The gift that keeps on giving

How Juha’s Guesthouse helped revive the coastal village of Jisr e-Zarka.

By RACHEL MYERSON
A view of Jisr e-Zarka (photo credit: VERED SHAHAF)
A view of Jisr e-Zarka
(photo credit: VERED SHAHAF)
In January 2014, a Jewish-Israeli woman and an Arab-Israeli man opened a guest house together.
At its inception, Juha’s Guesthouse received a large amount of positive media attention, partially due to its victory in the social business competition sponsored by Bank Hapoalim and the newspaper Yediot Aharonot. The main media pull, however, was Juha’s location: in Jisr e-Zarka, a humble fishing village only a 30-minute stroll from Caesarea and the only Arab village on the Israeli coast of the Mediterranean Sea, isolated not only from its neighbors but also from the wider Arab community. Such seclusion accounted for much of Jisr e-Zarka’s economic struggles, placing the village among the poorest in Israel. Juha’s Guesthouse was set to change all that.
I turned to the mastermind behind this initiative, Neta Hanien, to see how the guest house, and village, have fared over the past few years.
Both Hanien and co-founder Ahmad Juha boast the main ingredient to a successful enterprise in spades: passion. Juha, an entrepreneur and Jisr e-Zarka native, had a dream to improve the livelihoods of his neighbors and was making great strides by inviting Jewish Israelis to meet the locals during Ramadan, when he met Hanien. A scuba instructor turned prosecutor, Hanien was searching for a way out of law. “It was a very pessimistic job, I wanted to do something more hopeful.”
She first came across the village when accompanying her mother, a video editor, on a shoot about fishermen.
“I fell in love with the place and the people.
For me [Jisr e-Zarka] was really appealing, I liked the combination of authentic Arab culture with the great location of the beach.” The village was evocative of her own travel experiences, where small places suffering from lack of income were transformed through tourism.
It struck her that this off-the-beaten-track village was an ideal spot to cater to backpackers, who seek authentic experiences rather than fancy hotels.
Hanien’s vision was the final piece of the puzzle for locals, who had been told of their potential many times, but had no idea how to begin marketing their village to tourists, having rarely traveled and thus being unaware of the backpacking culture. “A local partner was very important,” explains Hanien, “someone to set an example for the rest of the village to show them that they can do it.”
And, they have done it. Almost three years on, Juha’s Guesthouse has turned Jisr e-Zarka from a forgotten village with no visitors – “Israelis were afraid to come, foreigners hadn’t heard of it” – into a tourist destination with an average of 2,000 residential guests a year and 3,000 more who come for day tours, in addition to those who visit the village independently on weekends, an entirely new phenomenon. The hostel won the TripAdvisor “Traveller’s Choice” award this year after rave reviews. “Everyone around us made us feel welcome and at home,” “the most interesting and inspiring initiative,” says Hanien.
Hanien and Juha collaborate with local businesses as much as possible, working with anyone who expresses an interest. They send guests to eat and for cooking workshops in local homes, or encourage them to prepare their own meals after sourcing ingredients in local grocery stores. Juha offers a volunteer program, in which guests can stay at the guest house for free in return for working within the community, be it teaching English in high schools or, as with Dana from New York who stayed for two months, creating wooden signs in English for local businesses, enabling visitors to navigate the village.
Perhaps the most successful outcome of the guest house has been its effect on local youth. Juha’s Young Leaders Program trains village youngsters to guide tours of Jisr e-Zarka in English, which, in addition to improving their language skills, has shown them to become more successful in their studies and more motivated.
Taglit-Birthright, which has been criticized for not showing the “whole picture” of Israel’s population, is bringing increasing numbers of Birthright groups to Jisr e-Zarka, where they see firsthand that there are places where Jews and Arabs are working together, and showing results. “It is very meaningful for both sides,” says Hanien. “We believe that working on personal relationships is the first step to bridging the gap. When you care about someone, it helps [the peace process].”
It is not only foreign visitors, however, who are touched by the happenings of Jisr e-Zarka. Hanien estimates that 40% of their visitors are Israelis, who are “so happy to find a place like this. They walk in the streets and are invited to local weddings and homes, it enables true and meaningful encounters.”
The proof of the pudding, however, is in the eating, and in business terms, this translates into numbers. After the guest house’s first year, 95% of its income was self-generated and Hanien is rightfully proud of their lack of dependence on third parties. They are, however, not yet profitable – though very close. The main reason for this seems to be external, namely terrorist incidents and wars. “When the tourist industry suffers,” explains Hanien, “we suffer even more, particularly when it is due to security. In an Arab village it has a bigger impact.” She is quick to state that Jews and Israelis are always very welcome in the village, which holds no “nationalist tendencies or instances.”
So, what’s next? Hanien and Juha hope to offer their help and business model to other projects in the near future.
While she acknowledges that Jisr e-Zarka has a beach “as an extra pull,” Hanien believes that their success has more to do with their story, and the people. “We can find a way to create an attractive and meaningful experience for tourists everywhere.”