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Food Communities on Facebook Emancipate Israeli-Arab women

When you mix Israeli-Arab cuisine with Facebook and social media, you get the perfect recipe for empowering both young and older women, writes Michal Aharoni.
A woman prepares bread for Palestinian and foreign activists protesting against what they say is Israel's denial of access to their farmland, in the village of Khirbet Zakaria, near the settlement bloc of Gush Etzion, February 4, 2013. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (WEST BANK - Tags: POLITICS FOOD CIVIL UNREST) - RTR3DC5V
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Recipe: 1 kilo flour, 1 tablespoon active dry yeast, 1 heaping teaspoon salt, 1 heaping teaspoon sugar, 1 cup olive oil and lukewarm water. Mix the dry ingredients and then add the wet ingredients. Allow the dough to rise for as long as possible, even overnight. Then roll, cut into squares and fill with meat or chickpeas. Deep fry, and you have sambusak.

I learned to make sambusak on Facebook. Maisa Usama Bishara, a lawyer from Baka al-Gharbia, posted a picture of sambusak and I immediately asked for the recipe. She sent me a link to a community called Mtbkhnaa [kitchen], predominantly made up of Arab women from around Israel and is dedicated solely to cooking. The community’s page has earned more than 14,000 Likes, and the group grows from day to day just through Facebook connections and word of mouth.

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