A moment of breath.
Hila and Naama from Samaria/Rotem Darov
This damn war will mark half a year before we understand what is happening here at all, how terrible.
And all this time large parts of Israeli citizens are still serving in the reserves right from the seventh or eighth of October.
After many months that this wonderful people mobilized to help all the soldiers wherever they were, the evacuees and the injured, a broader observation began about the necessary needs and especially who needed help.
Today, months after the start of the war and the recruitment of the reserves, many local authorities offer help specifically to the daughters and the couples who were left behind, the wife who takes care of several small children without any help or the father whose wife is also in the reserves.
And yes, also such and other private initiatives that only want to do good.
Such a wonderful initiative is that of Asif - the Center for Food Culture in Israel, a non-profit organization whose goal is to document the country's rich culinary culture.
The initiative is actually fascinating and indulgent food and culinary tours (and of course very tasty) for the daughters and spouses of the many reservists who are still on duty.
"At the beginning of the war, like everyone else, we cooked and went down to the field," says Chiko Menashe, CEO of Asif, "but suddenly we started hearing other voices from the field, soldiers telling us, 'We are already fine, we are being taken care of, we receive good food regularly and good conditions . Do you want to help us and that our hearts will be quiet? Take care of the daughters of our couple who were left behind. We wondered how we can help and came to these enriching and professional tours. The help here is twofold - also of course to show that we are thinking of those who were left behind in the home country, but also to support the tour guides themselves who make a living from them and in fact they too were financially harmed."
Apart from the seventh of October.
Tova and Haya from Modi'in/Rotem Drov
"Our wildest pastime was neighborhood gatherings in the evenings. We weren't in the mood to do anything, certainly not fun days, but suddenly I felt that we also needed to vent for a moment"
The tours themselves are held all over the country under the title "Marching on their Stomach" - from the Talfiot market in Haifa through the Mahane Yehuda camp in Jerusalem, and also in Tel Aviv on the Neve Shanan complex or the Levinsky market, where I arrived to join one of the meetings.
I am waiting at the meeting point for the participants and David Kishka, the tour guide, a foodie in every inch of his body and also the head of the Israeli Association for Culinary Culture. They arrive in pairs from all over the country after months and months of chasing their own tails, home-work-children-work and worry To the servant couple, of course.
Tova and Haya from Modi'in are good friends and in their early thirties. The husbands were drafted already on the seventh of October and have not been home since. Haya, for example, has five-year-old twins and a one-and-a-half-year-old girl. "The community is very supportive," they note, "without her We wouldn't last.
We heard about the tour in the WhatsApp group intended for the women of myloamines.
We are really excited because even though the Levinsky market is not that far away, we have never visited it."
Hila and Naama from Samaria also show excitement. "Our wildest pastime was neighbor meetings in the evenings," they laugh, "we were not in the mood to do anything, certainly not fun days , but suddenly it felt to me that we too need a moment to air out, a second break to breathe."
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Surprise box with an excellent lunch deal
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the kings of the market
Kishka (in the middle), next to Micah and Yossi, second and third generation in Burks Levinsky/Rotem Drov
The market is still not as busy as it knows how to be, but all around the places are full - spice shops that you won't find anywhere else, the crackers roasting houses with their delightful smell and of course the stalls and restaurants.
Kishka juggles the place, saying hello to everyone who passes by on the street or peeks out of a car window.
First stop at Burks Levinsky, one of the best you'll ever taste, on to the mythical habush spices, through the Yom Tov deli and of course Bnei Briga's cut, a glass full of special herbal extracts that he concocts himself, with herbs and edible flowers.
They don't sit down to eat a whole meal, the majority are standing, and move from place to place.
The business owners go out of their way to pamper the crowd, here a bite of Japanese onigiri, there a tasting of Borax and of course special cheeses.
The participants enjoy themselves, but remember.
"My husband loves places like this. He doesn't have the energy to sit in a restaurant during the vacations he gets, he likes to walk around and taste, not rest," many of them say, wanting to eat more and more places and discover more alleys around, and promise to come back, when he comes back.
And another little something for Instagram.
At Cafe Lewinsky with the trimmings of Briga/Rotem Drov
"As far as I'm concerned, this is the nation of Israel at its best, because the reserves are really a wide range"
Kishka gives his side to an event that has no equal anywhere in the world.
"At the beginning of the war, all the tours were canceled completely, and even so I volunteered to cook for the families of evacuees and abductees with the Attilio cooking school. The tours slowly returned, mainly to delegations from the United States who came to support and see the Gaza Strip and on the way to get a culinary angle to daily life, and suddenly I noticed that Israelis started arriving Also," he said, "besides English or French, fun days were arranged for employees, for example."
According to him, "Assif's blessed initiative gives the women a little breather, something really for them. This matter of markets in the urban space - eat a little, talk a little, ventilate a little - suits them perfectly. I see the meaning that food took on during the war, the relationship of people to food And the longing for comforting, homely food and something that goes beyond seasonality. For me, this is the nation of Israel at its best, because the reservists are really a wide range - from big cities, from Judea and Samaria, from small towns and cities and much more, really from anywhere in the country."
"Not for the detached".
Tour "Walking on their stomachs" in the Levinsky/Rotem Drov market
He explains that he does not take chefs from abroad to eat Japanese food in the market, "but these women do, because I want to show them the experience itself." According to him, "This is not a tour of cut offs who decided to eat and drink and the world will die."
In the end, he emphasized, He must "introduce whoever he is," as he defined it. "I ask what's going on with the husband, how are you doing in the meantime, and at the end cheer for the safe return of the abductees and the soldiers.
Even if the tour takes place two days after a lot of casualties on the front, they still come to enjoy the moment.
There's a little bit of everything, pioneering and a lot of soul, and it's a tour that wasn't right for anyone else, just for them."
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Levinsky market
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