Paths of Power: Traditional Palestinian Women Healers in Israel

Abstract

This article presents a coping path currently available to Palestinian women in Israel—the vocation of traditional healing. Traditional healing is, by and large, considered as an acceptable vocation in the Palestinian society in Israel, even as a women’s vocation. It is identified with folk culture and local ethnicity, with common theories of disease and medicinal herbs that are part of the local landscape. The traditional women healers are considered by most of their community members as experts of the accepted values— collectivism and patriarchy—and are crowned as agents of socialization and acculturation for younger women. Although traditional healing is identified, in many ways, with the past, with conservatism and authenticity, for Palestinian women in Israel, it comprises a coping path also in the current, liberal and global reality. This path utilizes a culturally accepted way for Palestinian women to realize exceptional independence, influence and power. On the individual level, the vocation of traditional healing provides the women healers a route to self-realization, personal power, and enhanced self-esteem. On the social level, it provides the women healers with authority and influence among their families, their patients and to a certain extent, among the community at large. The current article examines the coping means which the vocation of traditional healing offers to Palestinian women in Israel. It commences with a description of traditional healing among Palestinians in Israel, of the coping paths available to Muslim women in the Middle East and a methodological survey. Subsequently, the article presents the coping means that traditional healing provides women while distinguishing between