In honor of International Women’s Day and the publication of the book, To My Sister: Mizrachi Feminist Politics, SHATIL’s Economic Empowerment Projects Coordinator, Yosepha Tabib-Calif, addressed a special event at the Jerusalem Cinematheque: “Mizrachi Feminism as an Instigator of Social Change in Israel.” A chapter on Women Cook up a Business, which Tabib-Calif co-founded with Kol HaIsha and Achoti before coming to SHATIL, appears in the book. The International Women’s Day event was co-sponsored by Jerusalem’s multi-cultural feminist center, Kol HaIsha, the Mizrachi feminist organization Achoti (My Sister,) the Barbur Gallery and the Jerusalem Cinematheque and featured the prize-winning documentary film Hide and Seek, about a group of women in a distressed neighborhood who produce a play that expresses the difficulties in their lives. 

Appearing on a panel, Tabib-Calif spoke about the day-to-day feminism that women who take the entrepreneurial cooking course internalize. “This isn’t the feminism that is studied academically but it is alive and kicking nonetheless,” she said. “It turns the potentially oppressive kitchen, the venue of invisible, uncompensated work, into an income-producing business.”