Flowers of the desert

Negev Beduin communities are opening their doors to welcome guests over Succot for the third annual ‘desert magic’ festival.

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
Attendees take part in a short workshop on turning rosemary and olive oil into a skin treatment with mortar and pestle, at the Desert Daughter workshop in Tel Sheva (photo credit: SETH J. FRANTZMAN)
Attendees take part in a short workshop on turning rosemary and olive oil into a skin treatment with mortar and pestle, at the Desert Daughter workshop in Tel Sheva
(photo credit: SETH J. FRANTZMAN)
Did you know that if you take a mortar and pestle, add some olive oil, rosemary and beat the mixture, warm it up and let it cool, you’ll end up with a cosmetic treatment that can be applied to the skin? It might make you question why cosmetics are so outrageously expensive. It could also lead you to appreciate traditional cosmetics of the kind made in the Middle East for generations.
The mortar-and-pestle workshop was on offer at Mariam Abo-Rkeek’s workshop and business called “Desert Daughter” in Tel Sheva in the northern Negev.
In one large room lined with wooden shelves, Abo- Rkeek shows off dozens of jars, baskets and ceramics full of various spices and dried fruits. These are the basis for various local medicines, curatives, cosmetics and other traditions of the Beduin of the Negev. There is also a long table full of square tan soap made from camel milk. There are small boxed and wrapped portions of patchouli soap with nigella seeds.
“It cleans and calms the skin,” a sign says.
Soap from camel’s milk on display at the workshop (photo credit: SETH J. FRANTZMAN)
Soap from camel’s milk on display at the workshop (photo credit: SETH J. FRANTZMAN)
Two weeks ago Abo-Rkeek, resplendent in a traditional Beduin dress with purple and red geometric shapes knitted onto a black background, greeted a scrum of visitors to her Beduin tent and workshop. She is taking part in the “Kesem Hamidbar” (Desert Magic) festival of the Negev that will take place over Succot from October 18 to 24. It is the third year the festival is on offer.
“Come for an authentic experience for the whole family,” says the brochure: culinary, festive nights, tours and workshops for adults and kids. It’s the third year of this event, which is funded by the Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry, the Negev Development Authority, the Welfare Ministry and the Authority for Developing the Economy of Minorities.
Spread over 50 km. from Rahat to Tel Arad, the festival combines six sites this year. There is a welcome ceremony in Rahat on the 18th, workshops at Desert Daughter in Tel Sheva on the 19th, dancing and events in the Lahav Forest and at the Joe Alon Center the next day. This is followed by events in Hura, Lakiya and Darajat.
Some of the events have a fee. For instance, Darajat, a small Arab community not far from Tel Arad, is offering a tour and a meal (either breakfast or dinner) for NIS 88.
With a simple mortar and pestle, one can make all sorts of cosmetics and treatments in a traditional manner (photo credit: SETH J. FRANTZMAN)
With a simple mortar and pestle, one can make all sorts of cosmetics and treatments in a traditional manner (photo credit: SETH J. FRANTZMAN)
While Negev Beduin communities such as Tel Sheva and Lakiya are opening their doors to local businesses for Succot, the struggle many of these communities face is apparent immediately upon driving into them. Tel Sheva has wide streets and, like most Beduin towns, was built and planned in the 1970s and 1980s.
However, some new neighborhoods are a mix of nice houses and streets half blocked with dirt and junked cars. Waze is sometimes inaccurate. For instance, to find Abo-Rkeek’s shop Waze takes you to the rear entrance, a dead-end roundabout. The actual entrance is via a dirt road. Abo-Rkeek promises to fix the issue by opening night. But it is not Waze’s fault that many of these communities lack proper services and investment from local councils.
“We aim to provide authentic tourism, sustainable development and to help the local economy in the Beduin sector,” says Yarona Ben-Shalom Richardson, the director of Collective Impact, which is involved in supporting the festival. Ben-Shalom Richardson is from Omer, a Jewish community that borders several of the Beduin towns north of Beersheba.
“We have 500,000 people in the Negev and 220,000 of them are Beduin. Half of this [Beduin] society is under age 18. Tel Sheva, for instance, has 18,000 people and you can see the major changes and strengthening of the community,” she says.
For Abo-Rkeek the journey to entrepreneurship went through the UK. She was born near Tel Sheva and used to have to walk 8 km. by foot every day to attend school. Her grandmother knew traditional healing methods and provided advice for locals.
“When I was growing up I didn’t want to do what she did, I wanted to go to university,” recalls Abo-Rkeek.
Eventually she ended up studying in the UK, the first Beduin woman from Israel to do so. When she returned, she wanted to start a business and she reconnected with her family’s roots in traditional cosmetics and medicine.
She also aims to inspire local women and show them that they can find financial security through entrepreneurship.
This is a society in which women face many hurdles to working on their own or running a business, and Abo-Rkeek hopes her personal story can inspire others.
Leaving behind Abo-Rkeek’s workshop, we drove through the oven-like desert heat to Lakiya. Founded in 1985, and with a population of more than 12,000 today, the town is close to the Green Line. One of the business ventures hosting tourists this year is Asad al- Asad’s traditional plant nursery. He is from one of the largest families in the Negev and grew up in an unrecognized village north of Lakiya.
Asad al-Asad at his traditional nursery in Lakiya (photo credit: SETH J. FRANTZMAN)
Asad al-Asad at his traditional nursery in Lakiya (photo credit: SETH J. FRANTZMAN)
“When I was a kid, my dad would show me places in which certain plants grew,” al-Asad recalls. Camel milk would taste different if they foraged in specific areas or on specific plants. So six years ago al-Asad decided to take his family’s traditions and expertise and put them into a plant nursery. Located on the main road of Lakiya, his Mishtelet Hanegev (Negev Plant Nursery) has traditional medicinal herbs and spices and other plants. It also has a Beduin greeting tent and antique farming tools. This year he intends to host groups in the tent for special events, including lectures on medicinal spices and traditions of the region. It will be open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Driving out of Lakiya and looking back at the Negev from the hills that ascend as one drives northward toward Jerusalem, one can see the promise of this region.
Israelis of the 1950s spoke of making the desert bloom.
The desert is still a desert, but within the Beduin communities around Beersheba, there is a blooming in entrepreneurship and support for these kinds of festivals that encourage local traditions and businesses is a first step toward a different kind of harvest.
Succot provides an opportunity for intercultural exchange and the blossoming of relations in this key area of the country.
For more information: www.kesem-hamidbar.co.il