighborhood community centers.Tzivia Birnbaum works in one of the local community centers in the Bukharan Quarter. She has helped enlist several haredi women from the neighborhood and surrounding areas to host guests.“It enriches women in the neighborhood, gives them more self-esteem, and besides that, they need more income,” she says.There are haredi women who play music, provide home-cooked meals, or offer tours of the historic haredi neighborhoods. There is even one woman who hosts a sewing workshop for traditional hassidic garb.“Certain people who are in our community might not understand what we are doing or how we are doing it,” says Naomi Miller, one of the haredi participants.“But we are interested in showing our love for human beings, as human beings.”Miller, a mother of seven and grandmother of 13, offers halla or Jerusalem kugel baking, or a workshop in which participants can learn the art of Shabbat candlewick making. She also serves a traditional Shabbat meal, including cholent, for around NIS 150 per person.“If the children see that people come to see us, they think what we are doing is special,” says Miller, who feels she is making a “kiddush Hashem” (sanctifying God’s name) through her outreach.“The best way to see and feel what haredim are all about is to come and see for yourself,” she says.In the nearby neighborhood of Beit Safafa, Samira Aliyan says something similar about the Israeli Arab community. She says that when she learned about the program, she could not wait to get involved, because “I love to cook, and I love that people will come and taste the food and be happy.”She also believes that the project is a pathway to greater coexistence.“There are those that come and have never met an Arab,” she says. “I want to give them the full picture. I love all people and believe we are all one people. If you never sat with me, then how can you know me?” Ben Aharon says the program has brought the women in each community together in different ways.In Ein Kerem, the women lived near each another and passed each other in the supermarket, but they didn’t really have relationships prior to Women and Tales in Jerusalem. Now, they feel they are in this together.“It has created a stronger community here,” Ben Aharon says.Furthermore, a few times a year, the municipality hosts trainings for all of the women participants.“The ultra-Orthodox, religious, secular and Arab women now have relationships, too,” says Ben Aharon.“In the beginning they didn’t understand they had so much in common.... All that these women want to do is raise their families and do what they love.”“The money has not changed my life,” says Harfoof. “What has changed my life is the people.”
Related Tagswomen of israel
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store