Collective Effort: The Women of the Old City in Hebron
Hebron’s Old City Women Group was founded during the second intifada and has made life in the area more bearable for many. And not only beacuse of their baked goods
The crudity of the place is felt from the moment you step into the old city. I began searching for the address of the women gathering place just as Zleikha described it to me. I was not certain I was in the right place, and all-around people were watching the stranger. Someone immediately approached and asked me what I was looking for, there are not many strangers in that area other than some tourists and foreign activists on the main road leading to the Ibrahimi Mosque. Usually, the Palestinian residents of the old city and the Israeli settlers – who sometimes live in the same building – are used to seeing familiar faces. It’s a different world here.
Hebron might be the roughest part to live in the West Bank. Following an accord between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in 1997, Hebron was divided to H1 – comprising 80% of the city spread and under Palestinian jurisdiction; and H2 – the remaining 20% of the city’s area, which is under Israeli jurisdiction, there are also five Israeli settlements within H2.
Three years after the accord , during the second intifada, was signed, moving around the old city was a nightmare and extremely dangerous for children. Zlikha Muhtasab decided to start a small kindergarten and community center that would turn into a much bigger operation.
Zleikha is a human rights activist from the old city where she still resides and operates. She believes that children and women are the community pillars, and that investing in them will change the city and it’s future.
The center was established in the aim of easing the stressful lives of both parents and children suffering from a certain void. There was a need for social and mental support and the center became a means of escape for children and women. It held programs fighting illiteracy, summer camps, recreational activities, craft and art workshops, family planning programs and other successful educational initiatives.
Zlikha’s original initiative is now the Old City Women’s Group that focuses on encouraging women to be more active and productive. The group has helped keep girls from underprivileged families in school and last year the women began making sweets and baked goods to raise money. They later started selling home cooked food – all of this through workshops in which the women learned to make pastries and perfect their cooking skills. The immense need for stability and sharing of ideas helped create a unique social bond within the group. They now take orders over the phone or through their Facebook page. They emphasize how much the tourism in Hebron has helped the business and note that the presence of travelers and foreign activists means that they are getting much better at preparing vegetarian and vegan food.
One the women said she prepared pastries for her family who were so impressed they now happily help with the food preparations. I could see the joy brought by this enterprise; the women are now active in their community achieving many goals such as art works on the Separation Wall between the Shuhada street and the old city and many other educational initiatives.
For them to truly voice themselves and make a change, they need constant support from the local community.