Complementary medicine as a path toward empowerment of Arab-Palestinian women in Israel

Arab-Palestinians in Israel compose a traditional minority population that previously relied on traditional folk medicine and religious healing. Today some among this minority population are adopting imported complementary medicine. We interviewed Arab-Palestinians of the first generation of complementary medicine practitioners. Their decision to study complementary medicine constitutes a path toward empowerment, providing healers with an aura of modernity, enabling integration into the predominantly Jewish Israeli medical establishment to gain professional recognition as experts, and to acquire a sense of belonging. Practicing complementary medicine provides financial independence, liberation, and self-fulfillment and an opportunity to help female patients break through constraining barriers.