עברית
What is the secret of the magic that connects people, what binds two to the joint creation of a relationship, partnership, and business?
What wonderful emotion makes people do things with a shared passion, and what secret spices does each couple add to the creation and the relationship? Don’t get confused, not everything is rosy in the paradise of business relationships!
Below are the stories of Galilean couples who discuss whether it is even recommended to combine work and relationship, where they “escape” after work, and more behind-the-scenes stories of couples at work and in life.
Bahar Center — Hosting & Workshops in Hararit — Dalia & Boaz Ben Izhak
1. As a couple who works together, would you recommend it? Why?
It is not suitable for every couple, but it works well for us. From the beginning of our journey, we have been together in all kinds of ventures.
2. After work hours, what do you like to do together at home?
We spend a lot of time together with friends. We are very sociable types and our house is always open to our loved ones.
We also love to read and study together.
3. If you were tourists for a day, where would you “escape” to celebrate something special together?
A place with a good atmosphere and not crowded, with the possibility of hanging out or being out in nature together, completely disconnected.
4. Do you bring your work home with you at the end of the day or do you manage to separate it from household affairs?
Yes, work is part of our conversations. Sometimes inspiration, ideas, difficulties, and thoughts for planning for the future arise when we are at home.
5. What is the most romantic thing you have done for your partner?
Admittedly, we are not romantic types.
Philharmonic In The Countryside — David & Dana Gru
1. As a couple who works together, would you recommend it? Why?
We recommend it because it teaches how to complement each other. Each with their unique abilities and talents and together they add up to something more interesting/stronger/bigger than anyone alone would have been able to create or experience.
2. After work hours, what do you like to do together at home?
Sit outside and enjoy the gorgeous nature and views of the Galilee. Sometimes to summarize the day or plan for tomorrow. Sometimes just enjoy the quiet together.
3. If you were tourists for a day, where would you “escape” to celebrate something special together?
Visit friends across the country and take opportunities to hug the people we love.
4. Do you bring your work home with you at the end of the day or do you manage to separate it from household affairs?
Work is always with us. Over time we learned to put it aside, but it is sometimes an effort to separate it from home.
5. What is the most romantic thing you have done for your partner?
The romantic thing in our eyes is to recognize your partner’s needs and fulfill them as if they were your own.
More About Philharmonic In The Countryside
Banahala — Restaurant & Garden — Ron & Edith Fridman
1. As a couple who works together, would you recommend it? Why?
A family business is suitable only on the condition that you know how to define the job and depends very much on the character of the person and the ability to accommodate and compromise.
2. After work hours, what do you like to do together at home?
Raising our daughters comfortably.
3. If you were tourists for a day, where would you “escape” to celebrate something special together?
Depends on the mood… sometimes a nature vacation and sometimes a city vacation. The main thing is being together.
4. Do you bring your work home with you at the end of the day or do you manage to separate it from household affairs?
As freelancers it is not really possible to separate work from home.
5. What is the most romantic thing you have done for your partner?
We don’t excel at romance and enjoy family vacations to different destinations in the world.
Al E’in Tent — Bedouin Colors, Stories & Flavors on Mount Kammon — Eid & Ekhlass Sawaid
1. As a couple who works together, would you recommend it? Why?
Yes, we recommend working together. As a couple we have a common interest, complement and understand each other.
2. After work hours, what do you like to do together at home?
We usually spend the rest of the day together at home or visit the parents as well as the daughters and grandchildren.
3. If you were tourists for a day, where would you “escape” to celebrate something special together?
To stay home together.
4. Do you bring your work home with you at the end of the day or do you manage to separate it from household affairs?
There is no absolute separation between our work and home.
5. What is the most romantic thing you have done for your partner?
Gifting special clothing.
Galiloka — Culinary Tours & Cooking Workshops — Daniela & David Dayan
1. As a couple who works together, would you recommend it? Why?
Yes, it creates an opportunity for a time of togetherness and success. We both love what we love the most and together it’s always better and stronger.
2. After work hours, what do you like to do together at home?
Enjoy a good movie together.
3. If you were tourists for a day, where would you “escape” to celebrate something special together?
A beautiful wooden cabin in a small village in the Alps.
4. Do you bring your work home with you at the end of the day or do you manage to separate it from household affairs?
We keep it separate.
5. What is the most romantic thing you have done for your partner?
A pampering vacation, just us alone.
The Galilean Madafa — Wefqi & Inshrakh Salamna
1. As a couple who works together, would you recommend it? Why?
We think that such work strengthens the partnership and mutual responsibility. Definitely recommend working together.
2. After work hours, what do you like to do together at home?
Together we prepare the place for hospitality, receive the guests together and everyone knows what their role is and what they know and can do. We believe that everyone has strengths and therefore work so that everyone specializes in what they know and love.
3. If you were tourists for a day, where would you “escape” to celebrate something special together?
To a hotel to rest.. maybe also for a trip abroad..
4. Do you bring your work home with you at the end of the day or do you manage to separate it from household affairs?
We work at home so it is with us all the time.. but we also know how to handle it.
5. What is the most romantic thing you have done for your partner?
Buy a special gift and make them happy. Praise and/or thank your spouse in front of the guests. It adds value to the joint action.
More About the Galilean Madafa
Tupelo — Wheat Free Bakery & Cafe — Vered Baer & Murad Bishara
1. As a couple who works together, would you recommend it? Why?
Vared: We met at work, so working together is our natural state of accumulation. I recommend the format, mainly because it is familiar and convenient to us.
2. After work hours, what do you like to do together at home?
Vered: At home we don’t have too much time left for a relationship, except for being with the kids… but Sundays and Mondays are our days off, and on them we go to drink coffee (in another cafe…), go to the gym and go shopping together.
3. If you were tourists for a day, where would you “escape” to celebrate something special together?
Vered: To the Uri Buri Restaurant in Old Akko, this is our favorite place to go for delicious food and wine tasting.
4. Do you bring your work home with you at the end of the day or do you manage to separate it from household affairs?
Vered: It is very difficult for us to separate, we always summarize the day at home, can continue the conversations until we fall asleep, and forget to feed someone – whether it is the children, the pets or the sourdough..
5. What is the most romantic thing you have done for your partner?
Vered: Today, with the children, we no longer make romantic gestures, the everyday has become practical. Before the children we used to jump abroad for a romantic getaway.
Blacksmith Walied Khoury — Walied & Doha Khoury
1. As a couple who works together, would you recommend it? Why?
Walied: I recommend it. Our business is family, and the fact that my wife is with me means that the secrets of the business remain within the family.
2. After work hours, what do you like to do together at home?
Walied: We love to cook together.
3. If you were tourists for a day, where would you “escape” to celebrate something special together?
Walied: We used to travel to Europe a lot, but now we mostly travel within Israel.
4. Do you bring your work home with you at the end of the day or do you manage to separate it from household affairs?
Walied: Sometimes we manage to separate, but my head is constantly at work…
5. What is the most romantic thing you have done for your partner?
Walied: Most of my works talk about love, so I made a statue of her.
Safta Maha — Druze Experience — Maha & Hassan Amer
1. As a couple who works together, would you recommend it? Why?
Maha: I highly recommend the format, I’m in the kitchen and he’s giving tours. At the end of the tour, he brings the group to eat in my kitchen and helps me with serving.
2. After work hours, what do you like to do together at home?
Maha: First of all, rest for an hour because I get up very early to cook. Then, visit the family, and enjoy the grandchildren.
3. If you were tourists for a day, where would you “escape” to celebrate something special together?
Maha: We enjoy going to restaurants in Fassuta or the surrounding area.
4. Do you bring your work home with you at the end of the day or do you manage to separate it from household affairs?
Maha: It varies, sometimes and sometimes not.
5. What is the most romantic thing you have done for your partner?
Maha: We talk to each other and go to a restaurant.
Stern Winery — Roni & Johnny Stern
1. As a couple who works together, would you recommend it? Why?
Roni: We work together on events that require joint work. It’s only occasionally, and it’s a style that suits our relationship. If we had to work together all the time it wouldn’t work as well.
2. After work hours, what do you like to do together at home?
Roni: We like to cook together, solve Sudoku and crossword puzzles, enjoy wine and alcoholic beverages, and watch the food and travel channels.
3. If you were tourists for a day, where would you “escape” to celebrate something special together?
Roni: The house restaurant where we celebrate many events – 1904 in Kibbutz Dagania. When we have time and we travel, every trip includes a visit to a different winery in Israel. We love Greece and we will always find a reason to pass through Athens.
4. Do you bring your work home with you at the end of the day or do you manage to separate it from household affairs?
Roni: It sometimes happens in the evening that we have work and then we talk about it, in principle we try to downplay and separate.
5. What is the most romantic thing you have done for your partner?
Roni: I organized a surprise 60th birthday for Johnny at the winery. He brings me flowers for Women’s Day, surprises me with good restaurants, and makes me bonfires and barbecues near the house.
Akko Art Gallery — Dorit & Moshe Afuta
1. As a couple who works together, would you recommend it? Why?
We strongly recommend every couple to work together, because the cooperation between us is simply amazing. When we are together we put our soul into the business we love and enjoy being in. And what is important is that we have a lot of time together and we always promote ideas together and realize them together, and thus, thanks to the cooperation, we promote the business.
2. After work hours, what do you like to do together at home?
We love to cook together, we enjoy cultivating and taking care of our garden which needs daily care, and most importantly, we love to pamper our grandchildren who are our heart and soul.
3. If you were tourists for a day, where would you “escape” to celebrate something special together?
For a pampering B&B in the Western Galilee and spend time with a bottle of good wine and good food.
4. Do you bring your work home with you at the end of the day or do you manage to separate it from household affairs?
An important rule in our relationship is that we do not bring work home and we disconnect from business as soon as we are home. We are only with the family.
5. What is the most romantic thing you have done for your partner?
We went to see the sunset at the North Star and spent an evening watching the movies with good wine and dinner that I made for Dorit. Dorit surprised me with a romantic and unforgettable trip in Paris that included dinner at a good restaurant and a local singer singing me a birthday song.
Turkiz Restaurant — Samir & Nahla Asdi
Samir Asdi, the owner of the Turkiz Restaurant in Old Akko, was an event photographer. Like his father, the first event photographer from the Arab sector in the north, and when he came to photograph an event, the first thing he did was go into the kitchen. He enjoyed seeing what happens there, what is prepared, and what raw materials were used. That’s where his heart was. And with the heart, you don’t argue!
So two years ago he decided to listen to his heart and opened a restaurant. The place belonged to the family, and Samir renovated and painted it to make it his own. Today, with all the smells, atmosphere, and colors people who come to the place wonder among themselves how it is that they are suddenly in Turkey or in Greece?!
His wife, Nahla, joined him. He knows how to prepare fish and seafood, steaks, and meat delicacies, but no one can compete with the authentic home food she prepares.
Samir is in charge of the kitchen, and also responsible for buying fresh products from the market, a pleasure he does not allow anyone, not even management, to steal from him!
They have been together for over 25 years. With two older children who pushed and encouraged their father to fulfill a dream and do what he loves most – cook. They are generally good at making dreams come true.
The older daughter lives in Tel Aviv and studies psychodrama and theater. Samir, who turned 50 this year, officially started learning to be a chef, and the restaurant, which had to be closed for the past year, dreams of the moment when she will again hear the bustle of guests and smell the smells of cooking and the delicacies that Samir and Nahla prepare.
Have we already talked about making dreams come true?
Get to know the Turkiz restaurant up close.
