Grandma Gamila

Grandma Gamila has another visitors centre fairly close by in the Tefen Industrial Park, alongside museums, workshops and a sculpture garden.

The visitors centre at Tefen has the capacity for groups of up to 50 people.

The visitors receive information and explanations about Grandma Gamila, the story of her life, the products and their benefits, while taking a glimpse through the glass windows into the factory and the production process.

In addition a film is screened about Gamila and about the production process of the products.

There is also a shop that markets Grandma Gamila’s products.

The visitors centre in Tefen is open every day between 08:00-15:00, Tel: 077-9964631.

Grandma Gamila has become a living legend in her lifetime: one of the first women in the Druze community who dared to go to work outside of the home and the first woman in the Druze community who established a factory with her own hands.

Gamila Hir, known as Grandma Gamila, was born in 1940 to a poor family who had their roots in Peki’in for over 300 years. She married at the age of 16, and by the time she was 21 she was a mother to three children, which forced her to help with the family’s livelihood.

In her free time she concocted products on the roof of her home which she calls “the pharmacy of nature”, making various compounds for production of medical soap. If was only after years of experimenting that failed that she succeeded in producing a quality soap, while carrying out the experiments on her children, two of whom served in the IDF. The soaps achieved great success and in the sixth decade of her life Gamila establish a factory for production of soaps.

Since then Gamila’s soaps have become a household name and the small factory in Peki’in relocated to a much larger factory in Tefen, in which Druze, Jewish, Muslim and Christian workers work together and this according to Gamila is the realization of her own private dream of peace.

Shortly after the success in Israel, Grandma Gamila’s soaps achieved international success and they are exported worldwide while Gamila has been awarded numerous awards. Amongst other she was awarded the Oscar for the best cosmetic products, starred in the list of the best soaps in the world in England, Italy and Holland and also was granted the honour of lighting, together with the industrialist Stef Wertheimer, the Independence Day Torch in honour of their contribution to the development of the Galilee.

Today Grandma Jamil’s soaps from Peki’in are sold worldwide and have achieved great success also in Japan whereby the soaps have the reputation of having therapeutic properties, under the brand Gamila Secret.

In addition to the soaps Grandma Gamila produces a full line of natural cosmetic products based on pure olive oil.

The products can be purchased in the factory shops and in the visitors centres in Peki’in and Tefen.