In Western Negev, budding female entrepreneurs rebuild their communities, and themselves

After delaying for months due to fear of public speaking, Avital stood before a room full of women to tell her story.

As a younger woman without qualifications, Avital had joined an architectural firm as personal assistant to the boss, whose shouting and humiliating treatment had twice landed her in the hospital for panic attacks. After 17 years, she yelled back and handed in her notice, she recounted.

The 15 women listening were astounded. “Why didn’t you leave earlier?” asked one. “Why did your husband let you stay there?” inquired another. Her husband had told her to “find a way to cope,” Avital replied.

Finishing her talk, Avital, who has since found her dream job with a local soccer team, burst into tears of relief, as the other women clapped, cheered, and gathered around her in a group embrace.

Avital and the others were among more than 300 women from the western Negev region who are taking part in a new women’s empowerment program called Kumi (Rise) launched by Kylie Eisman Lifschitz, a Jerusalem-based lawyer and gender activist originally from Australia.

The six-month program comprises two conferences and 13 fortnightly sessions for groups of up to 30 women each in 11 localities in the region. Of 400 applicants, 330 women who were already active in their community, or wanted to become involved, made the cut for the (currently) free program.

Course speakers focus on skills such as branding and personal representation, effective communication, team building, leadership and crisis management, networking and partnerships, negotiation, fundraising, creative thinking, and above all, boosting self-confidence.

Besides giving participants practical entrepreneurship tools, the initiative encourages them to work strategically and to network to find female partners with the expertise they need. It also provides seed funding for projects.

This reporter attended the penultimate session of a group of women from the Merhavim Regional Council east of the Gaza periphery. During the meeting, two participants described their life experiences, and all were asked to fill in detailed forms about the projects they wanted to establish. Some were invited to pitch those projects. Most of the participants appeared to be in their 30s or 40s. Only some offered their last names when approached by The Times of Israel.

The facilitator was Dana Sameach, a charismatic spokesperson for the neighboring Bnei Shimon Regional Council. She shared how she had come to terms with the pressures of being the eldest child of immigrants from Iran.

Ostensibly ordinary women who had bonded over 12 meetings, the participants radiated inner strength. Some revealed extraordinary and often shocking details about their lives, ranging from loss, abandonment, domestic violence and rape to redemption, rehabilitation and success.

All of them had dreams, and some were starting to map out how to realize them.

Littal, from Peduim, a moshav outside Ofakim, described how fatal traffic accidents had robbed her of a brother when she was 17 and both parents when she was 24. She had a background in mental health and was now working with the elderly, but dreamed of helping others similarly bereaved and changing Israel’s driving culture, especially among youth.

“It took me a long time to understand that I’m capable, and to talk about my pain,” she said. “Kumi came at a time when I wanted to reassess my direction. I feel a need to go out and help and protect people, and Kumi has given me the tools and opened up potential for partnerships. ”

Sigal, whose soldier son was recently injured in the West Bank city of Jenin in an incident that also saw friends of his killed, wore torn denim shorts over colorful tights, along with multiple necklaces, rings and piercings. A counselor who tours kindergartens to act out stories, she was toying with organizing lectures during community hikes to boost mental and physical health.

Nitzan, who described her work as an environmental innovator, was eager to create special shelving in every moshav convenience store to promote local produce and crafts. She said this would encourage a circular economy, generate income for moshav residents, and enable them to see other, positive sides of their neighbors.

“They’ll discover, for example, that the annoying girl knows how to make excellent cupcakes, or that the prison officer is a talented ceramicist,” she explained.

Sitting in a corner alone to gather her thoughts, in her words, was Nof Yofi Amiel, a mother of three from Moshav Patish. Her brother Oz Davidian became a national hero on October 7, 2023, for rescuing some 120 terrified revelers under Hamas attack at the Nova festival near Kibbutz Re’im. Nof’s home, on the moshav’s periphery, was the first safe place reached by rescued partygoers.

Within hours of the terror attack, Nof’s husband was called up to the reserves, and she evacuated with her children and family dog to a kibbutz near Eilat, where she did not know anybody. “It was the women who helped us with everything, ” she recalled.

With a doctorate in physical education and sports and fluency in Arabic, she hoped to use her experience working with at-risk Bedouin youth at risk to build bridges between young Bedouin and Jews through sport.

Also from Moshav Patish were Yasmin, Sigal, and Dana, who were working together on a plan for a youth-run community cafe on the moshav in partnership with older members of the community. The young people, they said, had experienced turmoil in the aftermath of the Hamas attack and needed help to rebuild their resilience. The women said the moshav had rejected the cafe idea, but Kumi had given them the confidence to push ahead anyway.

One of the quieter women was Oria, a young Orthodox woman from Moshav Gilat, who spent two and a half years at Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikva with her toddler daughter, who was diagnosed with cancer (she has since recovered).

“She was very sick, and I felt so alone in the hospital,” Oria recalled. “I had worked with the families of autistic children, and they are very lonely too.” Her plan — she is looking for partners — is to create a holistic afternoon space for these families. “Kumi has given me the faith in myself that I can do this,” she said. “I’ve opened a business, and thanks to connections that Kumi helped me form, I will be working with autistic children in the Family Center in Ofakim.”

She added, “From someone who felt she had nothing, I feel like I’m bursting inside and have a channel for something I feel called to do.”

Among the most extroverted in the group was performer and radio personality Yaarit Cana, who had formed a bond with Helen Hajaj through Kumi.

Both are single mothers who had sunk to the depths of poverty and managed to pull themselves out of despair and onto success. They have already written a business plan for a new podcast for women to be called “Yalla, Kumi!” (“Come on, Rise Up!”), which will feature female success stories and create a database of women entrepreneurs to encourage business partnerships.

Hajaj said that without alimony, she had discovered online marketing as a source of income. Since being at Kumi, she had established a digital course to train other women in this field to become more economically independent.

Kumi founder Eisman Lifschitz, a mother of five, moved to Israel 27 years ago. She worked for a decade at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee before becoming active in the women’s rights field. She is a former chairwoman of Mavoi Satum, which supports women whose husbands refuse to grant them a divorce.

Eisman Lifschitz reeled off statistics showing how women are underrepresented at all levels of government, public life and business in Israel.

For example, women comprise just a quarter of Knesset members, 14 percent of ministers, and 6% of mayors.

According to the Jewish Funders Network, the median wage gap between men and women who are employed full-time is 25.4%, compared to an average of 12% among OECD countries, placing Israel second lowest out of 44 countries in gender wage inequality. The Finance Ministry puts the gap at 16% to 18%.

After the deadly Hamas invasion on October 7, 2023, when 1,200 people were murdered in southern Israel and 251 were abducted to the Gaza Strip, Eisman Lifschitz said she noticed that while women were playing an outsized role helping to rebuild their communities, few specific programs or philanthropic sources were available for them as a distinct group.

So she linked up with Supersonas, a platform that connects successful women and tries to get more women into leadership positions, and the Western Negev Cluster, an association owned by 11 regional and city municipalities.

She set up an organization called She Rise to raise donations for projects for women and girls, and created the Kumi program together with the councils. She has raised around NIS 1.5 million ($420,000) from the Jewish Federations of North America, the Schusterman Family Philanthropies-Israel, the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, and Applied Materials, a US-based tech firm.

“When the women first came here, there was a lot of hurt,” Eisman Lifschitz said.  “I set out to help them build community. But they often also need to build themselves, and carry trauma from before October 7. I’ve been involved with women’s leadership for a long time, and many women are asking how they should recalibrate in this difficult world.”

She said that women would largely determine whether evacuated families would return to their homes near the Gaza and northern borders, but were not being sufficiently consulted by decision-makers.

Women required more than safety, access to transportation, and employment opportunities; they also need community, and to rebuild a sense of belonging, she argued.

“Women’s needs are unique,” said Eisman Lifschitz, who hopes to expand Kumi to northern Israel. “They are not just small men. Women help make life more livable for us all. Enough of the volunteering; let’s get ourselves into positions of power and influence.”