Salfiti .. An antiques seller who has no visitors to Jerusalem except to watch

Juman Abu-Arafa - Occupied Jerusalem

"Mezuf is a spoonful of rice without meat," says Khalid al-Salfiti, a Jerusalem merchant who earned a profit from the tourism movement in the Old City of Jerusalem, and Al-Mansaf, a main Palestinian dish based on meat and rice.

Salfitis sell souvenirs at his shop in the Khan al-Zayt market, one of the old Jerusalem souks, 40 years ago, but has not experienced a recession like recent years, which does not thrive even on Christmas and New Year.

Salfiti was born in Salfit, north of Palestine. He worked in Jerusalem with his relatives and opened a small shop selling antiques and souvenirs with Islamic and Christian symbols, mostly made in Bethlehem, south of Palestine, from shellfish, olive wood and other materials.

Despite the beauty of the Salfit, its suppliers are less like the rest of the antique dealers in the Khan el-Zayt market, nicknamed the Centuariyya.

Birth is not for Jerusalem
Al-Salfiti told Al-Jazeera Net that the Christmas season is not for Jerusalem, but for the city of Bethlehem, where the majority travel to religious tourism. In Jerusalem tourists go to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and buy from the shops around it or the Christian Quarter. Gifts to their relatives or neighbors.

The Salafite trade now depends on Jerusalemites and less on Palestinians who have access to Jerusalem. However, it confirms that the "golden era" of its trade was prior to the al-Aqsa Intifada and the construction of the Apartheid Wall in 2005, which completely isolated Jerusalem from its Palestinian surroundings.

The man confirms that customers from Gaza and Nablus brought him to Jerusalem with their vehicles and carrying gifts and souvenirs, along with his customers from the Palestinian expatriates.

Turn off and steal
Foreign tourists are not better off for Salfiti. Israeli tour guides who accompany tourists from abroad are deliberately driving them away from the Arab markets such as the Khan al-Zayt market and directing them to the markets adjacent to the Hebron Gate and the Jewish Quarter near the Wall of Buraq. - To the Jews.

Salfiti says that agreements concluded between the tour guide and the antiques shop require that the office and the manual take a material commission from the shop in the event of directing the tourist group to it, indicating that the occupation municipality in Jerusalem neglects to organize and clean the roads of the Arab markets and prepare them compared to the Jewish markets.

"Our roads are not paved and narrow, so the guide avoids taking groups to them. We pay the municipality of taxes taxes like Jewish merchants, but the distinction is clear between us, to exclude tourists from Arab neighborhoods and markets in the Old City, indirectly."

Salfitis do not benefit from foreign tourism. They say that most of them come after the Umrah trip and pass through Jordan or Egypt. They buy what they wanted from there and arrive in Jerusalem with a narrow space of time and money. The markets of Jerusalem come out "with a sense of nostalgia."

Peeking
Throughout the Salfiti era of Al-Jazeera Net, only one Muslim couple from South Africa bought a box of sandwiches with a Koran carved inside it, while the rest were mariners looking at the goods surreptitiously, completing their journey quickly.

"I open my shop from 8 am, and I do not sell a day, sometimes, for only $ 20," says Salfiti. "Our profits are not commensurate with the taxes we pay and other shop supplies."

Salfit's wife died three years ago, and his daughter a year ago. His only son and shop remained. He lived in Ram in a town outside the separation wall, but he does not live in a small, empty, ventilated house in Jerusalem to preserve his identity and place.

"I have traveled to many countries, but every time I wait for my arrival in Jerusalem, it is my art and my gift," he says.